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Disarmament Education
Resources and Tools
For a history of disarmament education, read: Edith
Ballantyne and Felicity Hill, "Lessons
from past UN disarmament education efforts," Disarmament
Forum, Geneva: United Nations Institute for Disarmament
Research, 2001.
Reaching
Critical Will's Disarmament Education Kit is an education
toolbox for activists around the world. It provides basic
fact sheets and background information on a range of nuclear
issues for activists to use as tools in broader education
work on the nuclear industry.
Hague
Appeal for Peace is an international network of organizations
and individuals dedicated to sowing the seeds for the abolition
of war and making peace a human right, which believes that
the most sustainable way to achieve these goals is to integrate
peace education into the life of families, communities, and
curricula. Their most recent publications include Peace
and Disarmament Education: Changing Mindsets to Reduce Violence
and Sustain the Removal of Small Arms, and Peace
Lessons from Around the World.
Peace
Boat US is a non-governmental and non-profit organization
working to promote peace, human rights, equitable and sustainable
development, and respect for the environment throughout the
United States and the world through international educational
programs, including onboard conferences, workshops, face-to-face
encounters, and field studies. Peace Boat US upholds The Hague
Agenda for Peace and Justice for the 21st Century, including
the promotion of the nonviolent prevention and resolution
of conflict among nations and peoples, and the development
of a culture of peace.
On Monday 15 October, the Office of Disarmament Affairs
and Department of Public Information launched a new
education website devoted to Disarmament
and Non-Proliferation Education. It is a part of the
UN
Cyberschoolbus website project which was created in 1996
as the online education component of the Global Teaching and
Learning Project whose mission is to promote education from
kindergarten to grade 12 or the equivalent about the United
Nations and international issues on its agenda. The teaching
material initially focuses on the issues of nuclear disarmament,
small arms and light weapons, landmines, and child soldiers.
It provides a host of education activities and curriculum
for the use of teachers in the classroom or by students for
independent studies.
UN Expert Panel on
Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Education
Secretariat
Background Documents
Recommended Reading
‹ Documents
from the First Meeting of the Panel - April 2001 -
New York
‹ Documents
from the Second Meeting of the Panel - August 2001
- Monterey
‹ Documents
from the Third Meeting of the Panel- March 11-15 2002
- Geneva
NEW
Reaching Critical Will's Disarmament Education Kit
The United Nations General Assembly established
a 10 member Governmental Expert Panel on Disarmament and Non-Proliferation
Education in December of 2000.
A group of governmental experts with the assistance of the
Department for Disarmament Affairs considered the area over
a period of two years and prepared a report which was circulated
by the UN Secretary-General in August 2002 (A/57/124
available at http://disarmament.un.org/education/).
The report focuses mostly on recommendations for governments,
UN bodies, academic institutions and civil society. A positive
trend in the study was that it developed extensive collaboration
between different departments of the UN, governments and NGOs,
and this will continue as these sectors work together to implement
the recommendations.
Secretariat of the Group of Governmental
Experts
Monitoring, Database and Information Branch
Department for Disarmament Affairs
United Nations New York, New York 10017
Room 3151 A
Tel: (212) 963-4620 or 7714
Fax: (212) 963-1121
Email: cassandra@un.org,
alip@un.org
Also see website
http://www.un.org/Depts/dda/education/index.html
The United Nations General Assembly established a 10 member
Governmental Expert Panel on Disarmament and Non-Proliferation
Education in December of 2000. This Committee of experts report
to the General Assembly in September 2002.
Summary & photos on the Department for Disarmament Affairs
website from the UN meeting:
http://cns.miis.edu/cns/activity/un/index.htm
‹
Background Documents from the UN
l GA Resolution
establishing the Governmental Expert Panel on Disarmament
and Non-Proliferation Education 55/33 E
l Members
of the Governmental Expert Panel
l Areas
of Emphasis for each Expert
l Briefing
Note # 1 Prepared by the UN's Department for Disarmament Affairs
for NGOs
l Briefing
Note # 2 Prepared by the UN's Department for Disarmament Affairs
for NGOs
l Briefing
Note # 3 Prepared by the UN's Department for Disarmament Affairs
for NGOs
l Disarmament
Education and Campaign Resolutions from the General Assembly,
1983 - 1997
‹ Recommended
Reading on this subject
l Austrian Development Cooperation,
Demobilisation, Disarmament and Reintegration, Specialisation
Course Mozambique, July 8-15, 2001. Schlaining Working Papers.
http://www.aspr.ac.at
l Disarmament Forum - Special
Focus on Disarmament Education, http://www.unog.ch/UNIDIR/e-df.htm
l Green, Robert. The Naked Nuclear
Emperor. The Disarmament and Security Centre: New Zealand,
2000.
l International Bureau of Education
(UNESCO), Prospects. Quarterly Review of Comparative Education,
http://www.ibe.unesco.org
l International Bureau of Education
(UNESCO), Mine Awareness Education, A Country Review and Curriculum
guidelines for Bosnia, by Pamela Baxter, Jennifer Fisher and
Gonzalo Retamal http://www.ibe.unesco.org
l Potter, William. A
New Agenda for Disarmament and Nonproliferation Education,
(Monterey Institute of International Studies)
l UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR),
Learning fo a Future: Refugee Education in Developing Countries,
2001. http://www.unhcr.ch
l United Nations Association
of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (UNA-UK) and the Verification
Research, Training and Information Centre (VERTIC) have produced
a new educational pamphlet explaining the role of verification
of arms control and disarmament in an accessible and friendly
publication.
http://www.una-uk.org/Disarmament/publications/Verification%20flyer.pdf
or http://www.vertic.org/veri_pamphlet.pdf
l Final
document of the World Congress on Disarmament Education, UNESCO
Headquarters, Paris 9-13 June, 1980
l Zohl de Ishtar, ed. Pacific
Women Speak Out for Independence and Denuclearisation. Joint
publication by WILPF Aotearoa, the Disarmament and Security
Centre (Aotearoa) and Pacific Connections (Australia).
Disarmament Education
at the First Committee
The First
Committee Monitor covers the topic of Disarmament
and Peace Education each year at the General Assembly First
Committee on Disarmament and International Security:
Though there was no draft resolution on disarmament and non-proliferation
(DNP) education this year, its importance was stressed several
times by High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Sergio
Duarte, as well as by Japan, and was a prevalent issue in
First Committee side events. On 8 October, Duarte
commented that the Secretary-General’s (SG) Advisory
Board on Disarmament Matters 2007 report “encouraged
the SG to continue his efforts to raise public awareness of
DNP issues, including through initiatives in the field of
education.”
Last year in First Committee, Mexico introduced the draft
resolution A/C.1/61/L.30,
“United Nations study on disarmament and non-proliferation
education,” which was adopted by consensus. The resolution
followed-up on the milestone UN Expert Group on DNP Education,
authorized by UN
Resolution 55/33E of the General Assembly in 2000. After
two years of meetings and contributions to the study from
academics and activists from all over the world, the report
(A/57/124)
was submitted in 2002. In July 2006, the SG released a follow
up report reviewing the results of the implementation of the
recommendations to the study. The report concluded that there
is a great “interest” in DNP education, but that
funding is a persistent challenge.
Japan, one of the members of the 2002 UN Study on DNP education,
issued a statement at the Thematic Debate on DNP education.
Japan's
Ambassador Tarui highlighted some initiatives his country
has taken on DNP education, including a UN Disarmament Fellows
Program, and an annual UN-Japan co-sponsored conference on
disarmament issues in various cities throughout Japan. In
addition, at the 2007
nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Preparatory Committee,
Japan announced its decision to launch “New
Initiatives on Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Education,”
focused on disseminating information to a younger generation.
Some of the new and creative initiatives will range from holding
an international student debate on DNP, to using manga
or animation, a prominent part of Japanese pop culture, as
a tool for DNP Education.
On 15 October, an event was held by the Office
for Disarmament Affairs (ODA) and the Department
of Public Information to launch the new Disarmament
and Non-Proliferation portal on the UN's award-winning
Cyberschoolbus,
a website designed to help young people and their teachers
understand global issues. The event, chaired by Michael Cassandra
of ODA, included remarks by Duarte and an interactive presentation
by Dr. Kathleen Sullivan, the curriculum specialist for the
website. Dr. Sullivan stated, “the power of disarmament
education can not be underestimated and with this new web-portal
we’ll be able to effect education in many areas of the
world.” The website will initially focus on the issues
of nuclear disarmament, small arms and light weapons, landmines,
and child soldiers. The site will contain a toolkit for educators
and suggestions for activities such as Ask an Hibakusha,
which will allow a new generation of students and teachers
to make contact directly with survivors of the Hiroshima and
Nagasaki bombings. The launch of this site is a significant
step forward for DNP education within the UN system.
On 22 October, at another unique event held by the Global
Security Institute and the Secure
World Foundation in cooperation with the ODA, a documentary
by two 15 year-old filmmakers was screened. The young directors,
Steven Sotor and Trace Gaynor, became well known after their
film addressing nuclear weapons issues, Genie in a Bottle:
Unleashed, was shown during the 2005 NPT Review Conference.
This year at First Committee their latest film, The Final
Frontier: Explorers or Warriors? addressing the issue
of weapons in space, was screened. The film was made to educate
and to provoke discussion on this serious disarmament issue.
The event emphasized the potential of youth as agents of change
in the field of DNP education, and showed how these excellent
films can be used as tools to engage a young audience in DNP
issues.
On 16 October, Duarte
mentioned the ODA’s increased activity with intergovernmental
and non-governmental activities and stated that this involvement
was in sync with the General Assembly’s “emphasis
on the importance of DNP education efforts.” Civil society
applauds ODA’s great strides in DNP education. However,
there seems to be a lack of awareness among member states
of the importance of DNP education, as a disappointing number
of them mentioned education at all in their statements to
the First Committee this year. Member states and civil society
should increasingly take ownership of this integral aspect
of peacebuilding and disarmament, and follow the SG’s
recommendation of greater implementation and action. Until
DNP education becomes an aspect of every member state's agenda,
it will not be integrated into organizations and communities
at the local level, which is key to achieving global sustainable
peace.
See http://disarmament.un.org/education/study.html
for a full list of recommendations.
- Allison Boehm, Peace
Boat US
On Friday, October 21, the First Committee heard presentations
from and engaged in interactive discussion with NGOs on Disarmament
Education. Dr. Kathleen Sullivan and Dr. Peter Lucas, both
disarmament educators, gave presentations about education
work on nuclear weapons and small arms and light weapons,
respectively. During her presentation, Dr. Sullivan demonstrated
one of the interactive exercises or ‘thought experiments’
she uses in the classroom; one of the most engaging and heart-opening
demonstrations the First Committee has experienced in a long
time. Dr. Sullivan first requested the delegates to use their
imaginations “by listening to two sounds, which will
help us understand the firepower of the world’s nuclear
arsenal,” quoting Albert Einstein that “Imagination
is more important that knowledge.”
She dropped a single BB into a tin to represent the total
firepower of all the weapons used in World War II. “That
is all bullets, bombs, grenades and landmines; all the torpedoes
and conventional bombs; and the two new, nuclear weapons used
on Japan.” Dr. Sullivan then asked for quiet so the
First Committee could listen to the sound that represents
all the nuclear weapons that exist in the world today, 60
years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and poured 2,667 BBs into
the tin, creating a crackling explosive sound that went on
for several minutes. Some of the diplomats even closed their
eyes. After a moment of silence, Dr. Sullivan reminded the
Committee, “That sound represents the reality we all
live with. 2,667 World War IIs is equivalent to today’s
nuclear arsenal — approximately 31,000 nuclear weapons.
And it is important to know the facts, to ‘combat ignorance,
complacency and a culture of violence’ as the Secretary
General stated in the forward to the UN Study.”
The UN Expert Group on Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Education,
convened by Ambassador Miguel Marín-Bosch of Mexico,
was authorised by UN Resolution A/RES/55/33E of the General
Assembly in November 2000. It was the passion and commitment
of Ambassador Marín-Bosch and support of Mexico that
initiated the two-year study.
During that time there was a great deal of interaction between
the Expert Group, NGOs, educators, as well as members of the
UN family of organizations, including the
IAEA, CTBTO,
UNIDIR,
UNESCO, and others,
and not least the pivotal role played by the DDA
as the Secretariat of the study.
In October 2002, after two years of work by the Expert Group,
the report
from the Study was launched, and the General Assembly adopted
its 34 recommendations without a vote. When the study was
launched, Secretary-General Kofi Annan stated that "Disarmament
education seeks to inform and empower citizens to work with
their Governments for positive change. I hope that Governments,
the United Nations family, … non-governmental organisations
and others … will do their part to sustain the process
of consultation and co-operation started by the Group of Experts,
so that disarmament and non-proliferation education becomes
an integral — and natural — part of the education
of the next generation." (http://disarmament2.un.org).
Member States play an essential role in implementing this
hope. There are many recommendations that are specific to
Member States and require their support in the training of
not only the next generation but of current diplomats, parliamentarians,
peacekeepers and military personnel. As the Study indicates,
there is a need to “expand and improve disarmament and
non proliferation education and training in order to promote
disarmament and non proliferation” (VIII OP43). That
means to incorporate not only education about disarmament,
but education for disarmament. Also, the study notes that
“in order for the Department for Disarmament Affairs
to facilitate the implementation of the recommendations of
this study, the General Assembly is encouraged to allocate
adequate human and financial resources to the task.”
There are specific recommendations that Member States work
with NGOs and civil society, and provide financial support
for disarmament education initiatives. This year’s Draft
Resolution A/C.1/60/L.28,
encourages Member States to “undertake concrete activities
to implement” the recommendations of the Study. Several
states have contributed reports on disarmament education activities,
and others have collaborated with NGOs to develop new curricula,
particularly regarding small arms disarmament. Canada,
for instance, “supports [the] efforts of Reaching Critical
Will to ensure wide public access to national statements and
other documents emanating from meetings of UN disarmament
bodies.” The DDA is developing disarmament curricula
which will be posted on the UN’s Cyberschoolbus
website.
While it is heartening to see that this item is again on the
agenda of the First Committee, it is tragic to see that the
words that have been put forth year after year are not being
followed with action- specifically with a full-fledged commitment
to provide disarmament education with all the material and
human resources that this noble, indeed, necessary cause requires.
For with every dollar transferred from military expenditures
to the cause of disarmament education future generations may
indeed be saved from the “scourge of war”.
There are many ways to make the process of disarmament education
"integral" to the education of not only young people,
but to the whole community of humanity. Teaching people about
disarmament and non-proliferation, and letting them know that
there is a choice other than violence to resolve conflict,
is one step along the path called Permanent Peace.
See http://disarmament.un.org/education/study.html
for full list of recommendations.
- Dr. Kathleen Sullivan, Educators
for Social Responsibility
- Jennifer Nordstrom, Reaching
Critical Will
777 UN Plaza - 6th Floor - New York, NY - 10017 - Ph: 212.682.1265 - Fax: 212.286.8211 - info@reachingcriticalwill.org
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