The Pugwash Conferences

The purpose of the Pugwash Conferences is to provide scholarly insights into the prevention and resolution of armed conflict, including nuclear abolition and nuclear and conventional disarmament, control of the arms trade, the peaceful resolution of ethnic and other disputes within and among states, and to contribute to the solutions for socioeconomic and environmental threats to human security.

Mission Statement: Canadian Pugwash 

Responsible collaboration amongst scholars to address existential threats to humanity

Collaboration responsable entre savants en vue de saisir l'humanite des menaces a son existence

About CANADIAN PUGWASH

The Canadian Pugwash Group is the national affiliate of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, an international organization awarded the 1995 Nobel Peace Prize, together with its founder Sir Joseph Rotblat. Canadian Pugwash participates in the international conference and the Pugwash Council.

The purpose of the Pugwash Conferences is to provide scholarly insights into the following issues:

• Nuclear abolition and nuclear arms control
• Arms control and disarmament
• Prevention of armed conflict, peacekeeping
• Elimination of chemical and biological weapons
• International law
• Sustainable development, scientific ethics

Canadian Pugwash sponsors seminars, workshops, distinguished speakers, and roundtables to foster informed discussion among experts. Our goal is to educate and generate insights which can be useful in the formation of government policy, and for implementing changes that promote global peace and security.

ONGOING PROGRAMS

Canadians for a Nuclear Weapons Convention:  

Over 1000 Members of the Order of Canada have joined the initiative of John Polanyi, C.C., Douglas Roche, O.C., Murray Thomson, O.C. and Ernie Regehr, O.C. Together they say: “we call on all member States of the United Nations – including Canada – to endorse, and begin negotiations for, a Nuclear Weapons Convention - a verifiable treaty on the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons”. www.nuclearweaponsconvention.ca

Arctic Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone: 

Campaign for Arctic nations to commence the process leading to an international treaty. NOW IS THE TIME for non-nuclear-weapons-states of the Arctic to negotiate the formation of their NWFZ. This could encourage the United States and Russia to use this opportunity to build confidence by implementing nuclear arms control in a regional context.  There is an online group that discusses content broadly related to Arctic security, including climate change, human security, economic issues. www.arcticnwfz.ca

Global Issues Project:  

The concept of the Global Issues Project is to study, through international expert roundtables, the crucial issues for sustainability of civilization, within two categories: physical and organizational/political. By exploring interrelationships between vital factors, the goal has been to provide strategies that could enable management of anticipated crises.

Canadian Network to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (CNANW):

The CNANW Project, initiated in 2019,  supports the Canadian Network to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (CNANW), established in 1996. The project seeks to benefit from the mutual exchange of expertise amongst the two groups. CNANW is a network of community groups, faith communities, professional groups, peace and women’s organizations,  all of whom seek to advance the cause of nuclear disarmament on an urgent basis by conducting seminars, consultations and meetings with the public, officials, parliamentarians and diplomats in Canada and abroad.  www.cnanw.ca 

New Technology for the United Nations

Two of the fundamental objectives of Pugwash are to reduce the negative applications of technology, such as use and stockpiling of weapons of mass destruction, and to increase the positive applications, such as support of UN peace activities like arms control, peace operations, etc. The UN Secretary-General released in September 2018 a “Strategy on New Technologies,” outlining important principles for technologies in general. Assisted by this project, the United Nations is making significant progress in implementing new technologies in its peace activities. For instance, peace operations technologies have expanded more in the past five years than the previous twenty-five years.  

===============================================