Mondial Article (Summer 2024)

Challenges to Illegal Vetoes:
WFM-Canada’s Call for Justice Through International Law

Bill Pearce

Bill Pearce

Bill Pearce was called to the bar in 1968. Since then he has had a varied career as a barrister. He is currently retired and living in Victoria, while continuing to serve as President of the World Federalist Movement – Canada (WFMCanada) Victoria branch.

The veto power of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is arguably among the most contentious aspects of the UN system, reflecting a power dynamic in place at the Charter’s drafting in 1945, with great powers victorious in the Second World War enshrined as the five permanent members or “P5.” Discontent about the inadequacy and lack of equability of the current system has waged for decades. Today, increasingly, legal scholarship is meeting advocacy toward veto reform. This article examines one case study of an initiative to delimit the use of the veto based on sound legal reasoning coupled with strategic domestic advocacy. The proposal is to seek an Advisory Opinion (AO) of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the limitations of the veto power in cases of alleged and suspected atrocity crimes under international law.

The Proposal

World Federalist Movement – Canada (WFM-Canada) has taken up a leadership role in support of a project to request the Government of Canada to call on the UN General Assembly (UNGA) to seek an AO from the ICJ. The purpose is to affirm the existence under international law of limitations on the use of the veto for UNGA draft resolutions.

Veto Power: Debates & Historical Usage

The veto is often exercised out of self-interest by a permanent member of the UNSC. It has previously been deployed even in situations where there are reasonable grounds to believe a state or non-state actor is committing the crime of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the Crime of Aggression. The WFM-Canada proposal was sparked by the Russian Federation’s veto on February 25, 2022, of the UNSC draft resolution (SC/14808: US, Albania). Made under Chapter VI of the Charter, the resolution was submitted by Albania and the United States and garnered support from 11 UNSC members. The draft included a call for the immediate cessation of Russia’s use of force against, and withdrawal of its forces from, Ukraine as well as granting immediate access for the delivery of humanitarian relief.

Peace and security resolutions of the UNSC are frequently vetoed by the P5 when they, or an ally, are in breach of peremptory norms. Examples include Iraq, Syria, Georgia, Crimea, eastern Ukraine in 2014, and Myanmar. Trust in, and respect for, the UN has been diminished by each abuse of the veto privilege.

In a noteworthy development, the UNGA held their first ever formal debate on the veto in April 2023. France proposed that the permanent members voluntarily and collectively suspend the use of the veto in cases of mass atrocities. The US delegate also made remarks that were encouraging. He said that the P5 must exercise their veto responsibly, stressing that any permanent member that uses this right to defend its own act of Aggression should be held accountable and that the United States will refrain from the use of the veto “except in rare, extraordinary situations.” However in reality, since 1970, the US has used the veto 83 times, far more than any other permanent member.

In a debate on peremptory norms that occurred in the General Assembly on March 9, 2022, it appeared that most countries had no difficulty accepting the proposition that resolutions and other acts of the UN cannot conflict with peremptory norms of general international law (jus cogens). Austria put it best when it referred to an earlier report it had made, which concluded that “the Security Council does not operate free of legal constraint, which means that “the Council’s powers are subject to the Charter of the UN and norms of jus cogens.”

The AO process of the ICJ offers a means for pacific means to resolve this issue, not led by States with vested interests where diplomacy has failed, but by a third-party judicial body with the mandate, under the UN Charter, to answer such questions. An AO is not a contentious dispute but a request for legal clarity on an issue – ideally, before the situation escalates. Current AOs request include a unanimous referral by the UNGA to consider the Obligations of States with Regard to Climate Change, as well as AOs concerning labor protections and diplomatic protections. The ICJ recently released a seminal AO on the Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including in East Jerusalem.

Rationale

This WFM-Canada proposal is not a call for a reform of the UN Charter per se; rather it asks the government of a Member State – in this case, Canada – to submit a request to the ICJ for an AO. If the use of the veto is confirmed by the court as illegal – for example, when a permanent member has committed the Crime of Aggression – the opinion would confirm the state of international law, whether grounded in treaties, customary law, or peremptory/jus cogens norms, as discussed below.

The General Assembly is a body whose good efforts are frequently thwarted. Unlike the Security Council, the UNGA does not have the authority to compel member states to enforce UN resolutions. The frequent, often well-publicized defeat of UNGA resolution drafts by the Security Council enables states to violate international law with an increased measure of impunity. Since the formation of the UN in 1945, the P5 veto has been a strategic tool used by competing global interests. The proposal supported by WFM-Canada would challenge what we believe to be ‘illegal’ vetoes in the Security Council. By this, we seek to address and correct a glaring democratic deficit at the UN.

Expertise Within Corridors

Among numerous supporting advisors to the WFM-Canada proposal is Jennifer Trahan, a Clinical Professor and Director of the Concentration in International Law and Human Rights at the NYU Center for Global Affairs. Trahan is the author of the award-winning book Existing Legal Limits to Security Council Veto Power in the Face of Atrocity Crimes. Trahan presents three main arguments on the illegality of veto resolutions. The first relates to peremptory norms, which include genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the Crime of Aggression. She concludes that a P5 veto cast in the face of violations of these peremptory norms, or where there is a serious risk of these crimes occurring: “(a) is at minimum inconsistent with the respect due to these highest level norms; (b) more aggressively formulated, may facilitate the commission of the crimes, thereby violating jus cogens; and, (c) also violates what has been identified in its Articles on the Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts (ARSIWA) as the duty of all states (all bold text author’s emphasis) to ‘cooperate to bring to an end through lawful means any serious breach of an obligation arising under a peremptory norm of international law’ (ARSIWA Art. 41.1)” by the International Law Commission, the body of experts established and elected by the UNGA to codify international law.

Importantly, Art. 41.2 of ARSIWA requires states not to “recognize as lawful a situation created by a serious breach of a peremptory norm of international law, nor render aid or assistance in maintaining that situation.” As an example: Israel’s war on Gaza following the deadly incursion on October 7, 2023, by Hamas and other fighters into Israel. If the allegations are found to have merit and Israel’s bombardment is indiscriminately killing non-combatant Palestinians in contravention of the laws of war, then the United States, having been made aware, would be obligated under law to cease the provision of lethal aid to Israel. This ICJ AO could act as an effective deterrent, and as another tool in the application and enforcement of international law to hold perpetrators of the worst crimes in war legally responsible.

Similarly, if Canada is supplying arms or parts to Israel which assists Israel in the commission of war crimes, it too would be under obligation to immediately cease the export of such materials. The Netherlands Court of Appeal on February 12, 2024, enjoined the Netherlands from exporting F-35 parts to Israel on the basis that it was “not plausible that this destruction was inflicted exclusively on military targets or constituted legitimate ‘collateral damage’” and that there was a “clear risk that the F-35 parts to be exported will be used in committing serious violations of international law.”

Jennifer Trahan’s second argument is based upon the UN’s “Purposes and Principles” found in Articles 1 and 2 of the UN Charter. Article 24(1) provides that one of the purposes of the UN is “to maintain international peace and security and to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace.” Another Purpose is to act in conformity with international law. Article 2 further includes a provision that requires members to act in “good faith” in fulfilling their assumed obligations.

Proposal Arguments

Firstly, to commit, or to fail to act to prevent, an act of Aggression constitutes a violation of a permanent member’s obligations under the UN Charter. A UNSC permanent member that uses the veto to block a resolution drafted to compel an end to its illegal behavior, is thereby facilitating a continuance of its own breach of the peace. Using the veto as a shield would be deemed inconsistent with the Purposes and Principles of the Charter and place the veto option beyond reach. As Professor Trahan asserts, permanent member status was created under the Charter, “so they cannot have been granted power to go beyond the limits of the Charter or the power granted to the Security Council as a whole; If they do, their actions would be ultra vires,” or beyond their legal authority. This principle ensures that even the most powerful members of the Security Council are bound by the same rules and limitations as the rest of the international community, maintaining a balance of power and accountability by rendering such vetoes null and void under international law.

The third Trahan argument relates to treaty obligations under the Genocide Convention and the Geneva Conventions. For example, where genocide or a risk of genocide is occurring, contracting parties to the Genocide Convention, of which Canada is a member, must “undertake to prevent and to punish” genocide. The “prevent” obligation recognizes the duty to act can arise before the conduct under question becomes genocide. It might be argued therefore, that when a Member State knows, or ought to know, that there is a serious risk of a situation constituting or setting the stage for genocide, the duty to act exists then in that moment. If a permanent member commits or abets genocide, they violate treaty obligations, potentially nullifying their veto rights. This means past vetoes used to support ongoing war crimes by an ally could be challenged, arguing that the permanent member abused its veto to knowingly facilitate these crimes.

The WFM-Canada proposal centers on Canada’s obligations under the Genocide Conventions, and on Canada’s joint declaration with the Netherlands to the ICJ on the allegation of Russian genocide against Ukraine. Prepared by Canada’s Ministry of Justice on behalf of the Ministry of Global Affairs, the declaration insists that the “state’s obligation to prevent and the corresponding duty to act, arise at the instant the state learns of, or should normally have learned of, the existence of a serious risk that genocide will be committed”, and, “an essential first step before taking action in fulfillment of Article I is the assessment of whether there is a genocide or a serious risk of genocide … This assessment should be based on all available information, in particular, from independent and credible sources, and should be guided by the definition of genocide, as outlined in Article II of the Genocide Convention.”

Common Article 1 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions is today generally seen as “quasi-constitutional.” It requires Parties to those instruments to “respect and to ensure respect for the present Convention in all circumstances.” It is premised on the doctrine of erga omnes, i.e., the obligation of states towards the international community as a whole. Thus, a permanent Member State that vetoes a resolution designed to end a breach of the Geneva Conventions or the Genocide Conventions, furthers the continuance of the breach(es) of those Conventions through this act.

Questions for the ICJ Advisory Opinion

  1. Does existing international law contain limitations on the use of the veto power by permanent members of the UN Security Council in situations where there is reasonable grounds to suspect ongoing genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and/or the Crime of Aggression?
  2. If the court does identify situations which place limits on the use of the veto power, would that mean that Security Council members would be at liberty to treat vetoes made in such situations as being null and void?

Framing the questions generally affords the advantage of not having to rely on submitted documentary evidence or oral testimony. The hoped-for result is that the hearing can be conducted in an expeditious and relatively inexpensive fashion. This proposal anticipates the ICJ will be prepared to consider these questions on non-contested facts, and that its answers will have the effect of curtailing the current misuse of the veto power. This shift would significantly enhance the democratic integrity and effectiveness of, and restore a large measure of faith in, the UN.

The proposal recognizes there is a general perception globally, that the UNSC has been paralyzed from exercising its function due to the veto, and that an initiative aimed at curtailing the misuse of the veto would likely be well-received by the Court. There was a belief at its founding, that the five permanent members’ right to veto would be curtailed over time. That time has come.

Mondial Summer 2024 - US Edition - Thumbnail of the Cover

Mondial is published by the Citizens for Global Solutions (CGS) and World Federalist Movement — Canada (WFM-Canada), non-profit, non-partisan, and non-governmental Member Organizations of the World Federalist Movement-Institute for Government Policy (WFM-IGP). Mondial seeks to provide a forum for diverse voices and opinions on topics related to democratic world federation. The views expressed by contributing authors herein do not necessarily reflect the organizational positions of CGS or WFM-Canada, or those of the Masthead membership.

Anthony Vance

Anthony Vance

Senior Representative, Bahá'ís of the U.S. Office of Public Affairs

Anthony oversees the development of the Bahá'ís of the United States Office of Public Affairs programs and strategic direction. He joined the office in 2010 after spending four years at the Baháʼí World Center in Haifa, Israel representing it to the diplomatic community, civil society, and parts of the host government. A lawyer by training, he spent 21 years in the U.S. Agency for International Development in legal and managerial positions in Washington, Cote d’Ivoire, Kenya, Botswana, and Egypt. Anthony holds a B.A. in Economics, an MBA, and a J.D. from Harvard University.

James Lowell May

James Lowell May

Program Officer

James May is a programme and project development specialist. He has lived in Serbia since 2005, and prior to joining Citizens for Global Solutions, worked across the Western Balkans on a broad range of issues including human, minority and child rights, accountability for war crimes and crimes against humanity, Holocaust commemoration, democratic participation, social justice and economic empowerment, and environmental restoration.

James began working in the Western Balkans on issues related to accountability for human rights violations, first for the Youth Initiative for Human Rights, a coalition of NGOs active in the countries of the former Yugoslavia, as the network’s development coordinator, then the Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights, leading a research project documenting the nomenclatural of the Milosevic Regime, and then the Federation of Jewish Communities in Serbia, running a Holocaust research and education project.

James then transitioned from accountability to efforts to protect and fulfil the rights of marginalised communities. For a decade James worked for the Centre for Youth Integration, an NGO that provides specialized services for children and youth in street situations in Belgrade, where he began as a volunteer before taking up a permanent role, while concurrently volunteering for community mental health organizations, as well as consultancy work for a number of local and international organizations, and most recently branched out to apply his experience to the environmental sector, focussing on social impact assessments and community-oriented nature-based solutions projects.

James has a degree in Archaeology from University College London. He was born and grew up in Great Britain. He is an avid cyclist.

Honorable David J. Scheffer

Honorable David J. Scheffer

Former U.S. Ambassador

Amb. David J. Scheffer is senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), with a focus on international law and international criminal justice. Scheffer was the Mayer Brown/Robert A. Helman Professor of Law (2006-2020) and is Director Emeritus of the Center for International Human Rights at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law. He is Professor of Practice at Arizona State University (Washington offices). He was Vice-President of the American Society of International Law (2020-2022) and held the International Francqui Professorship at KU Leuven in Belgium in 2022. From 2012 to 2018 he was the UN Secretary-General’s Special Expert on UN Assistance to the Khmer Rouge Trials, and he was the Tom A. Bernstein Genocide Prevention Fellow working with the Ferencz International Justice Initiative at the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum (2019-2021).

During the second term of the Clinton Administration (1997-2001), Scheffer was the first ever U.S. Ambassador at Large for War Crimes Issues and led the U.S. delegation to the UN talks establishing the International Criminal Court (ICC). He signed the Rome Statute of the ICC on behalf of the United States on December 31, 2000. He negotiated the creation of five war crimes tribunals: the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, the Special Court for Sierra Leone, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, and the ICC. He chaired the Atrocities Prevention Inter-Agency Working Group (1998-2001). During the first term of the Clinton Administration (1993-1997), Scheffer served as senior advisor and counsel to the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Dr. Madeleine Albright, and he served on the Deputies Committee of the National Security Council. Ambassador Scheffer received an A.B. (Government and Economics) from Harvard College, B.A. (Honour School of Jurisprudence) from Oxford University (where he was a Knox Fellow), and LL.M. (International and Comparative Law) from Georgetown University Law Center.

Alex Andrei

Alex Andrei

Director of Technology and Design

Alex is an experienced professional in designing digital products, managing online applications, and providing IT consulting services. Their background is in working with online applications design, digital accessibility, learning management platforms, user experience and interface design for online and mobile applications. They have over 10 years of experience working with higher-education institutions, nonprofits, and business.

He believes that in today’s rapidly evolving landscape, organizations need to adapt and thrive in the digital realm to gain a competitive edge and be as successful as they can be. Alex specializes in supporting organizations in their digital transformation initiatives and creating effective user experiences and driving efficiency through technology to empower people.

As Director of Technology and Design, Alex focuses on identifying opportunities to integrate various technologies in ongoing operations and new initiatives at CGS to support programs, partners, and team members in achieving their goals.

Alex has a passion strategically leveraging cutting edge technologies to maximize the value of what can be done with limited resources to create a lasting impact and great experiences for people.

Jon Kozesky

Jon Kozesky

Director of Development 

Jon brings over 17 years of experience in development and fundraising in both the public and private sectors.  He started his career in politics working in the Ohio Statehouse and later in the office of U.S. Congressman Steven LaTourette, as well as former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. After leaving Capitol Hill, Jon pursued his passion of helping nonprofits secure the resources they needed to best serve their constituents. This passion led to his founding of Jon Thomas Consulting, a boutique nonprofit management and development firm serving organizations across the United States and throughout the world in streamlining their processes and maximizing their revenue growth through grant writing, government affairs, donor stewardship, and major event planning.

Prior to his fundraising career, Jon proudly served his community as a firefighter and water rescue diver. In his personal time, Jon is a champion competitive sailor and a bit of a thrill-seeker, having skydived and bungee jumped on 6 continents.

Hannah Fields

Hannah Fields

Communications Officer

Hannah Fields is a communications and digital content specialist with over ten years of experience working in the nonprofit, global health, and higher education sectors. She has supported organizations, such as Mayo Clinic and the American Academy of Political and Social Science, with editorial projects, digital content management, and a broad range of communications outreach. During her time in global health, she worked alongside Christian Connections for International Health (CCIH) to assist in their mission of advancing health and wholeness for all people through capacity-building, networking, fellowship, and advocacy.

Hannah also has a background in book publishing, having received her Master of Letters in Publishing Studies from the University of Stirling. She has worked with several US and UK publishers to create high-quality printed and digital products for readers. Hannah also founded Folkways Press in 2020 to create a platform for authors of all backgrounds to use the power of their words to address social issues through themes of mental health, human rights, and more.

Marvin Perry

Accounting Manager

Marvin has been working in the areas of HIV/AIDS, international peace and human rights. He has worked with both national and international non-profits in the DC area. Marvin brings years of experience in non-profit finance and administration. Marvin is a certified human resources professional and holds an MBA from Howard University School of Business.

Peter Orvetti

Communications Consultant

Peter Orvetti is an editor and political analyst who has spent most of his career providing daily intelligence briefings for the White House across four presidential administrations, as well as multiple Cabinet agencies, trade associations, and Fortune 500 companies. He is the author of several “Young People’s Guides” to various U.S. federal elections and is a former daily columnist for NBC Universal’s Washington, D.C., website.

He has been involved with CGS and other world federalist organizations for more than a decade and publishes the daily “One World Digest” email newsletter. He is also a theater reviewer and an actor in both professional and amateur productions.

Drea Bergman

Director of Programs

Drea Bergman has been shaping world citizens developing global youth programs as Director of Programs for CGS. She is a public policy researcher with master’s degrees from Maastricht Graduate School of Governance and the United Nations University-MERIT (Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology). She specializes in evidenced-based public policy programs using mixed-methods research and has focused especially on spearheading digital transformation for a variety of NGOs and foundations. Some of her other projects have included research in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. More recently, she has lent her expertise by providing strategic planning for social enterprise start-ups.

Bob Flax

CGS Education Fund President

Bob Flax, Ph.D. is the former Executive Director of Citizens for Global Solutions (now retired). He has spent a lifetime addressing human suffering, first as a psychologist, then as an organization development consultant, and for more than a decade, as a global activist through the World Federalist Movement. He also teaches in the Transformative Social Change Program at Saybrook University.

Bob has a B.A. in Psychology and Philosophy from New York University (1977), an M.A. in Psychology from Long Island University (1980), a Ph.D. in Psychology from Saybrook Institute (1992), an M.A. in Organization Development from Sonoma State University (2007), a Certificate in Global Affairs from New York University (2015) and a Diploma in Global Leadership at the UN Peace University in Costa Rica (2019).

Bob’s love of adventure has led him to international trekking, scuba diving, and climbing the tallest mountains on 3 continents. He also maintains a Buddhist meditation practice and lives in a co-housing community in Northern California.

Rebecca A. Shoot

Executive Director

Rebecca A. Shoot is an international lawyer and democracy and governance practitioner with more than 15 years of experience in the non-governmental, inter-governmental, and private sectors supporting human rights, democratic processes, and the rule of law on five continents.

In nearly a decade with the National Democratic Institute (NDI), Rebecca held numerous positions in headquarters and the field supporting and leading democracy and governance programs in Central and Eastern Europe and Southern and East Africa. She subsequently moved to a leadership role steering NDI’s Governance projects globally and directing programming for the bipartisan House Democracy Partnership of the U.S. House of Representatives. Rebecca created a global parliamentary campaign for Democratic Renewal and Human Rights as Senior Advisor to Parliamentarians for Global Action (PGA), an international network of legislators committed to collaboration to promote democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. Prior to that, she directed PGA’s International Law and Human Rights Programme and ran PGA’s office in The Hague. Most recently, she helmed global programming to promote gender equality and criminal justice reform for the American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative (ABA ROLI).

Rebecca has spoken at high-level conferences and events on five continents (and increasingly, globally through online platforms). Her publications include the first Global Parliamentary Report (IPU & UNDP 2012), Political Parties in Democratic Transitions (DIPD 2012), and Navigating between Scylla and Charybdis: How the International Criminal Court Turned Restraint Into Power Play (Emory Int’l L. Rev. 2018), which was honored with the Emory International Law Review’s Founder’s Award for Excellence in Legal Research and Writing.

Rebecca is admitted to practice law in the District of Columbia and is a member of several bar associations, including the American Branch of the International Law Association (ABILA), where she serves as Advocacy Director for the International Criminal Court (ICC) Committee. She served as a Visiting Professional in the Presidency of the ICC and has provided pro bono legal expertise to The Carter Center, International Refugee Assistance Project, United Nations Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances, and U.S. Marine Corps University, where she helped develop the international humanitarian law curriculum.

Rebecca earned a Juris Doctorate with Honors from Emory University School of Law, where she received several academic distinctions, including the David J. Bederman Fellowship in International Law and Conley-Ingram Scholarship for Public Interest Leadership. She earned a Master of Science in Democracy & Democratisation from University College London School of Public Policy and a Bachelor of Arts Magna Cum Laude in Political Science from Kenyon College. She holds certificates in Conflict Analysis from the U.S. Institute of Peace and in Public International Law from The Hague Academy of International Law.

As Executive Director of CGS, Rebecca will continue her current role as Co-Convener of the Washington Working Group for the International Criminal Court (WICC), a diverse coalition of human rights organizations, legal associations, former government officials, and leading legal professionals. CGS and WICC have a rich and intertwined history that this dual appointment brings full circle, with CGS formerly serving as host for the coalition and with several current and former common Board and National Advisory Committee members.

She also acts, directs, and writes for the theater.

Helen Caldicott

Physician, Author, and Speaker

Helen Caldicott is a physician, author, and anti-nuclear advocate. She founded several associations dedicated to opposing the use of nuclear power, depleted uranium munitions, nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons proliferation, and military action in general. In 1980, she founded the Women’s Action for Nuclear Disarmament (WAND), which was later renamed Women’s Action for New Directions. In 2008, she founded the Helen Caldicott Foundation for a Nuclear Free Future.

Blanche Wiesen Cook

Blanche Wiesen Cook

Professor, Author, and Historian

Blanche Wiesen Cook is a Distinguished Professor of History and Women’s Studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York. She is author of a three-volume biography of Eleanor Roosevelt, as well as The Declassified Eisenhower: A Divided Legacy of Peace and Political Warfare.

David Cortright

Author, Activist, and Leader

David Cortright is director of Policy Studies at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame and chair of the Board of the Fourth Freedom Forum. In 1977, Cortright was named the executive director of he Committee for a SANE Nuclear Policy (SANE), which under his direction became the largest disarmament organization in the U.S. Cortright initiated the 1987 merger of SANE and the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign and served for a time as co-director of the merged organization. In 2002, he helped to found the Win Without War coalition in opposition to the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

He is the author or co-editor of 19 books including Waging Peace in Vietnam: U.S. Soldiers and Veterans Who Opposed the War, Gandhi and Beyond: Nonviolence for a New Political Age, and Peace: A History of Movements and Ideas.

Andrea Cousins

Andrea Cousins

Psychologist, Psychoanalyst, and Anthropologist

Andrea Cousins is a psychologist and psychoanalyst who has practiced for more than 30 years. She has a doctorate in anthropology from Harvard University and a Doctor of Psychology degree from the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology. Her father, journalist and peace activist Norman Cousins, served as president of the World Federalist Association and chairman of the Committee for Sane Nuclear Policy, and was honored with recognitions including the United Nations Peace Medal.

Gary Dorrien

Gary Dorrien

Professor, Author, Social Ethicist

Gary Dorrien is the Reinhold Niebuhr Professor of Social Ethics at Union Theological Seminary and Professor of Religion at Columbia University. An Episcopal priest, he has taught as the Paul E. Raither Distinguished Scholar at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, and as Horace De Y. Lentz Visiting Professor at Harvard Divinity School. He is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America’s Religion and Socialism Commission and the author of 18 books on ethics, social theory, philosophy, theology, politics, and intellectual history.

Daniel Ellsberg

Lecturer, Writer, and Activist

Daniel Ellsberg is a political activist and former military analyst. While employed by the RAND Corporation, Ellsberg precipitated a national political controversy in 1971 when he released the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret Pentagon study of the U.S. government decision-making in relation to the Vietnam War, to The New York Times, The Washington Post and other newspapers.

Since the end of the Vietnam War, Ellsberg has continued his political activism, giving lecture tours and speaking out about current events. Ellsberg was awarded the Right Livelihood Award in 2006. In 2018, he was awarded the 2018 Olof Palme Prize for his “profound humanism and exceptional moral courage.”

Oscar Andrew Hammerstein

Oscar Andrew Hammerstein

Painter, Writer, Lecturer, and Historian

Oscar Andrew Hammerstein is a painter, writer, and lecturer. He has taught graduate-level courses on New York theatre history and general musical theatre history as an adjunct professor at Columbia University. He is the author of The Hammersteins: A Musical Theatre Family.

Randy Kehler

Randy Kehler

Pacifist Activist

Randy Kehler is a pacifist activist who served 22 months in prison for returning his draft card in 1969 and refusing to seek exemption as a conscientious objector, seeing that as a form of cooperation with the Vietnam war effort. He played a key role in persuading Daniel Ellsberg to release the Pentagon Papers, and later served as executive director of the National Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign. Kehler and his wife Betsy Corner refused to pay taxes for military expenditures, resulting in the federal seizure of their Massachusetts home in 1989. They continue to withhold their federal income taxes.

Gordon Orians

Gordon Orians

Ecologist

Gordon Orians, an ornithologist and ecologist for more than half a century, has focused his work on behavioral ecology and the relationships between ecology and social organization, as well as on the interface between science and public policy. He was director of the University of Washington Seattle’s Institute for Environmental Studies for a decade and has also served on the Board of Directors of the World Wildlife Fund and on state boards of the Nature Conservancy and Audubon.

Orians was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1989 and to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1990.

William Pace

International Organizer

William Pace was the founding convenor of the Coalition for an International Criminal Court (ICC) and a co-founder of the International Coalition for the Responsibility to Protect. He has been engaged in international justice, rule of law, environmental law, and human rights for four decades, serving as executive director of the World Federalist Movement-Institute for Global Policy, secretary-general of the Hague Appeal for Peace, director of the Center for the Development of International Law, and director of Section Relations of the Concerts for Human Rights Foundation at Amnesty International, among other roles. He is the recipient of the William J. Butler Human Rights Medal from the Urban Morgan Institute for Human Rights and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on the ICC.

James T. Ranney

Professor, International Legal Consultant, and Author

James T. Ranney is an adjunct professor of international law at Widener Law School. He co-founded the Jeannette Rankin Peace Center in Montana and served as a legal consultant to the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. He has written extensively on the abolition of nuclear weapons and the establishment of international dispute resolution mechanisms.

Rick Ulfik

Rick Ulfik

The Founder of WE, The World, and the WE Campaign

Rick Ulfik is the founder of We, The World, an international coalition-building organization whose Mission is to maximize social change globally. He and his organization work closely with the New York Center for Nonviolent Communication, where he has been a facilitator since 2004. He is also the co-creator of the annual 11 Days of Global Unity - 11 Ways to Change the World, September 11-21.

He is an award-winning composer and keyboard player who has written, arranged, produced and orchestrated music for television networks, feature films, commercials, and albums. He has performed with Queen Latifah, Phoebe Snow, Carlos Santana, Bernadette Peters, and Judy Collins.

John Stowe

Bishop

John Stowe is the Roman Catholic bishop of the Diocese of Lexington, Kentucky. He is a member of the Order of Friars Minor Conventual, a mendicant religious order founded by Francis of Assisi. In 2015, Pope Francis appointed Stowe bishop of the Diocese of Lexington. He is the Episcopal President of the U.S. board of Pax Christi, an international Catholic Christian peace movement with a focus on human rights, disarmament, nonviolence, and related issues.

Barbara Smith

Author, Activist, and Scholar

Barbara Smith has played a significant role in Black feminism in the U.S. for more than 50 years. She taught at numerous colleges and universities for 25 years and has been published in a wide range of publications including The New York Times Book Review, Ms., Gay Community News, The Village Voice, and The Nation.

Among her many honors are the African American Policy Forum Harriet Tubman Lifetime Achievement Award, the Lambda Literary Award, and the Stonewall Award for Service to the Lesbian and Gay Community. In 2014, SUNY Press published Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around: Forty Years of Movement Building with Barbara Smith.

William J. Ripple

Conservationist, Author, and Professor

William J. Ripple is a Distinguished Professor of Ecology in the Department of Forest Ecosystems and Society at Oregon State University. He has published two books and has authored more than 200 scientific journal articles on topics including conservation, ecology, wildlife, and climate change. He was the co-lead author on the 2020 paper “The World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency,” which was endorsed by more than 14,000 scientist signatories from around the world. He is the director of the Alliance of World Scientists, which has approximately 26,000 scientist members from 180 countries.

Mark Ritchie

President, Global Minnesota

Mark Ritchie is Chair of Minnesota's World Fair Bid Committee Educational Fund. From 2019 - 2022 he served as president of Global Minnesota, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization devoted to advancing international understanding and engagement. Ritchie was Minnesota's elected Secretary of State from 2007 to 2015. Since leaving elected public service, he has led the public-private partnership working to bring a world exposition (World's Fair) to Minnesota and he has served on the board of directors for LifeSource, Communicating for America, U.S. Vote Foundation, and Expo USA. He is also a national advisory board member of the federal Election Assistance Commission, where he serves as National Secretary.

 

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Kim Stanley Robinson

Author

Kim Stanley Robinson is the author of many works of science fiction, including the internationally bestselling Mars trilogy, and more recently Red Moon, New York 2140, and The Ministry for the Future. His work has been translated into 25 languages, and won awards including the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy awards. In 2016, asteroid 72432 was named “Kimrobinson.”

Leila Nadya Sadat

Special Advisor to the ICC Chief Prosecutor, Professor, Author

Leila Sadat is the James Carr Professor of International Criminal Law at Washington University School of Law and the director of the Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute. She is an internationally recognized expert on the International Criminal Court (ICC) and served as Special Advisor on Crimes Against Humanity to Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda of the ICC. She is also the director of the Crimes Against Humanity Initiative, a multi-year project to study the problem of crimes against humanity and draft a comprehensive convention addressing their punishment and prevention. She is a former member of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, served as the Alexis de Tocqueville Distinguished Fulbright Chair at the University of Cergy-Pontoise in Paris, and is the author of several books.

Martin Sheen

Martin Sheen

Actor, Activist, and Leader

Martin Sheen is an Emmy Award-winning and Golden Globe Award-winning actor who has worked with directors including Francis Ford Coppola and Oliver Stone, in addition to starring as the U.S. president on the long-running television drama “The West Wing.” In his early days as a struggling actor in New York, he met activist Dorothy Day, beginning his lifelong commitment to social justice.

The self-described pacifist was an early opponent of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq and has been a consistent opponent of nuclear arms. As honorary mayor of Malibu, California in 1989, he declared the city a nuclear-free zone. Nearly 20 years later, Sheen was arrested during a protest at the Nevada Test Site. Sheen said in 2009 that he had been arrested 66 times for acts of civil disobedience, leading one activist to declare Sheen to have “a rap sheet almost as long as his list of film credits.”

Sheen has also been active in anti-genocide and pro-immigrant causes, as well as in the environmental movement. In 2010, he told a crowd of young people, “While acting is what I do for a living, activism is what I do to stay alive.” In a 1963 episode of “The Outer Limits,” he portrayed a future astronaut wearing a large breast patch that read “UE. Unified Earth.”