Vancouver.Ambassador Nobuyasu Abe, the recently appointed United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament, will join Dr. Jennifer Allen Simons and the Honourable Lloyd Axworthy, Co-Directors of the Simons Centre for Peace and Disarmament Studies at a conference at the Liu Institute for Global Issues, University of British Columbia, November 7-9, 2003 in Vancouver, British Columbia. International experts in nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, and parliamentarians from around the world will gather to address and reverse the growing dangers from nuclear proliferation and new nuclear war-fighting doctrines.

The Simons Centre at the Liu Institute with the support of The Simons Foundation is hosting the inaugural conference of the Parliamentary Network for Nuclear Disarmament, an international network of parliamentarians from more than 40 countries. The conference, entitled From Nuclear Dangers to Cooperative Security: Parliamentarians and the Legal Imperative for Nuclear Disarmament, aims to give parliamentarians worldwide the tools to play a more effective role in transforming the legal and moral imperative for nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament into practical threat-reducing and security-enhancing initiatives. The conference will provide briefings from top disarmament experts, reports of successful disarmament initiatives by parliamentarians, and discussion of strategies for parliamentary actions, both nationally and internationally.

Speakers at the conference will include:

H.E. Nobuyasu Abe, UN Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament (Japan)
Mani Shankar Aiyar MP (India)
Senator Lyn Allison (Australia)
The Hon. Lloyd Axworthy, Director/CEO, Liu Institute of Global Issues. (Canada)
Raphael Chegeni MP, Chair, Great Lakes Parliamentary Forum (Tanzania)
Merav Datan, Drafting Coordinator, Model Nuclear Weapons Convention (Israel)
Dr. Paul Evans, Director, Program for Canada-Asia Policy Study, Institute of Asian Research, UBC, (Canada)
Eloi Glorieux MP (Belgium)
Jonathan Granoff, Esq., President, Global Security Institute (USA)
Ambassador Robert T. Grey, Jr., Director, Bi-partisan Security Group (USA)
Kim Seong Ho MP (South Korea)
Issam Makhoul MP (Israel)
Alexa McDonough MP (Canada)
Dr. Tariq Rauf, Head, Verification and Security Policy Coordination Section, International Atomic Energy Agency (Canada)
Matt Robson MP (New Zealand)
Senator Douglas Roche, Chair, Middle Powers Initiative (Canada)
Malcolm Savidge MP, Chair, All-Party Group on Non-Proliferation (UK)
Rep. Christopher Shays (R), U.S. Congress, Co-chair of the Bi-Partisan Task Force on Nuclear Non-Proliferation (USA)
Dr. Jennifer Allen Simons, Co-Director, Simons Centre for Peace and Disarmament Studies & President, The Simons Foundation (Canada)
Paddy Torsney MP, Chair, Inter-Parliamentary Union (Canada)
Peter Weiss, President, International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms (USA)

For further information please go to: http://www.gsinstitute.org/ and http://www.gsinstitute.org/pnnd/archives/000220.html

To arrange an interview or for more background information, please contact: Kath Delaney, 415-397-6760, 415-531-1642, kdelaney@gsinstitute.org or Nadine Kjellberg, 610-668-5480, 610-585-0844, nadine@gsinstitute.org.