Over 20 scholars and practitioners from Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe will come together tomorrow and Saturday for Arms Control for the 21st Century: An International Workshop, organized by the York Centre for International & Security Studies (YCISS). Practitioners and researchers will discuss the key question of how they can reconceptualizie arms control frameworks and processes, previously one of the pillars of global security in the Cold War, to meet the challenges of contemporary international security.
Papers will be presented across a diverse range of arms control issues, including areas such as missile and space defence, the development of biological and nanotechnology, and the revolution in military affairs. The participants will also consider US President Barack Obama’s call for “a world without nuclear weapons” and examine progress by his administration on multilateral arms control measures.
Ted Whiteside (left) (BA ’72), director of the NATO Ministerial & Summit Task Forces in Brussels and the secretary of the North Atlantic Council, will deliver the workshop’s keynote address on the subject of “Arms Control, International Security and the Atlantic Alliance in the 21st Century”.
His presentation will explore both wider arms control issues and NATO’s response to the challenges of weapons proliferation.
Arms Control for the 21st Century: An International Workshop will conclude with a round-table discussion that will outline the next steps in the development of an International Network on Arms Control to unite the work of practitioners and academic researchers in this priority area of public policy.
The workshop will run from Jan. 22 to 23 at the York Research Tower on the Keele campus. Whiteside will talk on Jan. 22, from 5:30 to 6:30pm, in 106 Accolade West Building, Keele campus. This workshop has been sponsored by the NATO Public Diplomacy Program, the Security & Defence Forum of the Department of National Defence and a York University Internationalization Grant.
For more information about Whiteside's lecture, visit the YCISS Web site or to pre-register, click here.
For more information about the workshop, e-mail yciss@yorku.ca or visit the YCISS Web site.