Although the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza has captured the world’s horrified attention, the war in Ukraine has had even more terrible consequences. Grinding on for nearly two years, Russia’s massive military invasion of that country has taken hundreds of thousands of lives, created millions of refugees, wrecked Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure and economy, and consumed enormous financial resources from nations around the world.
And yet, despite the Ukraine War’s vast human and economic costs, there is no sign that it is abating. Russia and Ukraine are now bogged down in very bloody military stalemate, with about a fifth of Ukraine’s land occupied and annexed by Russia.
Meanwhile, polls show that an overwhelming majority of Ukrainians remain determined to continue the struggle to free all of Ukraine from Russian captivity. Indeed, an opinion survey in the fall of 2023 found that 80 percent of Ukrainians polled believed that under no circumstances should Ukraine give up any of its territory.
Similarly, in Russia, polls have found that a majority of the public appears content with the Putin regime’s military conquest of Ukraine and is opposed to any peace settlement that would relinquish Russian control of conquered Ukrainian land. Of course, the accuracy of Russian polls on the Ukraine War remains deeply suspect, for professing opposition to the war could easily lead to arrest, as it did for 20,000 Russians in 2022. Perhaps for this reason, numerous Russians polled refused to answer the question of where they stood on the war. One participant responded: “Thank you for the opportunity not to testify against myself.” In any case, in increasingly authoritarian Russia, public sentiment against war seems unlikely to alter the Putin administration’s determination to triumph on the battlefield.
Admittedly, in the United States, the major supplier of military and economic aid to beleaguered Ukraine, some developments point to declining enthusiasm for that role. The Republican Party has revived its 1930s policy (once termed “isolationism”) of appeasing military aggression by rightwing dictatorships, while leftists with an anti-American slant see a Russian victory as a useful way of somehow destroying “U.S. imperialism.” Nonetheless, unless Donald Trump and his MAGA followers sweep into power in 2024, it seems unlikely that the U.S. government or its NATO partners will entirely abandon Ukraine to a future under the jackboot of Russian military occupation.
Given these obstacles, is there a way to secure a just settlement of the Ukraine War?
There is, but it will take some creative action by the United Nations, the global organization that has been authorized to enforce international security.
Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the overwhelming majority of the world’s nations have repeatedly used their participation in the UN General Assembly to condemn the Russian invasion and to call for a just peace in Ukraine. For example, on the eve of the one-year anniversary of the war, the General Assembly, by a vote of 141 nations to 7 (with 32 abstentions), demanded that Russia “immediately, completely, and unconditionally” withdraw its military forces from Ukraine and called for a “cessation in hostilities” and a “comprehensive, just and lasting peace” based on the principles enshrined in the UN Charter. The UN Charter, of course, constitutes international law and bans “the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State.”
Even so, it is the UN Security Council that is tasked with enforcing international security, and Russia has used its veto in that UN entity to block UN action to end the Ukraine War.
The paralysis of the UN Security Council, however, need not continue. As Louise Blais, Canada’s ambassador to the United Nations from 2017 to 2021, has recently pointed out, Article 27 (3) of the UN Charter states that a party to a dispute before the Security Council shall abstain from voting in connection with the dispute. But, when it came to the Security Council’s votes on the Ukraine War, as Blais noted, “none of the 10 elected Security Council members had the courage, vision or backing to put forward a resolution” demanding abstention. According to Blais, the unwillingness of the four other veto-wielding members (Britain China, France, and the United States) to avoid a crippling Russian veto and, thereby, empower the Security Council to act, reflected their “zero interest in supporting such a move for fear it would limit their own power in the future.”
But there is ample precedent for limiting the veto in this fashion. The United Nations has a history of veto-wielding nations abstaining from Security Council voting when they are parties to a dispute. As Blais observes, between 1946 and 1952, Security Council members “regularly adhered to the obligatory abstention rule.” Only in later years did the five permanent Security Council members curtail the application of this practice.
In short, based on both international law and precedent, the UN Security Council has the authority to impose a settlement of the disastrous Ukraine War. What kinds of international action this would require would need to be determined by the world organization, just as the final terms of a peace agreement would ultimately need to be accepted by the contending parties. But, given the overwhelming support in the UN General Assembly for the withdrawal of Russian military forces from Ukraine and for a lasting peace agreement, such a peace settlement is likely to be a just one.
At the least, this would be a far better method of dealing with international conflict than the current full-scale war currently raging in Ukraine. And it could serve as a model for resolving other intractable disputes, such as the brutal Israel-Palestine conflict, as well.
This article was originally published in International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War’s Peace and Health Blog
The July 21, 2023 theatrical release of the film Oppenheimer, focused on the life of a prominent American nuclear physicist, should help to remind us of how badly the development of modern weapons has played out for individuals and for all of humanity.
Oppenheimer’s Rise and Fall
Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, American Prometheus, written by Kai Bird and the late Martin Sherwin, the film tells the story of the rise and fall of young J. Robert Oppenheimer, recruited by the U.S. government during World War II to direct the construction and testing of the world’s first atomic bomb at Los Alamos, New Mexico. His success in these ventures was followed shortly thereafter by President Truman’s ordering the use of nuclear weapons to destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
During the immediate postwar years, Oppenheimer, widely lauded as “the father of the atomic bomb,” attained extraordinary power for a scientist within U.S. government ranks, including as chair of the General Advisory Committee of the new Atomic Energy Commission (AEC).
But his influence ebbed as his ambivalence about nuclear weapons grew. In the fall of 1945, during a meeting at the White House with Truman, Oppenheimer said: “Mr. President, I feel I have blood on my hands.” Incensed, Truman later told Assistant Secretary of State Dean Acheson that Oppenheimer had become “a crybaby” and that he didn’t want “to see that son of a bitch in this office ever again.”
Oppenheimer was also disturbed by the emerging nuclear arms race and, like many atomic scientists, championed the international control of atomic energy. Indeed, in late 1949, the entire General Advisory Committee of the AEC came out in opposition to the U.S. development of the H-bomb―although the president, ignoring this recommendation, approved developing the new weapon and adding it to the rapidly growing U.S. nuclear arsenal.
In these circumstances, figures with considerably less ambivalence about nuclear weapons took action to purge Oppenheimer from power. In December 1953, shortly after becoming chair of the AEC, Lewis Strauss, a fervent champion of a U.S. nuclear buildup, ordered Oppenheimer’s security clearance suspended. Anxious to counter implications of disloyalty, Oppenheimer appealed the decision and, in subsequent hearings before the AEC’s Personnel Security Board, faced grueling questioning not only about his criticism of nuclear weapons, but about his relationships decades before with individuals who had been Communist Party members.
Ultimately, the AEC ruled that Oppenheimer was a security risk, an official determination that added to his public humiliation, completed his removal from government service, and delivered a shattering blow to his meteoric career.
The Threat to Human Survival
Of course, the development of nuclear weapons had far broader consequences than the downfall of J. Robert Oppenheimer. In addition to killing more than 200,000 people and injuring many more in Japan, the advent of nuclear weaponry led nations around the world to enter a fierce nuclear arms race. By the 1980s, spurred on by conflicts among the major powers, 70,000 nuclear weapons had come into existence, with the potential to destroy virtually all life on earth.
Fortunately, a massive grassroots citizens campaign emerged to counter this drive toward a nuclear apocalypse. And it succeeded in pressuring reluctant governments into an array of nuclear arms control and disarmament treaties, as well as unilateral actions, to reduce nuclear dangers. As a result, by 2023 the number of nuclear weapons had declined to roughly 12,500.
Nevertheless, in recent years, thanks to a sharp decrease in citizen activism and increase in international conflict, the potential for nuclear war has dramatically revived. All nine nuclear powers (Russia, the United States, China, Britain, France, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea) are currently engaged in upgrading their nuclear arsenals with new production facilities and new, improved nuclear weapons. During 2022, these governments poured nearly $83 billion into this nuclear buildup. Public threats to initiate nuclear war, including those by Donald Trump, Kim Jong Un, and Vladimir Putin, have become more common. The hands of the Doomsday Clock of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, established in 1946, now stand at 90 seconds to midnight―the most dangerous setting in its history.
Not surprisingly, the nuclear powers display little interest in further action for nuclear arms control and disarmament. The two nations possessing some 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons―Russia (with the most) and the United States (not far behind)―have pulled out of nearly all such agreements with one another. Although the U.S. government has proposed extending the New Start Treaty (which limits the number of strategic nuclear weapons) with Russia, Putin reportedly responded this June that Russia would not engage in any nuclear disarmament talks with the West, commenting: “We possess more weaponry of such sort than the NATO countries. They know that and are always trying to persuade us to start negotiations on reduction. Nuts to them . . . as our people say.” The Chinese government―whose nuclear arsenal, while growing substantially, still ranks a distant third in numbers―has stated that it sees no reason for China to engage in any nuclear arms control talks.
The Demand for a Nuclear Weapons-Free World
To head off a looming nuclear catastrophe, non-nuclear nations have been championing the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). Adopted by an overwhelming vote of nations at a UN conference in July 2017, the TPNW bans developing, testing, producing, acquiring, possessing, stockpiling, and threatening to use nuclear weapons. The treaty went into force in January 2021 and―though opposed by all the nuclear powers―it has thus far been signed by 92 nations and ratified by 68 of them. Brazil and Indonesia are likely to ratify it in the near future. Polls have found that the TPNW has substantial support in numerous countries, including the United States and other NATO nations.
There does remain some hope, then, that the nuclear tragedy that engulfed J. Robert Oppenheimer and has long threatened the survival of world civilization can still be averted.
It should come as no surprise that the world is currently facing an existential nuclear danger. In fact, it has been caught up in that danger since 1945, when atomic bombs were used to annihilate the populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The Situation Today
Today, however, the danger of a nuclear holocaust is probably greater than in the past. There are now nine nuclear powers―the United States, Russia, Britain, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea―and they are currently engaged in a new nuclear arms race, building ever more efficient weapons of mass destruction. The latest entry in their nuclear scramble, the hypersonic missile, travels at more than five times the speed of sound and is adept at evading missile defense systems.
Furthermore, these nuclear-armed powers engage in military confrontations with one another―Russia with the United States, Britain, and France over the fate of Ukraine, India with Pakistan over territorial disputes, and China with the United States over control of Taiwan and the South China Sea―and on occasion issue public threats of nuclear war against nuclear nations. In recent years, Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, and Kim Jong-Un have also publicly threatened non-nuclear nations with nuclear destruction.
Little wonder that, in January 2023, the editors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists set the hands of their famous “Doomsday Clock” at 90 seconds before midnight, the most dangerous setting since its creation in 1946.
A Reprieve, But Only a Temporary One
Until fairly recently, this march to Armageddon was disrupted, for people around the world found nuclear war a very unappealing prospect. A massive nuclear disarmament campaign developed in many countries and, gradually, began to force governments to temper their nuclear ambitions. The result was banning nuclear testing, curbing nuclear proliferation, limiting development of some kinds of nuclear weapons, and fostering substantial nuclear disarmament. From the 1980s to today, the number of nuclear weapons in the world sharply decreased, from 70,000 to roughly 13,000. And with nuclear weapons stigmatized, nuclear war was averted.
But successes in rolling back the nuclear menace undermined the popular struggle against it, while proponents of nuclear weapons seized the opportunity to reassert their priorities. Consequently, a new nuclear arms race gradually got underway.
And What of the Future?
Even so, creating a nuclear-free world remains possible. Although an inflamed nationalism and the excessive power of military contractors are likely to continue bolstering the drive to acquire, brandish, and use nuclear weapons, there is a route out of the world’s nuclear nightmare.
We can begin uncovering this route to a safer, saner world when we recognize that a great many people and governments cling to nuclear weapons because of their desire for national security. After all, it has been and remains a dangerous world, and for thousands of years nations (and before the existence of nations, rival territories) have protected themselves from aggression by wielding military might.
The United Nations, of course, was created in the aftermath of the vast devastation of World War II in the hope of providing national security. But, as history has demonstrated, it is not strong enough to do the job―largely because the “great powers,” fearing that significant power in the hands of the international organization would diminish their own influence in world affairs, have deliberately kept the world organization weak. Thus, for example, the UN Security Council, which is officially in charge of maintaining international security, is frequently blocked from taking action by a veto cast by one its five powerful, permanent members.
But what if global governance were strengthened to the extent that it could provide national security? What if the United Nations were transformed from a loose confederation of nations into a genuine federation of nations, enabled thereby to create binding international law, prevent international aggression, and guarantee treaty commitments, including commitments for nuclear disarmament?
How a Federation of Nations Could End the Nuclear Menace
Nuclear weapons, like other weapons of mass destruction, have emerged in the context of unrestrained international conflict. But with national security guaranteed, many policymakers and most people around the world would conclude that nuclear weapons, which they already knew were immensely dangerous, had also become unnecessary.
Aside from undermining the national security rationale for building and maintaining nuclear weapons, a stronger United Nations would have the legitimacy and power to ensure their abolition. No longer would nations be able to disregard international agreements they didn’t like. Instead, nuclear disarmament legislation, once adopted by the federation’s legislature, would be enforced by the federation. Under this legislation, the federation would presumably have the authority to inspect nuclear facilities, block the development of new nuclear weapons, and reduce and eliminate nuclear stockpiles.
The relative weakness of the current United Nations in enforcing nuclear disarmament is illustrated by the status of the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Voted for by 122 nations at a UN conference in 2017, the treaty bans producing, testing, acquiring, possessing, stockpiling, transferring, and using or threatening the use of nuclear weapons. Although the treaty officially went into force in 2021, it is only binding on nations that have decided to become parties to it. Thus far, that does not include any of the nuclear armed nations. As a result, the treaty currently has more moral than practical effect in securing nuclear disarmament.
If comparable legislation were adopted by a world federation, however, participating in a disarmament process would no longer be voluntary, for the legislation would be binding on all nations. Furthermore, the law’s universal applicability would not only lead to worldwide disarmament, but offset fears that nations complying with its provisions would one day be attacked by nations that refused to abide by it.
In this fashion, enhanced global governance could finally end the menace of worldwide nuclear annihilation that has haunted humanity since 1945. What remains to be determined is: Are nations ready to unite in the interest of human survival?
An intergenerational dialogue on how global governance solutions can tackle existential threats
Description
This Q&A panel discussion, hosted by Citizens for Global Solutions (CGS), Youth Fusion, and World Federalist Movement – Institute for Global Policy (WFM-IGP), will consider how progress on environmental protection is hampered by armed conflict, nuclear threats, and the massive diversion of resources into weapons and war. In this webinar, we will explore the potential of common security and global governance to foster cooperation to more effectively address climate, peace, and disarmament issues. This intergenerational dialogue will bring together youthful energy and innovation with seasoned expertise and experience, actively engaging our audience to build stronger pathways to a peaceful and sustainable future.
Session I
Region: Americas/Europe/Africa/Middle East
Date: July 13, 2023 | Time: 12:00 PM -1:30 PM EST | 1600 – 1730 UTC | 1700 London | 1800 CET | 1900 Kenya
William (Bill) R. Pace (USA). Founder and Inaugural Convenor, Coalition for an International Criminal Court. Former Executive Director, World Federalist Movement-Institute for Global Policy (WFM-IGP). Co-founder, International Coalition for the Responsibility to Protect.
Kehkashan Basu MSM (UAE/Canada). Founder-President, Green Hope Foundation. United Nations Human Rights Champion. Winner, 2016 International Children’s Peace Prize. Council Member, World Future Council. Former UNEP Global Coordinator for Children & Youth;
Professor Juergen Scheffran (Germany) Professor of Integrative Geography. Chair of the Research Group Climate Change and Security, Center for Earth System Research and Sustainability, University of Hamburg. Principal author, The Climate-Nuclear Nexus.
Maja Groff (Netherlands) Convenor, Climate Governance Commission. Visiting Professor/Scholar at Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs, Leiden University. Lecturer, Hague Academy of International Law.
Citizens for Global Solutions (CGS) is a non-governmental, non-profit, non-partisan membership-based organization that for more than 75 years has brought together a diverse collective of individuals and organizations with a common goal of a unified world predicated upon peace, human rights, and the rule of law. From championing ratification of the UN Charter upon our establishment in 1947 to supporting creation of the International Criminal Court (ICC) 25 years ago to advocating for global instruments to confront today’s enduring challenges of war and climate degradation, CGS recognizes that true progress is a generational enterprise. We invite like-minded individuals and organizations to join us in this mission.
Youth Fusion is a world-wide networking platform for young individuals and organizations in the field of nuclear disarmament, risk-reduction and non-proliferation. We focus on youth action and intergenerational dialogue, building on the links between disarmament, peace, climate action, sustainable development and building back better from the pandemic. Our goals are clear: to inform, educate, connect and engage our fellow students, activists and enthusiasts. Through these activities, and as part of Abolition 2000 Network, we are contributing to the total abolition of nuclear weapons.
The World Federalist Movement/Institute for Global Policy (WFM/IGP), established in 1947, is a non-profit organization registered in the USA and the Netherlands. Guided by its vision of a just, free, and peaceful world, WFM/IGP works to promote the rule of law and global governance of transnational issues including those related to peace, human rights, and the environment.
Our vision is a just, free, and peaceful world, where humanity and nature flourish in harmony, while our mission is to create more effective, transparent, and accountable global governance leading to democratic world federation.
Set against the backdrop of World War II, Indian independence and decolonization, and the Cold War, this “splendid…stunning…hugely engrossing” first-of-its-kind international history, based on seven years of research in twenty archives on three continents, tells the story of India’s quest to build consensus around the framework of “human rights,” to bridge the divisions between East and West, between capitalist and communist, and to create “one world” free of empire, poverty, exploitation, and war.
This book is the story of India’s quest to create a common destiny for all people across the world based on the concept of human rights. In the years leading up to its independence from Great Britain, and more than a decade after, in a world torn asunder by unchecked colonial expansions and two world wars, Jawaharlal Nehru had a radical vision: bridging the ideological differences of the East and the West, healing the growing rift between capitalist and communist, and creating ‘One World’ that would be free of empire, exploitation and war. Madame Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, Nehru’s sister, would lead the fight in and through the United Nations to turn all this into a reality. An electric orator and outstanding diplomat, she travelled across continents speaking in the voice of the oppressed and garnering support for her cause. The aim was to lay the foundation for global governance that would check uncontrolled state power, address the question of minorities and migrant peoples, and put an end to endemic poverty. Mahatma Gandhi’s legacy would go global.
Manu Bhagavan is Professor of History, Human Rights, and Public Policy at Hunter College and the Graduate Center-The City University of New York, where he is also Senior Fellow at the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies. He is author or editor of seven books, including the critically-acclaimed The Peacemakers (HarperCollins India 2012, Palgrave Macmillan 2013) and India and the Cold War (Penguin India and UNC Press, 2019). His newest book, forthcoming in December 2023 from Penguin/Viking India, is a biography of Madame Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, one of the most important and celebrated women of the twentieth century. Manu is the recipient of a 2006 fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies and more recently has received Hunter’s 2023 Presidential Award for Excellence in Scholarship. He has been interviewed for several documentaries and was featured in a skit on the Not the White House Correspondent’s Dinner, part of the satirical television program Full Frontal with Samantha Bee. In 2023, he also served as a judge for the PEN Literary Awards in the category of biography. Manu appears regularly in the media to discuss current affairs. Follow @ManuBhagavan on Twitter!
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
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
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
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
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
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 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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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
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.”
