Anna Kate Manchester, Armed Conflict and Civilian Protection Initiative Over the past two months, armed conflicts, fueled by new arms transfers, continued to cause civilian casualties and other humanitarian consequences. Nevertheless, within the United Nations, there were multiple expressions of support for decreasing the impacts of conduct. In addition, civil society documented the human and environmental effects of war and states convened global meetings, both measures that helped promote humanitarian disarmament instruments. Activists support UN human rights experts’ February 2024 warning t ..read more

Sera Koulabdara, Legacies of War, and Mary Wareham, Human Rights Watch The decision announced March 12 by the United States government to transfer additional cluster munitions to Ukraine runs contrary to the norms of the international treaty prohibiting these weapons. The decision came against a broader backdrop of delays by the US Congress in approving military assistance to Ukraine, Ukraine’s shortage of artillery projectiles, and escalating attacks by Russian forces across Ukraine. Unexploded DPICM submunition found by Human Rights Watch researchers in a field north of Baghdad, Iraq, in May ..read more

Alicia Sanders-Zakre, International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons On March 1, 1954, the United States detonated on Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands a thermonuclear weapon 1,000 times more powerful than the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. Seventy years later, this largest ever US nuclear explosion, alongside the 66 other bombs the US tested across the Marshall Islands, has had enduring consequences. International support for a new UN effort to provide assistance to nuclear survivors and to clean up radioactive contamination is urgent and necessary to begin to address this injustice. Be ..read more

Jacqulyn Kantack, Armed Conflict and Civilian Protection Initiative Following a busy season of disarmament meetings at the end of 2023, the beginning of 2024 has been relatively quiet on the diplomatic front. Nevertheless, as ongoing armed conflicts, including in Gaza and Ukraine, inflict significant civilian casualties, proponents of humanitarian disarmament have sought to advance civilian protection through universalizing treaties, implementing instruments, and documenting harm. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons has a new state party, and states met in Austria and Togo to disc ..read more

Laura Boillot, Article 36 and International Network on Explosive Weapons (INEW) This blog originally appeared as part of the Forum on the Arms Trade website’s Looking Ahead 2024 series. Psychological support activities in UNRWA collective shelters in West Khan Younis, the Gaza Strip, in October 2023. Credit: Humanity & Inclusion, 2023. “The biggest challenge in this war is dealing with my children’s fear during the constant bombings. Evacuation is tough, moving from one place to another with my two children with disabilities, trying to appear strong despite my own fears. Sadly, nowhere is ..read more

Hina Uddin, Armed Conflict and Civilian Protection Initiative  The past two months were marked by a flurry of disarmament meetings. States wrapped up their annual session of the UN General Assembly’s First Committee on Disarmament and International Security in New York. Meetings of states parties also took place for the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW), Mine Ban Treaty, and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). While process dominated progress at the CCW gathering, elsewhere states took important steps on the road to a treaty on autonomous weapons systems and ad ..read more

Alicia Sanders-Zakre, International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) continued to break new ground at its Second Meeting of States Parties (2MSP), held at the UN in New York from November 27-December 1, 2023. Nearly one hundred countries attended the meeting, where they agreed by consensus on a powerful declaration and package of decisions and reviewed the substantial progress to implement the treaty since the First Meeting of States Parties (1MSP) in June 2022. Hundreds of civil society representatives, reflecting a diversity o ..read more

Jacqulyn Kantack, Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic The release of Oppenheimer in July drew public attention to the history of nuclear weapons. However, the film has received significant criticism from nuclear weapons activists for glossing over the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as largely ignoring the history of nuclear weapons testing. Those activists are now preparing for the Second Meeting of States Parties to the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which will take place in New York from November 27-December 1, 2023. The treaty direct ..read more

Talish Babaian, Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic This blog was originally posted on the Harvard Law School International Human Rights Clinic website. A year ago this past week, on November 18, 2022, Syrian survivor and refugee Nujeen Mustafa spoke to delegates at the signing ceremony of the Political Declaration on Strengthening the Protection of Civilians from the Humanitarian Consequences arising from the Use of Explosive Weapons in Populated Areas. Signed by 83 countries, this groundbreaking declaration aims to better protect civilians from the bombing and shelling of ..read more

An updated brochure on humanitarian disarmament, recently published by Harvard Law School’s Armed Conflict and Civilian Protection Initiative (ACCPI), offers an overview of this people-centered approach to governing weapons. The brochure aims to provide a better understanding of the cross-cutting concept of humanitarian disarmament as well as an introduction to the key issues it covers. Credit: Cathy Tutaev for ACCPI, 2023. Humanitarian disarmament seeks to prevent and remediate arms-inflicted human suffering and environmental harm through the establishment and implementation of norms. The bro ..read more