Event Date: October 25, 2024 - 9:00am to 5:30pm
Location: DMS 4101, 55 Laurier Ave East, Ottawa

Videos of all of the panels are available in this playlist.

Read the full Conference Report here

Presented by the Canadian Pugwash Group (CPG) and the Centre for International Policy Studies (CIPS)

The Canadian Pugwash Group and the Centre for International Policy Studies at the University of Ottawa are pleased to host a public conference entitled “Security Options for a Troubled World”. The conference will feature Canadian experts addressing the following topics:

1. “Nuclear Nightmares: How to Revive Arms Control & Disarmament”
2. “Countering the Danger of Autonomous Weapons and Managing the AI Effect”
3. “Constructing the Future of UN Peace Operations”
4. “How to Prevent War in Space”
5. “Curtailing the Global Arms Trade and promoting Common Security”
6. “Re-energizing Canada’s Security Diplomacy”

This in-person conference is free to attend but prior registration is required.

Agenda

9:00am-9:30am – Introductions and Scene Setting Address

• Alexandra Gheciu and Cesar Jaramillo

9:30am-10:30am – Panel 1: “Nuclear Nightmares: How to Revive Arms Control & Disarmament”

• Moderator: Frank von Hippel
• Panelists: Cesar Jaramillo, Matt Korda

10:30am-10:45am Coffee Break

10:45am-11:45am – Panel 2: “Countering the Danger of Autonomous Weapons and Managing the AI Effect”

• Moderator: Nisha Shah
• Panelists: Branka Marijan, Alexandra Volokhova

11:45am-12:45pm – Panel 3: “Constructing the Future of UN Peace Operations”

• Moderator: Paul Meyer
• Panelists: Walter Dorn, Peggy Mason

12:45pm-2:00pm – LUNCH

2:00pm-3:00pm – Panel 4: “How to prevent War in Space”

• Moderator: Cesar Jaramillo
• Panelists: Jessica West, Paul Meyer

3:00pm-3:15pm – Coffee Break

3:15pm-4:15pm – Panel 5: “Curtailing the Global Arms Trade and promoting Common Security”

• Moderator: Peggy Mason
• Panelists: Robin Collins, Alex Neve

4:15pm-5:15pm – Panel 6: “Re-energizing Canada’s Security Diplomacy”

• Moderator: Alexandra Gheciu
• Panelists: Jen Pedersen, Michael Manulak

5:15pm-5:30pm – Concluding Remarks

Speakers:

Robin Collins is Secretary of Canadian Pugwash Group and a Rideau Institute Board Member. He writes columns for Peace Magazine on war and peace, and climate issues; and book reviews for Canadian Field-Naturalist. He has been exploring common security alternatives to conflict and existential threats.

Walter Dorn is Professor of Defence Studies at the Royal Military College & Canadian Forces College. He teaches officers of rank major to brigadier-general from Canada and about 20 other countries. As an “operational professor” he participates in field missions and assists international organizations, especially the United Nations. He served with the UN’s Expert Panel on Technology and Innovation in UN Peacekeeping and has been active in civil society, including as an ICRC contractor, as WFMC President and CPG Chair.  Website: www.walterdorn.net.

Alexandra Gheciu is a Professor at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs and the Director of CIPS.

Cesar Jaramillo is the executive director at Project Ploughshares. His focus areas include nuclear disarmament, the protection of civilians in armed conflict, emerging military technologies and conventional weapons controls. As an international civil society representative Cesar has addressed, among others, the UN General Assembly First Committee, the Conference on Disarmament, the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, as well as states parties to the Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty and to the Arms Trade Treaty. He has given guest lectures and presentations at academic institutions such as New York University, the National Law University in New Delhi, the China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing, and the University of Toronto. Cesar graduated from the University of Waterloo with an MA in global governance and has bachelor’s degrees in honours political science and in journalism. Prior to joining Project Ploughshares, he held a fellowship at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI).

Matt Korda is the Associate Director for the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, where he co-authors an authoritative open-source estimate of global nuclear forces. Matt’s open-source discoveries about nuclear weapons have made headlines across the globe, and his work is regularly used by governments, policymakers, academics, journalists, and the broader public in order to challenge assumptions and improve accountability about nuclear arsenals and trends.

Michael W. Manulak is Assistant Professor at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University. He is author of Change in Global Environmental Politics: Temporal Focal Points and the Reform of International Institutions (Cambridge University Press 2022). His academic work has appeared in Review of International Organizations, Foreign Affairs, and Global Environmental Politics. He is co-author of the Advisory Panel report Canada and the United Nations: Rethinking and Rebuilding Canada’s Global Role.  From 2015-2019, he served in the Government of Canada, mainly within the Department of National Defence, representing the government internationally on proliferation security issues. His doctorate is from the University of Oxford (St. Antony’s College).

Branka Marijan is a senior researcher at Project Ploughshares and a CIGI senior fellow. She is a lecturer in the Master of Global Affairs program at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto. At Ploughshares, Branka leads research on the military and security implications of emerging technologies. Her work examines concerns regarding the development of autonomous weapons systems and the impact of artificial intelligence and robotics on security provision. Her research interests include trends in warfare, civilian protection, use of drones and civil-military relations. She holds a Ph.D. from the Balsillie School of International Affairs with a specialization in conflict and security. She has conducted research on post-conflict societies and published academic articles and reports on the impacts of conflict on civilians and diverse issues of security governance, including security sector reform. Branka closely follows United Nations disarmament efforts and attends international and national consultations and conferences. She is a board member of the Peace and Conflict Studies Association of Canada and a research fellow at the Kindred Credit Union Centre for Peace Advancement at the University of Waterloo.

Peggy Mason is the President of the Rideau Institute on International Affairs. A former Canadian Ambassador for Disarmament to the UN and an expert on the political/diplomatic aspects of UN peacekeeping training, since June of 2014 Peggy Mason has been the President of the Rideau Institute, an independent, non-profit think tank focusing on research and advocacy in foreign, defence and national security policy. In that capacity, she brings a progressive voice to issues ranging from the imperative of nuclear disarmament to the centrality of UN conflict resolution and the progressive enhancement of international law.

Paul Meyer is Fellow in International Security and Adjunct Professor of International Studies at Simon Fraser University. He is a founding Fellow of the Outer Space Institute, a senior advisor to ICT4Peace and a Director of the Canadian Pugwash Group. Prior to assuming his current positions in 2011, Mr. Meyer had a 35-year career with the Canadian Foreign Service, including serving as Canada’s Ambassador to the United Nations and to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva (2003-2007). He teaches a course on diplomacy at SFU’s School for International Studies and writes on issues of Canadian diplomacy, nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, outer space security and international cyber security.

Alex Neve is an adjunct professor in international human rights law at the University of Ottawa and Dalhousie University, and a Senior Fellow with the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. He served as Secretary General of Amnesty International Canada from 2000 – 2020. He has a Master’s Degree in International Human Rights Law from the University of Essex and is an Officer of the Order of Canada.

Jennifer (Jen) Pedersen PhD works at the intersection of politics and policy. Currently Senior Legislative and Policy Advisor to NDP Foreign Affairs Critic Heather McPherson, Jen has spent a decade advising Parliamentarians on Foreign Affairs and International Development policy. Her past roles include senior humanitarian policy advisor for a Canadian non-governmental organization and program manager on conflict resolution at a Brussels-based NGO. She holds a PhD in international politics from Aberystwyth University and has published on women and war, the arms trade, peace activism in Liberia, and tribal conflict and mediation in Yemen.

Jessica West leads research to advance peace and security in outer space at Project Ploughshares, a Canadian peace research institute. As part of this work, she interacts regularly with key United Nations bodies tasked with space security and space safety issues. Related research interests include approaches to peace and disarmament rooted in humanitarian protection and gender perspectives, as well as the impact of new technologies on space security such as cyber connectivity and artificial intelligence.

Alexandra Volokhova is a PhD candidate in AI at Université de Montréal and Mila — Quebec AI Institute. Her research interests include applications of AI for social good, such as drug discovery and material design. In addition, Alexandra is interested in ethical and societal implications of military AI applications and explores ways to resist AI militarisation from within the research community.