NEW YORK – May 3, 2010: This week, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and a host of other world leaders will gather at the United Nations to kick off the month-long negotiations on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), what Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on Friday "one of the seminal agreements of the 21st century."
The Global Security Institute's experts are at the UN and area available for comment.
- Nuclear Weapons Convention: The NPT Review Conference is viewed by many governments and NGOs as an opportunity to advance a global nuclear weapon prohibition regime. The Secretary-General’s Five Point Plan, for instance, is amassing widespread support, at the head of state level and at the parliamentary level, and we can expect significant progress on this issue in the coming weeks and months. PNND Global Coordinator Alyn Ware, recipient of the 2009 Right Livelihood Award, and GSI President Jonathan Granoff have been contributing significantly to this advancement.
- The Middle East is likely to present itself as a sticking point in the negotiations. Our Recommendations include ideas on how to move forward on this issue. Middle Powers Initiative Chairman, Ambassador Henrik Salander, former Secretary-General of the Weapons of Mass Destruction (Blix) Commission, is available for comment on all developments related to the different issues contained in the MPI Recommendations.
- The Role of the US: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's announcement of the number of US warheads is just the latest in a series of moves by the Obama administration intended to demonstrate the US's commitment to disarmament and the NPT process. GSI's Bipartisan Security Group, including its Director, Ambassador Robert Grey Jr., former head of the US delegation, is available for comment on all issues related to the role of the United States.
CONTACT: Rhianna Tyson Kreger, Senior Officer
+1 (347) 461-7901
rtkreger@gsinstitute.org
Ambassador Salander has had many pivotal roles in the international debate over nuclear disarmament. He was instrumental as a leading voice of the New Agenda Coalition from 2000, and chaired the 2002 session of the NPT Preparatory Committee. From 2003 to 2006, he was the Secretary-General of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission, chaired by Dr. Hans Blix.
Ambassador Salander was Sweden’s Ambassador to the Geneva Conference on Disarmament (1999-2003) where he authored the 2002 “five ambassadors” compromise proposal that is still the basis for efforts there to start negotiations on a fissile materials cut-off treaty and other treaties. Before taking up his post as MPI Chairman, he served as Deputy Director-General of the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs.
Alyn Ware is the Global Coordinator of Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament. He also serves as the Director of the Peace Foundation Wellington Office, Director of Aotearoa Lawyers for Peace and a Consultant at Large for the Lawyers', Vice-President of the International Peace Bureau, on the Committee on Nuclear Policy (USA) and the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms.
Alyn is a Member of the New Zealand Public Advisory Committee on Disarmament and Arms Control and has been on government delegations to the 2000 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference and the UNESCO Ministers of Education Conference in Geneva 2001 at which he was Head of Delegation. He has been awarded the 1996 UN International Year of Peace ( New Zealand) prize and the 2009 Right Livelihood Award in honour of his peace education and disarmament work. He is and is on the international boards of a number of other organizations including the Global Campaign for Peace Education, Abolition 2000 and the Middle Powers Initiative he was also the UN Coordinator for the World Court Project.
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President
Jonathan Granoff is an attorney, author and international advocate emphasizing the legal, ethical and spiritual dimensions of human de-velopment and security, with a specific focus on advancing the rule of law to address the threats posed by nuclear weapons. He is president of the Global Security Institute, Senior Advisor to the ABA’s Committee on Arms Control and National Security and Co Chair of the ABA Blue Ribbon Task Force on Nuclear Non-proliferation. He is Senior Advisor to the Nobel Peace Laureate Summit and has served as Vice President and UN Representative of the Lawyer’s Alliance for World Security. He serves on numerous governing and ad-visory boards including: the ABA International Law Section, Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy, Fortune Forum, Jane Goodall Institute, Bipartisan Security Group and Middle Powers Initiative.
Mr. Granoff is the award-winning screenwriter of The Constitution: The Document that Created a Nation, and has articles in more than 50 publications and books including: The Sovereignty Revolution, Toward a Nuclear Weapons Free World, Imagining Tomorrow, Analyzing Moral Issues, Perspectives on 911, Toward a World In Balance, Reverence for Life Revisited, and Hold Hope, Wage Peace. He has been a featured guest and expert commentator on numerous radio and television pro-grams, testified in Congress and at the UN numerous times and has, for the past six years, addressed Nobel Peace Laureate Summits in Paris and Rome.
» Click here for a list of Mr. Granoff's speeches, presentations and published articles
The Hon. Douglas Roche, O.C., Chairman Emeritus of the Middle Powers Initiative, is an author, parliamentarian and diplomat, who has specialized throughout his 40-year public career in peace and human security issues. He lectures widely on peace and nuclear disarmament themes. As Canadian Ambassador for Disarmament, he was elected Chairman of the United Nations Disarmament Committee at the 43rd General Assembly in 1988. His forthcoming book, How We Stopped Loving the Bomb, will be published early in 2011.
The Middle Powers Initiative, an international network of eight non-governmental organizations specializing in nuclear disarmament issues, works primarily with middle power governments to encourage and educate the nuclear weapons states to take immediate practical steps that reduce nuclear dangers and commence negotiations to eliminate nuclear weapons.
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