From March 25 to 29, the Group of Governmental Experts on Lethal Autonomous Weapons met at the United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons in Geneva, Switzerland.
Canada’s future role in UN peace operations
It has been almost three decades since Canada was among the leading contributors of troops to United Nations peacekeeping missions. In late 2017, the government announced Canada’s return to peace operations and, in March 2018, Canada deployed an Air Task Force to the UN mission in Mali. With the one-year period allotted for the Canadian mission coming to an end …
The new disarmament advocates?
Over the past year, tech-worker movements have illustrated the rising awareness of this group of their role—for good and ill—in technology’s impact on society. Just look at the employees’ protest against Google’s involvement in the U.S. Pentagon’s Project Maven. Project Maven, also known as Algorithmic Warfare Cross-Functional Team, launched in April 2017 to improve the ability of the U.S. Department …
Looking ahead: Trends shaping space security in 2019
The world has entered a Second Space Age, marked by an intensification of our interactions and reach into outer space. A core part of the international Space Security Index project, managed by Project Ploughshares, is to look holistically at how states, companies, and people around the world access and make use of this domain. Looking to the year ahead, five …
Canadian Council of Churches urges Ottawa to support nuclear ban treaty
December 21, 2018 The Right Honourable Justin Trudeau, P.C., M.P. Prime Minister of Canada Office of the Prime Minister 80 Wellington Street Ottawa, ON K1A 0A2 Email: pm@pm.gc.ca Re: The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons Dear Prime Minister Trudeau We, the undersigned, representing all 26 member denominations of The Canadian Council of Churches, write to urge that the …
Balancing individual rights and national security
In his recent remarks at the Economic Club of Canada, Canadian Security Intelligence Services (CSIS) director David Vigneault indicated that new national security threats are keeping the country’s spies awake at night. While Vigneault acknowledged that terrorism is still a concern, he said that “foreign interference and espionage” are the “greatest threat to our prosperity and national interest.” Vigneault characterized …
Blurring the lines: Virtual, mixed reality and the future of warfare
In early October 2017, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and colleague Rachel Franklin sat in offices in California wearing headsets while they toured a video by National Public Radio of hurricane-devastated Puerto Rico using virtual-reality application Spaces. In a live stream, cartoon characters Zuckerberg and Franklin could be seen touring the footage of the island. The broadcast created a large backlash. …
EVENT: Make Cool Tech Stuff (Not Weapons)
“We should not lose sight of the fact that, unlike other potential manifestations of AI which still remain in the realm of science fiction, autonomous weapons systems are on the cusp of development right now and have a very real potential to cause significant harm to innocent people along with global instability. The development of lethal autonomous weapons systems is …
Q&A: Women and Yemen’s peace process
The following is a conversation with Rasha Jarum, founder and director of Peace Track Initiative, on the efforts to secure more meaningful involvement and representation for women in the process to restore peace in Yemen. Ms. Jarum is from South Yemen and has more than 16 years’ experience working on human rights and gender issues. Sonal Marwah spoke with her in August. …
2018 International Day of Peace
The theme for today’s International Day of Peace is The Right to Peace – The Universal Declaration of Human Rights at 70. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on Dec. 10, 1948, to recognize “the inherent dignity and equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human race.” To honour this year’s …