All Highlights

A total of four awards of CAD $5,000 are available to Canadian Master’s and/or Doctoral candidates to support the independent research and writing of an academic paper responding to a specific Non-Proliferation, Arms Control and Disarmament (NACD) topic. Awards also include domestic travel support to Ottawa where successful candidates will present their completed papers during a special seminar at Global Affairs Canada Headquarters. Click here for more information and to apply before April 28, 2023.

20 years after the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, Dr. Hans Blix, Executive Chairman of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) from 2000-2003, sits down with SIPRI to reflect on his experience during the inspections to investigate the claims of WMD in Iraq.

Please visit Canada's National Observer and The Hill Times for recent commentary by Professor M.V. Ramana, Ph.D., the Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security and Professor at the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, The University of British Columbia, and Susan O'Donnell.

Visit The Globe and Mail at the link below for this opinion by the Hon. Lloyd Axworthy, a Peace Shaper at The Simons Foundation Canada, and the Hon. Allan Rock.

Please see the link below to visit Bulletin for the Atomic Scientists for this article by Amb. Alexander Kmentt, Director of the Disarmament, Arms Control and Nonproliferation Department at the Austrian Foreign Ministry and President of the First Meeting of States Parties of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) in June 2022. As a recipient of The Simons Foundation Award for Distinguished Global Leadership in the Service of Peace and Disarmament, he is also one of The Simons Foundation Canada's Peace Shapers.

We are pleased to share this important commentary by Professor the Hon. Gareth Evans, one of The Simons Foundation Canada's Peace Shapers.

This paper by Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy, sponsored by The Simons Foundation Canada, explores the increasing challenges posed by climate change and nuclear weapons. "Nuclear weapon possessors are modernizing their arsenals and in some cases increasing them. US-Russian nuclear arms control negotiations have stalled, and multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations are non-existent. The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the strong international reaction against it has severely disrupted already tenuous cooperation among major powers on matters of peace and disarmament. And, of course, climate change has grown impossible to ignore. A recent IPCC report cites an all-but-unavoidable increase in global temperatures, sparking worldwide climate disasters we are already seeing: raging fires, harsher hurricanes, flash flooding, and more."

See the link below to visit The Hill Times (subscription required) for this tribute to Cesar Jaramillo, Executive Director of Project Ploughshares, by The Hon. Douglas Roche, a Peace Leader at The Simons Foundation Canada.

"In a nuclear war, tens to hundreds of millions of people would die instantly from detonations alone. As horrific as that is, the first injuries and deaths would only be the beginnings of a catastrophe that would eventually envelope the entire world."  Visit the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists for more on the effects of one explosion, a nuclear war, and the long-term impacts that will leave most of humanity with nowhere to hide.

Please visit The Hill Times at the link below for this commentary by The Hon. Douglas Roche, a Peace Leader at The Simons Foundation Canada.