Take Action index

Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)

Conference on Disarmament

General Assembly First Committee

UN Disarmament Commission

Special Session on Disarmament

Take Action!

Calendar of Disarmament Events: Find out what international diplomatic meetings and local grassroots actions are taking place - and join in.

Join WILPF: The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) is the world's oldest women's peace organization. Read a brief history of WILPF on the International website, and join the thousands of women peacemakers around the world.

Donate to RCW: Reaching Critical Will needs your financial help! If you are one of the thousands of NGOs, government representatives, UN staffers, academicians, or students that have grown to depend on Reaching Critical Will's services, please donate today!

Internship Opportunities at RCW: Internships are offered three times a year, in the winter/spring, summer, and autumn. We will begin accepting applications for summer internships on 12 May 2008.

Subscribe to Email Lists: Read about our e-mail lists and subscribe by sending an email to the Project Associate.

News Archive: Not subscribed to the e-mail lists? You can still read all the news updates from our General E-News list.

Disarmament and Arms Control Blogs: Follow informed discussions by some of the world's leading non-government disarmament and arms control experts for an alternative view of international politics:

DisarmamentActivist.org - initially conceived as an experiment with two main purposes - to encourage in-depth reflection and discussion about disarmament strategies, and particularly the role of social movements, and to provide a forum for perspectives on disarmament-related issues that are unlikely to be seen in mainstream outlets - this blog provides a slightly alternative channel for those who want it, sifting and sorting the daily deluge of electronic “information”.
Disarmament Insight - aimed at negotiators, policy wonks, activists, researchers and anyone curious about disarmament and human security, this blog is an unofficial element of a collaboration between the Geneva Forum and a project called "Disarmament as Humanitarian Action: Making Multilateral Negotiations Work" at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR).
Arms Control Wonk - started by Jeffrey Lewis (now of the New American Foundation) to "report items of interest that wouldn’t make it into the New York Times; place arms control related developments into context and correct lousy reporting; explore the foundations of arms control and other cooperative security strategies; and finally, to amuse myself and others."
Total Wonkerr - the personal blog of Paul Kerr, formerly of the Arms Control Association, for venting about non-proliferation issues.
Verification - the personal blog by Andreas Persbo of VERTIC about a variety of nuclear verification issues.

Other Groups and Campaigns: Find out what other civil society groups are doing and join their campaigns.

Abolition 2000: Global Network to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons - Abolition 2000 is a network of over 2000 organizations in more than 90 countries world wide working for a global treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons.
Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space - The Global Network is an international organization acting to keep space for peace against the growing trend of space weaponization.
International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) - ICAN is an initiative of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), a federation of medical professionals in 60 countries. ICAN focuses on the roots of the nuclear weapons problem - the continued possession of nuclear weapons by a small minority of countries who risk their use by design, accident, miscalculation, or by terrorists, and whose weapons are an incentive to others to also become nuclear armed. The campaign aims to achieve a Nuclear Weapons Convention to ban the development, possession and use of nuclear weapons.

Alternative Media: The mainstream media presents a biased scew on current events, including those related to disarmament and non-proliferation. Check out some of these alternative media sources, and search for your own local, independent news sources for a different perspective on the world.

ZNet - An online, very progressive magazine and community of alternative news, opinions, discussion forums, and resources.
CommonDreams.org - An eclectic mix of politics, issues and breaking news with an emphasis on progressive perspectives.

Disarmament Education: Tools for activists, students and diplomats to educate ourselves on disarmament issues.

Ways to stay active on your own:
‹ get informed
‹ engage your government
‹ demonstrate
‹ engage your media

1. Get informed so you can help raise awareness and educate others

A major hindrance activists face when trying to educate about the nuclear age is fear. But our role is to demystify nuclear weapons, to demonstrate that there are many realistic contributions that anyone can take to effect the change necessary to see an end to this industry. Becoming informed is the first step.

- Read widely -- for a bibiolography of books, articles, magazines and websites, click here

- Watch videos -- for a list with links and ordering information, click here

- Join an organistion for face to face discussion and action -- for a list of organizations, click here

- Join Reaching Critical Will email updates list -- click here

- Order Reaching Critical Will publications --click here

2. Engage your governmental representatives

Who represents you? Find out at our data base of governmental decision makers: click here

- Write to your representatives. Ask a specific question. Demand a response. For more information on writing a letter, click here

- Send information, research, testimony to your representatives.

- Organize a meeting with your representatives, listen to their opinion on nuclear issues, share yours.

- Organize follow up meetings on any number of topics.

3. Demonstrate!

Organizing a successful demonstration involves many elements, including:

- identifying the right time, place and coherent messages and analysis;

- often, seeking a permit from public and police authorities;

- advertising and networking, attracting as many people as possible;

- filling your programme with a balance of serious, and up-beat entertaining elements;

- writing a press release, following up and hopefully getting interviews and coverage in radio, print and TV media;

- if your action is an arrestable one, follow up legal support for those arrested will be necessary, so engaging legal support should be built into the planning process.

4. Engage your media, make your own media

- notice the correspondents in the print, radio and tv media covering nuclear or foreign policy matters

- build a data base of media contacts;

- keep a select group of journalists, or your entire list, informed of your activities and analysis of events and developments in this field.

Many mainstream media agencies are subsidiaries of military corporations. These agencies are never going to give positive media coverage to groups and messages that challenge their power.

CREATE YOUR OWN MEDIA, newsletters, radio shows, video documentaries, email lists, webpages.

Examples of Actions: See what other creative members of civil society have been up to:

Citizens Weapons Inspections: While the US and UK are having a hard time finding weapons of mass destruction, citizens all over the world are finding vast stockpiles - right in their own backyard. Click here for a great map of the world's WMD stockpiles from Greenpeace.
Nuclear Truth Commission: On May 1st 2000, during the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, Reaching Critical Will staged a Nuclear Truth Commission to further disclose knowledge and personal experience of our collective nuclear legacy. We accomplished this by creating a public forum for former military personnel, nuclear scientists and workers, and representatives from downwind and indigenous communities — to tell their nuclear stories. (from the Introduction by Dr. Kathleen Sullivan)
NGO Strategy Summit: In October, 2002, WILPF hosted a Strategy Summit for NGOs and UN staffers to discuss the current political climate for disarmament, to reassess the obstacles, the challenges, and to identify political openings.