Programme - AMC Conference 2026

Participants:

• Grant Christopher – Co-Programme Director, VERTIC
• Kim Westerich-Fellner – Postdoctoral researcher, Forschungszentrum Jülich
• Robert E. Kelley – Consultant, Alva Myrdal Centre; and member of AMC’s Working Group on Technical Verification and Monitoring

Chair: Cecilia Gustavsson, Associate professor, Uppsala University; and member of AMC’s Working Group on Technical Verification and Monitoring

Co-chair: Peter Andersson, Senior lecturer, Uppsala University; and leader of AMC’s Working Group on Technical Verification and Monitoring

Venue: Lecture Hall IX

Group of Scientific and Technical Experts on Nuclear Disarmament Verification

by Grant Christopher and Noel Stott

On 31 October 2025, the UN’s First Committee adopted draft resolution (A/C.1/80/L.59) to establish the Group of Scientific and Technical Experts on Nuclear Disarmament Verification (GSTE-NDV) within the United Nations. Adopted with majority of 167 Member States and two against (Russia and the USA), the resolution requests the Secretary-General to select the Group’s 21 members through a wide call for nominations, giving due regard to technical expertise, gender balance and geographical spread. The draft will go before the full UNGA in early December where it is expected to also be voted on and endorsed. Spearheaded by Brazil and Norway, the Group is scheduled to start its work in January 2027 to identify and consider scientific and technical challenges and possible approaches to nuclear disarmament verification in terms of tools, techniques, processes and procedures. Importantly, it is envisaged that the Group will also have a role in disarmament verification education and capacity-building. Civil society, academics and research communities developing solutions to the challenges posed by NDV have a unique opportunity to share their proposed toolbox of possible procedures and technologies in a structured manner and with the wider UN membership.

This presentation will discuss the origin of the GSTE-NDV concept and what value its proponents consider it will have in the context of other work on nuclear disarmament and the wider geopolitical environment. We will then outline key questions about the GSTE-NDV, including its modalities, format and reporting structures. We will also examine similarly structured panels for applicable lessons learned for the development of multilateral nuclear disarmament verification capabilities. Finally, we will outline food-for-thought options and recommendations.

Introducing EXPAND: an Expert Panel on Nuclear Disarmament Verification

by Kim Westerich-Fellner and Michael Biontino

Verification will be essential to the credibility and effectiveness of any future nuclear disarmament agreement, providing confidence that states are fulfilling their obligations. At the same time, the deteriorating global security environment and an increasingly unstable international order provide both urgency and a unique opportunity to advance the field of nuclear disarmament verification (NDV). When political momentum for disarmament emerges, it will be decisive that states can draw on readily available tools as they negotiate and design their verification regime.

In this context, the recent UN General Assembly resolution establishing a Group of Scientific and Technological Experts (GSTE), expected to begin its mandate in 2027, offers an unparalleled opportunity to accelerate progress in NDV while broadening state participation and strengthening capacity-building.

Against this background, we introduce the newly established non-governmental Expert Panel on Nuclear Disarmament Verification (EXPAND). EXPAND convenes leading international experts to assess existing and emerging NDV technologies and mechanisms, identify gaps, and outline future research needs. By providing a scientifically grounded and complementary body of analysis, and by beginning this work well ahead of the GSTE’s 2027 start, the Panel aims to support the GSTE in building on this foundation efficiently within its available time and resources.

Irreversible Disablement as a Prelude to Disarmament

by Robert E. Kelley, Linus Hägg and Peter Andersson

Achieving timely and credible nuclear disarmament would benefit from approaches that introduce verified reductions in warhead usability early in the disarmament timeline. While dismantlement and final disposition of fissile material constitute major steps toward irreversibility, they can occur late in the process, leaving a period during which redeployment risks remain. This study proposes a technically plausible method for the early disablement of modern nuclear warheads, implemented prior to formal dismantlement and intended to rapidly render the warhead no longer a militarily useful object.

The proposed approach focuses on warheads employing tritium-boosted plutonium primaries. The method exploits the existing gas transfer system used for tritium injection by replacing the tritium reservoir with ordinary hydrogen or deuterium gas. Injection of hydrogen into the plutonium pit is expected to induce rapid hydriding and formation of plutonium hydride, resulting in swelling, pulverisation, and relocation of fissile material within the hollow pit geometry. The resulting degradation is argued to irreversibly disrupt the primary stage, and consequently the secondary thermonuclear stage, without requiring intrusive access to sensitive weapon components.

The technical basis and verification implications of the proposed disablement process are discussed qualitatively, together with preliminary neutron transport simulations. These simulations indicate only modest changes in neutron multiplication following partial hydriding of the pit, suggesting no immediate criticality safety concerns under the simplified assumptions employed. Additional simulations of externally measured neutron spectra did not reveal statistically significant observable changes for the simulated degree of hydriding.

The potential role of early disablement measures in improving the timeliness and credibility of nuclear disarmament is discussed together with limitations, safety considerations, and verification challenges. While applicability is expected to vary across warhead classes and national constraints, the concept may nevertheless provide a practical means of rapidly and verifiably reducing operational nuclear stockpiles while allowing additional time for subsequent dismantlement verification activities.

This panel will examine how the use and testing of nuclear weapons shape and intensify global climate and environmental risks. With a focus on the climatic consequences of nuclear war, the discussion highlights potential outcomes, such as severe atmospheric soot injections, regional to global cooling, disrupted precipitation patterns, and major impacts on agriculture, food security and the ocean. The long-term environmental and health effects of nuclear testing—radioactive contamination, damaged ecosystems, and intergenerational health burdens—are addressed as part of the broader planetary legacy of nuclear technologies.

The panel will also explore how these risks intersect with a warming world and with emerging perspectives in climate medicine. This includes how combined radiological and climate-related stressors affect human health, the vulnerabilities of health systems under cascading crises, and the challenges of delivering care in environments shaped by both climate disruption and nuclear hazards.

Bringing together insights from climate science, environmental health, and complex systems research, the panel aims to deepen understanding of how nuclear conflict and nuclear testing influence the climate and human well-being, and how these risks compound existing climate-related instabilities.

Participants:

• Andreas Vilhelmsson – Associate professor, Lund University
• Cheryl Harrison – Assistant Professor, Louisiana State University
• Victor Galaz – Associate Professor, Stockholm Resilience Centre

Chair: Josefin Lind – Secretary General, Swedish Physicians against Nuclear Weapons

Venue: Lecture Hall IV

Participants:

• Daihan Cheng – Graduate Research Assistant, James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies
• Sara Al-Sayed – Kendall Fellow, Union of Concerned Scientists
• Stephen Herzog – Professor, Middlebury Institute; and member of AMC’s Working Group on Negotiations
• Ying Li – Project Associate, Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue
  

Chair & discussant: Justin Canfil – Assistant Professor, Carnegie Mellon University; and member of AMC’s Working Group on AI governance

Venue: Lecture Hall XI (no live streaming)

Ensuring Meaningful Human Control of Military AI: Risks, Crisis Dynamics, and Governance Pathways

by Ying Li and Daihan Cheng

The rapid integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into military command and control is generating risks that extend far beyond technical failure or bias. In high-stakes environments, particularly crises with extreme time pressure and uncertainty, automation bias, opaque AI reasoning, and algorithmic complexity can undermine deliberate strategic judgment, leading to trust dilemma and decision crisis.

Scholarship in this area commonly calls for “meaningful human control” and “human-in-the-loop” arrangements as core safeguards. But these concepts are rarely defined with details: what specific elements are they controlling (data inputs, internal model behavior, outputs, or execution authority)? Who can be capable of using the legitimate authority at each point to guarantee the control meaningful(operators, commanders, policymakers, or designers)? Can human oversight retain real influence when systems function at speeds and levels of opacity that exceed human cognitive limits?

This paper offers a systematic conceptual analysis that breaks down the military decision cycle into distinct points of control and identifies the actors best positioned to exercise authority at each. Focusing on crisis conditions, it assesses whether human intervention can remain substantive amid severe temporal and cognitive constraints. The analysis concludes by providing a more robust and operational understanding of meaningful human control and advances a practical framework for human-AI decision-making that safeguards human judgment and accountability while retaining the analytical advantages AI can deliver.

Clouded Vision: Unpacking Bias in AI-driven Nuclear Weapons Monitoring

by Sara Al-Sayed

The lack of insight of adversaries into one another’s nuclear weapons arsenals amid rising geopolitical tensions and eroding arms control might drive states to rely heavily on near-persistent remote surveillance leveraging advances in satellite remote sensing. The massive amounts of data generated by multiple heterogeneous satellite systems will necessitate the use of automated workflows and artificial intelligence (AI) for data fusion and analysis. However, the resulting computer vision (CV) workflows are susceptible to significant bias potential across the entire lifecycle, from model training to deployment. Biases arise from three primary sources: workflow design trade-offs, human analyst interpretation of CV inferences, and inherent biases in image analysis itself. The complex interaction of these three bias sets in nuclear weapons monitoring is critically underappreciated in the current AI–national security discourse. This paper addresses this gap by introducing an adequate bias typology, annotating biases along a CV workflow developed by the author, and examining user interactions. The findings have vital implications for understanding human agency in AI systems and promoting meaningful information and data exchange for nuclear risk reduction in the AI era.

Inextricable Existential Risks: Nuclear Weapons, Artificial Intelligence, and Climate Change

By Stephen Herzog

Scholars of nuclear disarmament often struggle to secure research funding and to publish their work. This is due in large part to the fact that many segments of the policy and academic world have settled on living with the bomb and nuclear deterrence. At the same time, funders and journals are paying increasingly close attention to existential risks posed by artificial intelligence (AI) and climate change. But this paper demonstrates that these are not distinct agendas: AI and climate risks are now fundamentally inseparable from the nuclear condition. Using policy and risk analysis, it shows how these threats to humanity are linked through shared infrastructures, crisis decision-making, and governance vacuums. It outlines a feedback loop wherein efforts to make populations safer can create unintended consequences, opening new pathways to catastrophe. Moving forward, nuclear disarmament should therefore be a central focus of global risk governance. The paper concludes with recommendations for researching disarmament in an era when existential risks are on the agenda but harrowing nuclear realities remain oddly assumed as permanent and even acceptable.

Participants:

• Julian Schäfer – Research Associate, RWTH Aachen University
  
• Robin Möser – Postdoctoral Researcher, Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF)
  

Chair: Dylan Spaulding – Senior Scientist, Union for Concerned Scientists

Venue: Lecture Hall IX

Verification as forming and performing of knowledge infrastructures

by Julian Schäfer, Linda Ostermann, and Stefan Böschen

The questions of non-proliferation of nuclear material, the implementation of nuclear weapons test bans or nuclear arms control have always been questions with a high demand of knowledge. Knowledge for verification is determined by the fact that nuclear verification takes place in a setting which is inescapably political and defining the boundaries of what can and cannot be known. This means that not only the production of knowledge for verification, but also its certification, storage and use are negotiated against the backdrop of potentially diverging national interests. However, the specific epistemic character of this kind of knowledge organization for verification is not yet sufficiently understood. This paper therefore suggests using the concept of knowledge infrastructure to interpret the particular character of how knowledge is collected and stabilized in verification regimes.

To contribute to a more nuanced understanding of (nuclear) verification regimes, the contribution proposes a concept with four dimensions building on the work of Edwards and Bowker/Star that distinguishes technologies, classifications, organizations and institutions of knowledge infrastructure. Selected cases to test the plausibility of the conceptual considerations are the CTBT and the NPT. By illuminating the epistemic characteristics of knowledge organization for verification, this paper contributes to a more nuanced understanding of (nuclear) verification regimes.

Societal Verification and Nuclear Proliferation: Opportunities and Challenges of an alternative Approach to Verification

by Robin Möser

Societal verification as an idea emerged after the US used nuclear weapons against Japan in the late 1950s. While there is no fixed definition behind the concept, in broad terms, it postulates societal participation in nuclear verification, explicitly calling on scientists, whistleblowers, and the broader public. However, over the years, the technical means available to society have changed tremendously. Most recently, connected to the “datafication” of everyday life and easier access to “open source” information such as satellite images. This trend raises not only methodological questions, but also issues of access, representation, and inherent bias in the analysis of collected verification-relevant data. Most importantly, the question of how these alternative data streams can be integrated and merged with “traditional” sources of information to advance confidence-building measures. This is especially relevant given the current crumbling of arms control agreements and the future role verification can play. These are topics about very little is known to date, although central aspects such as interpretive authority and geostrategic implications are playing an increasingly important role. This contribution, using interviews with IAEA safeguards analysts and NGO experts, provides an overview of current challenges and opportunities of societal verification, to advance development of this verification approach.

A panel discussion on nuclear justice will shed light on the often overlooked human and environmental consequences of the nuclear sector, from uranium mining to nuclear weapons testing. In Sweden, the issue will become particularly relevant as plans to reintroduce uranium mining move forward, potentially affecting both the environment and Indigenous rights. Some potential deposits will be located in Sápmi, where Sámi communities will continue to face pressures from land exploitation and climate change. The panel will discuss how uranium exploration and future extraction may reinforce historical patterns of colonialism and unequal power relations.

Internationally, the panel will also highlight how nuclear weapons tests and radioactive waste have been—and will likely continue to be—placed in areas inhabited by minorities, Indigenous peoples, or formerly colonized communities, leading to disproportionate health risks, land loss, and limited influence over decision-making. By presenting such examples, the panel will position the Swedish case within a global framework and explore how justice, responsibility, and ethical considerations should guide upcoming decisions.

Ultimately, the panel will provide deeper insights and create space for a broader conversation about how the costs and risks of nuclear technologies will be distributed—and who will bear them.

Participants:

• Cecilia Gustavsson – Associate professor, Uppsala University; and member of AMC’s Working Group on Technical Verification and Monitoring
• Lars-Anders Baer – Lawyer and reindeer herder, Indigenous Peoples Rights International (IPRI)
• Yerdaulet Rakhmatulla* – Founder & CEO, JASA; and Participant, Youth4Disarmament Forum
  

Chair: Josefin Lind – Secretary General, Swedish Physicians against Nuclear Weapons

Venue: Lecture Hall IV

Participants:

• Daihan Cheng – Graduate Research Assistant, James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies
  
• Ying Li – Project Associate, Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue

Chair: Nicolas Ayala Arboleda – Leadership team member, International Student/Young Pugwash

Discussant: Mersini Markopoulou – Consultant

Venue: Lecture Hall IX

Eroding Assumptions of Stability: SSBNs, Emerging Technologies, and Undersea Governance

by Daihan Cheng

Sea-based nuclear forces, particularly ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs), have been considered one of the most stabilising elements of nuclear deterrence. This view rests on their presumed survivability and their role in ensuring a credible second-strike capability. Over time, this perception has interacted with intrinsic verification challenges, operational secrecy constraints, and deliberate strategic preferences for undersea ambiguity. As a result, sea-based nuclear forces have been only weakly and indirectly constrained by arms control and governance arrangements.

Recent developments place this long-standing arrangement under pressure. Advances in anti-submarine warfare, artificial intelligence, and maritime surveillance technologies, along with growing undersea competition among nuclear-armed states, are increasingly challenging the role of SSBNs as stabilisers and making the absence of governance more consequential.

This research examines these challenges at three interconnected levels. First, it assesses how new technologies affect assumptions about SSBN survivability. Second, it considers the implications for crisis stability and escalation risks. Third, it analyses the governance gap in managing undersea strategic competition. The research then explores institutional frameworks that might help manage emerging risks, while recognising the continued strategy of deliberate ambiguity.

Hypersonics, Countermeasures, and the Space Arms Control Crisis

by Ying Li

The emergence of highly maneuverable hypersonic weapons and the revival of the Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS) have created a strategic dilemma, shattering the effectiveness of traditional terrestrial missile defenses and early warning systems. The unavoidable countermeasure is the rapid deployment of complex orbital assets. States are accelerating the build-out of space-based countermeasures, including the Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor (HBTSS) and the ambitious Golden Dome defense plan, which mandates the placement of kinetic interceptors in orbit.

This paper argues that this defensive response will lead to a new, unconstrained space arms race. The reliance on orbital assets for fire-control tracking transforms them into critical, high-value targets, directly incentivizing the development and use of Anti-Satellite (ASAT) weapons, thereby elevating the risk of strategic conflict and catastrophic orbital debris generation. Furthermore, the compressed decision cycles inherent in the hypersonic engagement timeline erode strategic stability and heighten the potential for miscalculation. The study concludes that the speed, dual-use ambiguity, and evasion capabilities of this new technology have rendered existing frameworks, such as the Outer Space Treaty, inadequate. Urgent international efforts are required to establish verifiable arms control treaties and norms of behavior before the weaponization of the orbital environment becomes a permanent reality.

Current debates on security increasingly centre on defence spending, military capabilities and nuclear deterrence. Yet as security risks broaden and evolve, a central question emerges: is nuclear deterrence still credible today? Can conventional forces offer equally effective and even more sustainable deterrence? Should security be understood more broadly to include democratic resilience against polarisation and political destabilisation?

Basing the discussion on a new policy paper by the LSE Conflict and Civicness Research Group this roundtable examines how states can ensure safety and stability without relying on nuclear weapons. The paper contends that political threats to democracy are as serious as military ones and calls for robust conventional defence of frontline states alongside renewed efforts to strengthen social cohesion, human security, and the rights-based international order. The participants will discuss this and other key arguments of the policy paper and invite audience to exchange views on whether democratic resilience provides a safer and more effective foundation for European and global security than continued dependence on nuclear deterrence.

Participants:

• Benoît Pelopidas – Full Professor, Sciences Po
• Míla O’Sullivan* – Senior Researcher, Institute of International Relations Prague
• Sam Vincent – Research Associate, London School of Economics
  

Chair: Heljä Ossa – Research Associate, London School of Economics

Venue: Lecture Hall IV

Participants:

• Doğukan Cansin Karakus – Research Associate, Kiel University; and member of AMC’s Working Group on Sanctions
• Gilberto Marcos Antonio Rodrigues – Associate Professor, Federal University of ABC; and member of AMC’s Working Group on Sanctions
• Ian Fleming Zhou* – Dr; Nuclear Nonproliferation & Arms Control Policy Analyst, African Commission on Nuclear Energy
  

Chair & discussant: Armend Bekaj – Researcher, Uppsala University; and member of AMC’s Working Group on sanctions

Venue: Lecture Hall XI (no live streaming)

Blocking the Nuclear Ban: U.S. Coercion and Cross-National Responses to the TPNW

by Doğukan Cansin Karakus

Research on U.S. sanctions has largely focused on Washington’s coercive strategies for enforcing compliance with existing non-proliferation and disarmament regimes, particularly the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Much less attention has been given to how these tools are used to obstruct the emergence of new multilateral initiatives. This article addresses this gap by examining U.S. efforts to impede the development of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). It analyzes two waves of diplomatic pressure: unclassified letters sent in 2016 to NATO members and security partners warning that support for the TPNW would jeopardize alliance commitments and undermine extended deterrence, and bilateral letters in 2020 urging states that had signed or ratified the treaty to withdraw. Complementing this comparative analysis, the article employs process tracing to investigate Sweden, which supported launching TPNW negotiations but ultimately refrained from signing the treaty in 2017 following sustained U.S. pressure. Public opinion across NATO states is also examined, revealing significant gaps between societal support for the TPNW and governmental resistance. The findings contribute to sanction theory by demonstrating that negative sanctions can be used not only to enforce compliance with existing regimes but also to prevent the establishment of new nuclear disarmament instruments.

Foreign Policy of South American Countries on nuclear sanctions (1995-2025): Patterns and an overview.

by Gilberto Marcos Antonio Rodrigues

The article examines the foreign policies of South American countries and their patterns concerning sanctions related to nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, offering an overview of the last 30 years (1995–2025). Owing to the Tlatelolco regime, the region has maintained a firm commitment to a nuclear-weapon-free Latin America. The article also analyses these countries’ preference for multilateral and diplomatic solutions when addressing compliance with nuclear commitments. A central issue is the region’s resistance to engaging in unilateral economic sanctions. Nevertheless, although there has been a general trend favouring negotiation over coercive measures, national behaviour has varied, revealing a degree of “pragmatic diversity” in practice. The article illustrates this through specific cases, including: the Iranian nuclear programme; sanctions on North Korea (DPRK); and the responses to Russia following its 2022 invasion of Ukraine. In addition, cases involving sanctions directed at Latin American countries—such as Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua—provide further insight into the broader dynamics at play. Finally, the article identifies the key factors driving the region’s positions, including its legal and institutional legacy; adherence to the principles of non-intervention and sovereignty; domestic political and ideological debates; and strategic or autonomy concerns tied to the sanctioned states.

Breaking the Cartel: Enforcement Challenges and the Limits of Sanctions as Tools for Nuclear Compliance

by Ian Fleming Zhou

Sanctions remain one of the most visible instruments for ensuring compliance with nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation regimes. Yet, despite their proliferation, their enforcement has become increasingly fragmented. This policy paper conceptualizes sanction coalitions as cartels, collective enforcement arrangements that depend on cohesion, trust, and reciprocal restraint among sanctioning states.

The paper argues that the effectiveness of sanctions regimes is contingent not merely on the severity of measures imposed, but on the integrity of the enforcing cartel itself. In the current geopolitical environment marked by deepened Sino-Russian cooperation, and the normalization of economic ties among sanctioned states the sanctioning cartel is breaking down. Using case studies of the U.S.-led sanctions on North Korea and Iran, the paper explores how external factors such as geopolitical realignment, competing economic interests, and alternative financial architectures undermine enforcement coherence and erode the credibility of sanctions as compliance mechanisms.

By reframing sanctions enforcement as a problem of cartel stability, the paper provides both a theoretical lens and a policy-oriented critique. It concludes with recommendations for reconstituting enforcement frameworks that are adaptive to multipolar realities and capable of maintaining collective leverage in pursuit of disarmament objectives.

CBRN disinformation increasingly shapes how crises escalate and how states interpret risk. This roundtable will approach the phenomenon of CBRN disinformation through a historical lens, cross-sectoral and gender insights and contemporary case analysis with a view on conflict escalation impact. It will also provide countering options usable in multilateral and other settings. First, the discussion will draw on historic information operations that continue to inform the logic of emerging disinformation. It will then outline how CBRN narratives can be designed and circulated across information ecosystems, and how they impact perception and influence behaviour. Recent examples, including cases from the Ukraine war, will demonstrate how such narratives function as elements of hybrid warfare. The final contribution will present mechanisms that help support decision-makers in international CBRN fora in identifying and countering disinformation through anticipatory analysis and engagement (prebunking), early detection and debunking and resilience planning. Together the presentations will offer a coherent set of methods for understanding and countering CBRN disinformation as a strategic challenge within the non-proliferation and disarmament landscape.

Participants:

• Anne Elizabeth Sundelson – Research Scientist, Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security
• Gemma Bowsher* – Senior Research Associate, King's College London
• Raymond Gough – Research Analyst, Open Nuclear Network

Chair: Valeriia Hesse – Research Analyst, Open Nuclear Network

Venue: Lecture Hall IX

Participants:

• Giacomo Cassano – PhD Candidate, Uppsala University; and member of AMC’s Working Groups on Negotiations and AI governance
• Ramesh Balakrishnan* – Independent Researcher, MA Alumnus, Norman Paterson School of International Affairs (NPSIA), Carleton University
• Salman Asghar – Student, Air University, Islamabad
  

Chair & discussant: Sophia Hatz – Associate Professor, Uppsala University; and leader of AMC’s Working Group on AI governance

Venue: Lecture Hall IV

Applying LLMs to Political Challenges in Nuclear Verification

by Giacomo Cassano and Amritanshu Prasad

This paper investigates whether large language models (LLMs) can be applied to help negotiators overcome persistent political obstacles to agreeing on verification provisions in nuclear arms control. It starts from the premise that verification is the linchpin of credible agreements and often the practical litmus test of feasibility. The study consolidates classic and contemporary scholarship to distill the core bargaining dilemmas surrounding verification—centred on transparency, secrecy, security and trust—and then examines how LLMs might mitigate them in practice. Methodologically, the paper combines (i) LLM-assisted treaty co-drafting using authentic historical materials to generate verification clauses at specified negotiation phases, with automated comparisons to actual treaty text; (ii) LLM drafting for contemporary and fictional scenarios, evaluated via computational quality metrics and structured, dimension-specific scoring (clarity, enforceability, coverage, balance, consistency); and (iii) expert assessments by former negotiators, legal specialists and scholars. Finally, semi-structured interviews probe expert perceptions of both the dilemmas and the plausibility, benefits and risks of LLM enabled solutions. The contribution is a theoretically motivated, empirically tractable framework to evaluate LLMs as aids to negotiators for designing verification provisions in arms control.

Algorithmic Nuclear Disarmament: The risks, challenges and opportunities of AI-enhanced verification

by Ramesh Balakrishnan

Nuclear Disarmament verification (NDV) faces significant challenges amid escalating geopolitical tensions. The emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) presents new opportunities to strengthen and modernize verification processes that have traditionally relied on physical tools such as radiation detection systems, tamper-indicating seals, unique identifiers, material accounting tools, on-site inspections, and environmental sampling. Non-physical measures like remote sensing and satellite imagery also play a vital role. While these conventional tools remain central to NDC verification, AI can enhance their efficiency and reliability when applied judiciously.

This paper will answer the following questions: Does the global security condition hinder nuclear disarmament? What is the current state of NDV? What are the risks and opportunities of using AI in verification? Can Algorithmic disarmament modernize verification? The paper will provide an overview of NDV as it stands today, and examine algorithmic disarmament using mini case studies focused on the NPT (1968) and TPNW (2017). It will identify AI models and methodologies most suitable for this purpose and assess the associated risks, challenges and opportunities of applying these models. It will illustrate current verification mechanisms, present an overview of AI models that could be leveraged for NDV verification, discuss emerging AI use cases for verification, and outline AI safety and governance measures that could help institutions harness AI’s potential in NDV verification while mitigating risks.

AI-driven predictive analytics in arms control

by Salman Asghar

Arms control agreements are vital for global stability but frequently fail due to complex challenges, including difficulties in verifying compliance and deep-seated mistrust among states. The increasing complexity of technology, particularly digital advancements like Artificial Intelligence (AI), further complicates verification and adaptation. This paper explores how AI-driven predictive analytics could offer a transformative approach to address these issues. By leveraging AI capabilities to analyze vast datasets, including historical treaty performance, state behaviors, and technological developments; predictive analytics can forecast potential points of failure, such as non-compliance or negotiation breakdowns. This provides earlier warnings and insights into vulnerabilities. AI can also enhance verification through automated monitoring and anomaly detection, supporting risk assessment. Such data-driven insights can inform treaty design, helping negotiators establish stronger provisions like more robust verification mechanisms. Ultimately, the use of AI-driven predictive analytics has the potential to enhance the stability and longevity of arms control agreements by enabling preemptive measures and increasing transparency.

Participants:

• Cecilia Gustavsson – Associate professor, Uppsala University; and member of AMC’s Working Group on Technical Verification and Monitoring
• Fabian Unruh – Doctoral Researcher, Peace Research Institute Frankfurt
  
• Sofia Brander – Scientist, Federal Office for Radiation Protection
• Yan-Jie Schnellbach – Postdoctoral Researcher, Technische Universität Darmstadt
  

Chair: Grant Christopher, Co-Programme Director, VERTIC

Co-chair: Julien de Troullioud de Lanversin, Assistant Professor, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Venue: Lecture Hall IX

Leveraging operational records for verification: A comparative study of heterogeneity and commonalities in nuclear reactor archives

by Cecilia Gustavsson, Fabian Unruh, Peter Andersson, Malte Göttsche

Nuclear archaeology aims at verifying the completeness of fissile material declarations in potential future arms control and disarmament agreements by reconstructing past production of nuclear weapons-usable materials, such as plutonium and highly enriched uranium. Several studies have explored how scrutinizing archives of nuclear reactors could be used for verifying their operational history. Both descriptive and quantitative analyses have been conducted on certain archives of decommissioned reactors. Having been operated in different countries, under changing legal frameworks and at different times, the heterogeneity of nuclear reactor archives poses a significant challenge for the generalization of developed verification techniques but has received only limited attention in the existing studies.

We approach this issue by comparing archives of two peacefully used nuclear reactors. The data found in the archives of the German research reactor Mehrzweckforschungsreaktor Karlsruhe (MZFR) and the Swedish commercial power plant Ågesta - design information, physical measurements, fuel movements and specifications, power and burnup calculations - are classified and analyzed for commonalities and differences. This work presents the results of the comparison, identifies challenges of generalizing analysis methods for nuclear reactor archives and contributes to developing robust nuclear verification tools.

Atmospheric krypton-85 measurements and their value in monitoring plutonium reprocessing

by Sofia Brander, J. Ole Ross, Andreas Bollhöfer, Sabine Schmid, Martina Konrad, Moritz Kütt

Reprocessing of used nuclear fuel releases large quantities of the radioactive noble gas krypton-85 into the atmosphere. Countries use reprocessing both to separate plutonium as a fissile material for nuclear weapons, and for civilian purposes. The monitoring of existing and detection of clandestine reprocessing facilities might thus be possible through measurements of atmospheric krypton-85.

Bundesamt für Strahlenschutz (BfS) has been operating a network of up to 26 locations in Germany and worldwide, with weekly air sampling going back to 1973. The samples are analyzed for krypton-85 at the BfS Noble Gas laboratory in Freiburg.

This contribution addresses two key aspects of krypton-85 monitoring.

First, the reconstruction of past plutonium production based on the krypton-85 baseline level. We present a comparison of historical measurements, historical production figures, and known Krypton-85 emissions.

Second, the capability to identify ongoing reprocessing activities from weekly variation and excess of krypton-85 activity concentrations in air samples. Atmospheric Transport Modelling (ATM) helps to determine the origin of these detections. We present an analysis of the data from 2005-2024 with backward ATM and discuss the possibility of distinguishing different emitters using the recent shutdown of the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plants as an example.

nuSENTRY: Antineutrino-based reactor monitoring for future SMR facilities

by Yan-Jie Schnellbach, Sarah Friedrich, Robin T. Mentel, Adhitya Sekhar

In the nuclear industry, new reactor deployment concepts see renewed international interest, especially "small modular reactors" (SMRs) with up to 300 MWe capacity per reactor, intended for sites with clusters of 4-12 reactors. Furthermore, under the SMR umbrella, there are further efforts to advance fuel and reactor technology, such as the use of HALEU (high-assay low-enrichment uranium), pebble fuel or molten salt fuels. These new deployment scenarios and reactor technologies pose new challenges for traditional safeguards approaches, due to the potential increase in facility sites and decreased accessibility.

One potential approach to complement existing safeguards is the use of a reactor's intrinsic antineutrino emissions: these subatomic particles generated during fission penetrate any shielding and carry direct information about a reactor's power and isotope composition.

The nuSENTRY research group investigates the feasibility of using a tonne-scale antineutrino detectors to measure and characterise compact nuclear reactors and investigate the possible use as safeguards device for SMR-based power plants as well as naval reactor monitoring scenarios. This is done by combining OpenMC-based reactor simulations of various compact reactors with GEANT4-based simulations of different antineutrino detection technologies.

Participants:

• Agata Bidas – PhD student, University of Innsbruck
  
• Fateme Fazel* – International Law Researcher
• Kudakwashe Mapako – Consultant, African Nuclear Disarmament Verification Research and Innovation Hub
• Mwania Muteti* – Founder, The Nuclaw Research Initiative; Law Student, The University of Nairobi
• Sally Longworth – Postdoctoral Researcher, Stockholm University

Chair: Augustine Ushie – Lawyer / MEP Research Assistant, European Parliament

Discussants: Jorge Alberto Lopez Lechuga, Mexican Diplomat, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mexico & Leila Hennaoui*, Associate Professor, University of Hassiba Ben Bouali-Chlef

Venue: Lecture Hall IV

Using Environmental Law to Support Nuclear Risk Reduction and Disarmament Verification

by Agata Bidas

The paper argues that international environmental law (IEL) offers an underutilized framework for advancing nuclear risk reduction and strengthening disarmament verification mechanisms.

Past nuclear testing has caused lasting environmental and human health issues, which shows the need for continued state responsibility. By leveraging core IEL principles, including the "no-harm" rule, due diligence, and intergenerational equity, the paper develops a novel legal framework for incorporating environmental obligations into current verification and risk mitigation strategies.

The analysis is strongly reinforced by the 2025 ICJ Advisory Opinion on the Obligations of States in Respect of Climate Change, which affirms strict due diligence obligations owed erga omnes and the relevance of the law of State Responsibility. These legal standards are directly linked to enforcing nuclear cleanup and accountability.

Using the case studies from the Marshall Islands and French Polynesia, the paper analyzes how ongoing obligations for remediation, long-term monitoring and reporting can strengthen both legal compliance and practical safeguards.

Finally, the paper shows how IEL provides a forward-looking legal foundation for establishing long-term environmental monitoring, technical inspections, and cleanup accountability, guiding states in fulfilling their ongoing responsibilities for both historical remediation and prospective disarmament verification.

Codifying Irreversibility: A Legal Approach to Achieve and Maintain Irreversible Nuclear Disarmament

by Fateme Fazel and Kudakwashe Mapako

This research examines the principle of irreversibility in disarmament from a legal perspective, specifically exploring whether it has become a rule of customary international law. While previous studies have focused on defining the principle or proposing mechanisms for its implementation, little attention has been given to its legal status. Determining whether irreversibility constitutes customary rule of international law is crucial to establish States’ obligations. This means nuclear weapon states would need to ensure their disarmament actions align with this principle, and other States could legally demand such compliance. To investigate this, the study analyzes state practice and Opinio juris by examining States’ statements and actions made in disarmament forums over time. It identifies trends in how states refer to and treat the principle, offering insight into their attitudes and legal beliefs. The research also considers when States believe irreversibility should be implemented—whether as an immediate or future obligation—which helps clarify their broader legal approach. While the study does not claim to reach a conclusive legal determination, it highlights the growing importance of the principle and recommends its codification to enhance legal clarity and enforcement, thus laying the groundwork for further legal and policy debate.

Inclusion or seclusion: Africa's nuclear law dilemma in the face of foreign dependency

by Mwania Muteti

As the universal quest for the embodiment of sustainable energy heightens, the African Continent is increasingly forging ahead in this pursuit that seeks to meet the needs of the present without jeopardizing the capacity of future generations. This comes up due to the rising demand for efficient energy amidst relentless climate change issues. One such pursuit that has emerged is nuclear energy and specifically the nuclear development for peaceful purposes. Although it may sound as a new topic in the African Jurisdiction, it is not, as nuclear development talks have since been there with the first development being the 1996-Regional-binding legal instrument, the Pelindaba Treaty which was signed in 1996 and ratified in 2009 that sought ,and continues, to establish Africa as nuclear weapon free zone thus promoting the peaceful use of nuclear energy. Nevertheless, as African Countries seek to establish nuclear regimes as part of the transformative energy shift, they seem to be unprepared and are building the edifice from the top downward in their establishment. As a result, the African countries that have begun the development have ended up forming nuclear regimes without proper legal and regulatory regimes hence hampering the formulation of coherent legal frameworks tailored to Africa’s unique realities. Most of them seem to be relying heavily on borrowed legislative models. With most of them going to the extremes of importing technical and legal expertise from First World Jurisdictions and the International Community, which in as much as it is not a vice, it not only widens the exclusion gap in International Nuclear Law but also leads to unrealistic nuclear regulations and exposes them to a capacity building shortcoming in the long run .This lack of stringent national & regional binding nuclear legislations subjects African Countries to compliance gaps. Further in addressing Africa’s unpreparedness, this research paper aims to examine the implementation of nuclear law in Africa , to discuss the challenges of nuclear law at the regional level and to problematize the involvement of foreign entities in the development of African nuclear regimes and how their involvement threatens the independence of the aforementioned regimes.

Where do we really stand? Broadening the analysis of the use of nuclear weapons in international law

by Sally Longworth

This presentation analyses the relationship between the regulation of nuclear weapons under disarmament law with other fields of international law that support those aims. The aim is to give context to developments within the global nuclear order to critically evaluate the impact of recent practice which calls into question the international legal regulation. Whilst State practice has called into question some of the fundamental norms of the international legal order, States have also reconfirmed their commitment against the use of nuclear weapons through the Pact for the Future 2024, amongst others. Developments within international human rights law, international humanitarian and international criminal law, amongst others, also provide important support to the norms established under disarmament law. A holistic understanding of the system of norms applicable to the use of nuclear warfare therefore gives fresh perspective to the impact of developments within disarmament law. Such understanding also helps us analyse the impacts in their broader context to take scope and determine where do we really stand – at the brink of a precipice, but with the ground under our feet, or is the house falling down around us?

Participants:

• Christine Leah – Fellow, National Institute for Deterrence Studies
• Peter Jones – Executive Director, Ottawa Dialogue; and member of AMC’s Working Group on Negotiations
• Ulrika Möller – Associate Professor, University of Gothenburg; and deputy leader of AMC’s Working Group on Negotiations

Chair: Isak Svensson – Professor, Uppsala University; and leader of AMC’s Working Group on Negotiations

Discussants: Rebecca Gibbons, Associate Professor, University of Southern Maine; and member of AMC’s Working Group on Negotiations & Camilla Orjuela, Professor, University of Gothenburg

Venue: Lecture Hall XI (no live streaming)

The Rocky Future of Arms Control

by Christine Leah and Frank A. Rose

The end of the Cold War brought about significant intellectual confusion over the role of nuclear weapons in international security. It also brought about significant confusion about the roles and relationship between arms control and disarmament. The impending demise of the bilateral US-Russian New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) treaty in February 2026 has sparked a debate among policy makers, strategists, and academics in both the Euro-Atlantic and Asia-Pacific regions about the potential trade-offs between deterrence and arms control, and indeed about the value of arms control in moderating nuclear threats both regionally and globally. However, current arguments for extending the treaty do not reflect the reality of a new tripolar nuclear superpower competition. This article explores historical debates on conventional and nuclear arms control in the pre-nuclear era in both Europe and the Asia-Pacific. Arms control may have a future, but it will need to be different from how we practiced it during the Cold War, not least in order to address both nuclear and conventional force balances, in two vastly different geopolitical theatres.

Nuclear Diplomacy: What is the Role of Unofficial Diplomacy (Track Two)?

by Peter Jones

Unofficial Diplomacy (sometimes called “Track Two diplomacy”) has been an integral part of nuclear diplomacy. Well-known cases include the efforts of Pugwash during the Cold War, and efforts to promote dialogue in the nuclear cases of Iran, North Korea and India-Pakistan. There have also been extensive so-called “Track Three” – civil society, people-to-people – efforts to oppose the spread of nuclear weapons. This paper will explore these efforts from the perspective of the theoretical and case-study literature on Track Two, in particular from the perspective of a split which is emerging in the field over whether the proper role of such dialogues is to provide a quiet forum for problem-solving, or to advocate particular causes or actions. The paper will ask how the effectiveness and impact of the two approaches is defined and measured and whether either of them has the right tools to enable them to properly describe what they have sought to do and understand what they have achieved. The conclusion will point to avenues for further research and policy development.

The ‘success’ of ruining it for all: Procedural obstruction and international negotiation

by Ulrika Möller and Isak Svensson

This paper develops a typology of procedural obstruction in international negotiation. It paves the way for empirical inquiry to map out the tactical use of procedural opportunities by parties in negotiations within the nuclear nonproliferation regime. The nuclear nonproliferation regime is celebrated for its universality, as a successful international cooperation for the mitigation of nuclear weapon arsenals, and yet in stagnation with the risk of imploding from the accumulated pressure of internal conflicts. For our research purposes, this constitutes a rich field of harvest for the species we are after, which is procedural tactics for delay and deadlock. We argue that the spread of procedural tactics is associated with increasing institutional dysfunction. The typology of procedural obstruction has significance across policy fields in the international domain. It may be of use for future research as an analytical framework in small-N comparisons, and as the conceptual departure for quantitative data-collection of international negotiations.

Participants:

• Ana Ventura Barroso – Postdoctoral Researcher, HaNDL Uni Hamburg
• Dylan Spaulding – Senior Scientist, Union for Concerned Scientists
• Elias Arnqvist – PhD student, Uppsala University; and member of AMC’s Working Group on Technical Verification and Monitoring
• Julien de Troullioud de Lanversin – Assistant Professor, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
  

Chair: Peter Andersson, Senior Lecturer, Uppsala University; and leader of AMC’s Working Group on Technical Verification and Monitoring

Co-chair: Yan-Jie Schnellbach, Postdoctoral Researcher, Technische Universität Darmstadt

Venue: Lecture Hall IX

Background-Independent Detection of Fissile Material

by Ana Ventura Barroso, Jost Wolff, Moritz Kütt

Political progress for disarmament depends on and benefits reliable and non-intrusive verification methods. A key challenge is to demonstrate either the presence or absence of nuclear weapons and fissile materials. Traditional approaches using photons or neutrons face significant challenges. Photons are easily shielded. Neutron signals can quickly fade within the cosmic-ray neutron background. We propose a background-independent technique that uses naturally occurring cosmic-ray muons together with neutron detection in so-called muon–neutron coincidence measurements. When a muon passes through matter, it can be captured by atoms in place of an electron, and subsequently by the nucleus. In fissile materials, this process can additionally induce fission, releasing a larger number of neutrons. Detecting both the incoming muon and the emitted neutrons within a narrow time window strongly suppresses unrelated background.

We are currently conducting simulations to evaluate the efficiency, feasibility, and optimal detector design for this approach. In this contribution, we will present results of our simulations based on the general purpose Monte Carlo particle transport framework Geant4. We will further outline our plan for a small laboratory setup. If validated, this technique could offer a new, independent tool for verifying the presence or absence of warheads and fissile material, supporting future arms-control and disarmament verification frameworks.

Certification Without Testing: The Benefits and Perils of Advanced Stewardship Science for Disarmament and Nonproliferation

by Dylan Spaulding

Increasingly sophisticated experimental, computational, and manufacturing techniques are now enabling certification of nuclear weapons designs in the absence of full-scale explosive testing. These techniques include novel capabilities in high energy-density physics, chemical explosive testing, and advanced diagnostics for laboratory-based nuclear physics. In the United States, such capabilities have emerged from the science-based stockpile stewardship program, which was conceived to ensure the safety, security, and reliability of existing weapons designs. These capabilities, many of which have also evolved in other advanced nuclear weapons states, present both opportunities and challenges for verification, nonproliferation, and disarmament.

This paper will examine the maturation of stewardship science since the 1990’s, including an assessment of both the limits and potential for certification of new designs (such as the US W93 and W87-1) in the context of a global testing moratorium. Implications for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (and nuclear proliferation more broadly) will be addressed in the context of disparate scientific capabilities amongst current and potentially aspiring nuclear states.

Developing coincidence gamma-ray spectrometers with optimized minimum detectable activity for radionuclide monitoring

by Elias Arnqvist

High-purity germanium (HPGe) gamma-ray spectrometers used for radionuclide monitoring play an essential role in detecting nuclear tests and verifying compliance with treaties such as the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT). Due to an improved minimum detectable activity (MDA), coincidence gamma-ray spectrometers that utilize multiple detection elements can offer an enhanced detection sensitivity compared to most ordinary detectors. It is, however, crucial that such detectors are designed carefully to obtain sufficient performance. The CoSpeR collaboration between Uppsala University and the Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOI) aims to optimize these detector systems using simulations. In this talk, a parametric design study of detector concepts is presented, with the aim of developing an optimal detector for radionuclide monitoring. The MDAs of coincidence gamma-ray spectrometers were determined through simulations with the Geant4 toolkit and compared. Several CTBT-relevant radionuclides were considered, and background radiation was modeled. Furthermore, the future path towards high-sensitivity radionuclide monitoring detectors is discussed.

New Verification Methods of the Zero-yield Standard for Very Low-yield Nuclear Tests

by Julien de Troullioud de Lanversin, Moritz Kütt, Christopher Fichtlscherer

Although the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) has not yet entered into force, nuclear powers have declared moratoria on nuclear testing, adhering to a "zero-yield" standard that prohibits self-sustaining, supercritical fission chain reactions. However, recent allegations of non-compliance at very low yields have heightened tensions, as existing remote monitoring systems cannot distinguish between permitted subcritical tests and prohibited supercritical ones. This lack of verification methods for low-yield activities fuels suspicions between nuclear weapon states and risks triggering a resumption of full-scale nuclear testing.

This presentation introduces novel technical methods for on-site verification of compliance with the zero-yield standard. These methods employ passive gamma spectroscopy measurements on the containment vessel, conducted weeks or months after the test. By analyzing ratios of gamma-ray lines from fission products (e.g., Cesium-137 or Ruthenium-103) relative to plutonium-239 lines, inspectors can infer test details such as yield and criticality level, assuming knowledge of certain other parameters. Demonstrating a practical, post-test method for verifying subcriticality could strengthen confidence in the CTBT, defuse international suspicions, and reduce the risks of full-scale nuclear tests resumption.

Participants:

• Abdul Moiz Khan* – Research Officer, Center for International Strategic Studies
• Abhishek Saxena – Doctoral Candidate, Shiv Nadar University
  
• Jo-Ansie van Wyk* – Professor, University of South Africa; and member of AMC’s Working Group on Sanctions

Chair: Manuel Kreutle, Doctoral Researcher, Forschungszentrum Jülich

Discussants: Sharon Weiner, Associate Professor, American University & Manuel Kreutle, Doctoral Researcher, Forschungszentrum Jülich

Venue: Lecture Hall IV

Protecting Nuclear Installations in Armed Conflicts: Lessons from the India-Pakistan Non-Attack Agreement

by Abdul Moiz Khan

The growing instability of the international order – marked by new conflicts and the resurgence of older rivalries – has intensified concerns about the safety and security of nuclear power plants and related installations during armed conflict. Recent crises, including the Russia–Ukraine war and the Iran–Israel confrontation, demonstrate that existing International Humanitarian Law (IHL) provides limited and uneven protection for nuclear facilities. This gap underscores the need for additional legal and normative instruments to prevent attacks on such sites. The bilateral Non-Attack Agreement on Nuclear Installations between India and Pakistan, signed in 1988, offers a rare and enduring example of responsible state behavior. Despite repeated crises, including the near-war confrontation of May 2025 involving standoff weapons, dual-capable missiles, and drone strikes, both states have consistently exchanged annual lists of nuclear facilities for thirty-four consecutive years. Rooted in the 1977 Additional Protocols, particularly AP I, Article 56 and Article 5(6), the agreement illustrates how bilateral confidence-building measures can enhance the protection of critical infrastructure. This study asks how the India–Pakistan agreement can inform global efforts to strengthen norms and legal frameworks safeguarding nuclear installations. Using a qualitative, case-based methodology, it examines South Asia, Russia–Ukraine, and the Middle East to identify pathways for broader adoption of non-attack arrangements.

Conjuring the Bomb: Nuclear Strategy and the Making of India’s Nuclear Option

by Abhishek Saxena

Scholarship on nuclear policy has in the past few years discussed the prospects for advancing nuclear risk reduction and disarmament through determined efforts at devaluing nuclear weapons. Yet far less attention has been devoted to the discursive and intellectual processes through which nuclear weapons are legitimized in the first place. This paper, using India as a historical case study, demonstrates how proponents of an Indian nuclear deterrent rendered nuclear weapons as desirable and legitimate instruments of national security in a country founded on Gandhian principles of ahimsa (non-violence). Indian advocates of the bomb drew broadly upon two conceptual and theoretical traditions to secure political and social license for their contested policy preferences. First, in the aftermath of China’s atomic detonation in October 1964, Indian scholars increasingly turned to Anglo-American and French literature on nuclear strategy to undermine the position of their intellectual rivals opposed to nuclearization. Second, they persistently deployed the rhetoric of national security and survival—an idiom that privileges the preservation of the state over competing normative ideals—to displace the claims of anti-nuclear lobby, which warned against the state-centric reasoning in an era defined by shared vulnerability. This intellectual shift gradually eroded the earlier resistance to nuclear weapons in India. Drawing upon previously unexamined archival sources from the National Archives of India and the Prime Ministers’ Museum and Library, New Delhi, this paper illustrates how neorealism and nuclear strategy became powerful instruments in the hands of India’s pro-bomb lobby, enabling them to buttress their policy claims and dismantle opposing voices.

Revising the verification of South Africa’s nuclear disarmament

by Jo-Ansie van Wyk

South Africa was the first country to terminate its nuclear weapons programme and dismantle its nuclear weapons. The process commenced in 1989 and concluded in 1993. As the first and one of the few nuclear disarmament cases, the South African case remains instructive. Apartheid South Africa’s disarmament process occurred without international involvement and oversight. The IAEA only became involved after the fact to verify the completed process. Hence, the main aim of the paper is to revisit the South African nuclear disarmament and verification process to draw instructive lessons for future disarmament cases. Hence, the objective of the paper is three-fold. First, it contextualises South Africa’s nuclear disarmament against the background of the country’s nuclear armament. Second, the paper analyses the international verification regime at the time before analysing the verification of South Africa’s nuclear disarmament. In the final instance, the objective is to draw insights and lessons from the South African case despite its historical nature.

Participants:

• Camilla Orjuela – Professor, University of Gothenburg
• Geórgia Albuquerque – PhD Candidate, University of Brasília
• Polina Sinovets – Head, Odesa Center for Nonproliferation
  

Chair: Gilberto Marcos Antonio Rodrigues – Associate Professor, Federal University of ABC; and member of AMC’s Working Group on Sanctions

Discussants: Lisa Hultman, Professor, Uppsala University; and Director of AMC & Christine Leah, Fellow, National Institute for Deterrence Studies

Venue: Lecture Hall XI (no live streaming)

Local governments and nuclear disarmament: mobilization and contentions in Norway and Sweden

by Camilla Orjuela

Ever since the disastrous nuclear detonations in 1945, politicians, civil society and other actors have struggled to abolish nuclear arms. Also cities and their representatives have mobilized for this cause, with the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki playing a particularly important role. Today, the network they created, Mayors for Peace, has over 8,000 member-municipalities. Through a more recent initiative, ICAN Cities Appeal, over a thousand municipalities urge their governments to support the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. In Norway, more than half the population lives in municipalities that support this appeal. In neighboring Sweden, however, efforts to gain local government support for the prohibition of nuclear arms have been less successful, and Gothenburg’s 2020 decision to join ICAN Cities Appeal was annulled on the grounds that municipalities should not engage in foreign policy. This paper investigates why local governments get involved in efforts against nuclear arms. It analyzes the actors that push for this “localization of foreign policy”, their motivations and the opportunities and constraints they encounter. Drawing on in-depth interviews with local politicians, officials and civil society representatives, and on the analysis of documents and news reports, the paper discusses the differences between Norway and Sweden and the challenges for subnational involvement in nuclear disarmament.

Normative Hypocrisy: Voting Patterns of Nuclear Weapon States at the UNGA

by Geórgia Albuquerque

Charges of hypocrisy are ubiquitous in international political practice, especially in the nuclear field, yet the concept is often taken for granted and remains undertheorized in International Relations. This article addresses this gap by introducing and operationalizing the concept of normative hypocrisy. A case of normative hypocrisy is identified when a state has publicly assumed a normative obligation, subsequently acts contrary to it without legitimate justification, and derives material or political advantages from this inconsistency to the detriment of others. To assess the extent of deviation by the nuclear-weapon states—the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, and China—from their NPT's Article VI obligations, this study analyzes their voting patterns in the United Nations General Assembly on an original database of 609 nuclear-related resolutions adopted between 1992 and 2024, treating these votes (Yes, No, or Abstention) as formal expressions of alignment or discrepancy from established norms. The findings reveal systematic and differentiated patterns of normative hypocrisy across the N5, varying both over time and across distinct categories of nuclear-related resolutions, with implications for the credibility of their commitments, the perceived fairness of the NPT bargain, and the long-term legitimacy and effectiveness of the nuclear disarmament regime.

Europe’s Nuclear Alternatives: A Time of Reckoning

by Polina Sinovets and Adérito Vicente

Europe faces an increasingly urgent need to reconsider its dependence on US extended nuclear deterrence, particularly in the context of Russia’s war in Ukraine and the United States’ strategic shift towards the Indo-Pacific. Europe’s potential to build credible deterrent capabilities of its own is limited to three alternatives: strengthening France’s force de frappe as a European pillar, creating an Anglo-French nuclear umbrella, and establishing a European Multilateral Nuclear Force within NATO. The best course of action for Europe is to follow a balanced approach that enhances European autonomy while safeguarding transatlantic cohesion, with NATO establishing a structured dialogue on Europe’s nuclear future.

All the above raise the key question: can the principles of disarmament and non-proliferation be compatible with any scenarios of European strategic autonomy? And if so, which of the mentioned scenarios can be the most compatible with preserving the NPT regime and advancing the ideas of disarmament?

Participants:

• Christelle Barakat – Researcher, Lebanese Center for Policy Studies
• Jorge Alberto Lopez Lechuga – Mexican Diplomat, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mexico
• Lena Wittenfeld – Research Associate, Bielefeld University
• Prince Amoah – Nuclear Engineer, Nuclear Regulatory Authority, Ghana

Chair: Aigerim Mussabalinova – Associate Research Professor, KIMEP University

Discussants: Brian Palmer, Associate Professor, Uppsala University & Wilfred Wan, WMD Programme Director, SIPRI; and co-leader of AMC’s Working Group on Policy and International Law

Venue: Grand auditorium (no live streaming)

Democratizing Nuclear Disarmament: Designing and Integrating Citizen Assemblies into Policy Processes

by Christelle Barakat

In recent years, citizen assemblies have been increasingly implemented in various fields from urban planning to climate governance. Perceived as effective “democratic innovations,” they help representative citizens to overcome traditional governance challenges and advance policymaking. Combining education, knowledge, and deliberation, citizen assemblies often succeed in reaching informed and actionable policies. The suggested paper examines the benefits of implementing the citizen assembly model in nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. It argues that citizen assemblies can bring back nuclear concerns and policy into the public realm and increase other citizens’ understanding of the existential threat of nuclear weapons. This is even more important in today’s volatile geopolitical context, which lacks transparency about nuclear policy and in which we are seeing the continued unraveling of the disarmament architecture. This paper also investigates the feasibility of citizen assemblies on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, and related design principles to create and integrate them in multileveled policy processes. Ultimately, citizen assemblies can challenge entrenched narratives surrounding nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation and generate interdisciplinary and innovative ideas to complement existing mechanisms. Currently, citizen assemblies are underexplored pathways for democratizing nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation; however, they can support or help rebuild stronger, more transparent, and more accountable non-proliferation regimes.

Nuclear-weapon-free zones - recalling the legacy of Alva Myrdal and Alfonos García Robles

by Jorge Alberto Lopez Lechuga

In 1982, Alva Myrdal and Alfonso García Robles jointly received the Nobel Peace Prize for their contributions to nuclear disarmament, including the establishment of nuclear-weapon-free zones (NWFZs). Both were state representatives whose work still offers political lessons that matter today.

This paper proposes to highlight a set of lessons from these two figures, who came from states that took an independent stance towards the policies of nuclear-armed states. These lessons include the importance of non-nuclear weapon states in international disarmament discussions, the view that possessing nuclear weapons contradicts the democratisation of international relations, and the need to manage global affairs through peaceful means.

The second part of this presentation addresses a key challenge facing NWFZs. It argues that NWFZs, which include exclusive economic zones and high seas within their areas of application were established in line with the law of the sea, and that there is no reason for nuclear-weapon states not to review their reservations on this point.

But (Why) is Testing not Use? The Implications of Shielding the Nuclear Taboo from Nuclear Testing

by Lena Wittenfeld and Sandra Bandemer

Is testing not use? In hegemonic discourse, the answer is no. As the nuclear taboo (NT) is considered to only prohibit nuclear first strikes, it remains unbroken. Postcolonial scholarship has demonstrated the colonial dimension of knowledge production that refuses to recognise testing as a form of use. Adopting a feminist perspective, we argue that it is crucial to systematically investigate the further implications of marginalizing testing. What epistemic, conceptual, and normative implications derive from the absence of testing in hegemonic conceptions of the NT? Firstly, we argue that an epistemic critique of the boundaries of what constitutes nuclear use provides a pathway for counter-hegemonic perspectives. These perspectives challenge knowledge production, underlying a hegemonic nuclear order, predominantly shaped by white, Western, and masculine perspectives. Secondly, we demonstrate that excluding testing has normative implications, reinforcing norms such as the NT that are embedded in and perpetuate the nuclear status quo. Thirdly, the exclusion entails conceptual consequences that challenge prohibitive treaties, political discourse on (non-)use, advocacy, and activism in the nuclear security realm. Our paper contributes to critical scholarship by offering a tripartite set of implications derived from the systematic exclusion of testing, and questioning: what if testing is considered nuclear use?

Sustaining Efforts of Nuclear Non-Proliferation in West Africa: the role of Young Generation Networks

by Prince Amoah

Efforts arising from the African region depicted through commitments enshrined in the Pelindaba Treaty have established a foundational legal and institutional architecture for nuclear non-proliferation across the region. However, West Africa continues to face systemic challenges including recurrent political instability, leadership transitions, and episodic government overthrows that can undermine regulatory continuity and weaken state-level adherence to non-proliferation obligations. This study examines the function of Nuclear Young Generation Networks (YGNs) as stabilizing, knowledge-preserving, and institution-reinforcing actors within this volatile landscape. This paper investigates the role of YGNs in the sub- region in sustaining knowledge and capacity building efforts, essential to safeguarding the durability of non-proliferation achievements in the face of ongoing political volatility in West Africa.

Participants:

• Adiya Akhmer* – Graduate Student, Nazarbayev University
• Aigerim Mussabalinova – Associate Research Professor, KIMEP University
• Alisher Khassengaliyev – Executive Team Member, Steppe Organization for Peace (STOP)
• Augustine Ushie – Lawyer/MEP Research Assistant, European Parliament
• Émile Lambert-Deslandes* – PhD Candidate, Queen's University
• Justin Canfil – Assistant Professor, Carnegie Mellon University; and member of AMC’s Working Group on AI governance
• Nelly-Helen Ebruka – PhD Researcher, University of Manchester
• Thando Mathe – Space Security Graduate Professional, UNIDIR
  

Chair & discussant: Vladislav Chernavskikh – Researcher, SIPRI; and member of AMC’s Working Group on Policy and International Law

Venue: Lecture Hall IX

From Leadership to Delivery: Aligning Kazakhstan’s TPNW Humanitarian Obligations with the Vienna Action Plan

by Alisher Khassengaliyev, Adiya Akhmer and Aigerim Mussabalinova

Kazakhstan pairs international leadership on the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) with uneven domestic delivery of Articles 6–7 on victim assistance, environmental remediation and international cooperation. Using the Vienna Action Plan as an operational benchmark and drawing on humanitarian-disarmament and norm-localisation frameworks, this paper maps the diplomacy–delivery gap and identifies four linked constraints: 1) incomplete legal design; 2) fragmented governance and weak inter-ministerial coordination; 3) active yet under-resourced civil-society participation; and 4) capital-oriented financing and international cooperation. Building on primary legislation and policy programmes, UN/TPNW documentation and reports, and publicly available government and media sources, we outline a practical pathway to align domestic practice with treaty standards. We also discuss the prospective TPNW International Trust Fund and options to connect national delivery with sustainable, transparent financing. The analysis offers lessons for other affected TPNW States Parties seeking to translate international commitments into equitable outcomes for nuclear-affected communities.

Africa’s role in multilateral debates on demilitarisation and security governance across nuclear policy and outer space.

by Augustine Ushie, Nelly-Helen Ebruka and Thando Mathe

This paper examines Africa’s engagement in multilateral discussions on demilitarisation and security governance, focusing on its contributions to nuclear policy and outer space security. Africa’s position in international forums such as the United Nations, the African Union, and various arms control treaties reveals both shared concerns and distinct regional priorities. While Africa's strategic interests in nuclear disarmament have been shaped by historical experiences, including the legacy of colonialism and nuclear testing, the continent’s participation in outer space security governance is shaped by its aspirations for technological advancement and regional cooperation. This analysis highlights how African nations have advocated for the peaceful use of space and the reduction of nuclear arsenals, pushing for stronger international norms and treaties that align with their security needs and broader development goals. The paper also considers the challenges Africa faces in balancing security concerns with sustainable development in these areas of multilateral discourse.

Mackenzie King, International Status Projections, and the Atomic Non-Decision: Why Didn’t Canada Build Nuclear Weapons?

by Émile Lambert-Deslandes

Canada’s decision to not acquire its own atomic arsenal in the immediate aftermath of World War II remains an enduring but counterintuitive puzzle. Indeed, pre-existing moralistic, economic, or security-oriented accounts are primarily circumstantial and do not match well with empirics. This article investigates Canada’s atomic choices under Prime Minister Mackenzie King from 1942 to 1948. Building on the cognitive strategic decision-making literature as well as psychology, it argues that the non-acquisition choice should be more accurately characterized as a ‘non-decision’ that stemmed from the Canadian leaders’ own view of their country’s present and future status in the international pecking order. Accordingly, they never even considered arming themselves with atomic bombs to be an option. This article draws on process tracing and congruence testing to make its case by analyzing primary archival documents as well as interview transcripts with current or retired Canadian officials. The results showcase important insights into Canadian decision-making and assessments in the postwar era that touch upon wider questions than only non-proliferation, such as the country’s military drawdown, its leaders’ threat assessment levels, and their appreciation of the atomic discoveries and their impact on the international community. It also provides a renewed conceptualization of the role played by psychology in shaping a country’s nuclear decisions.

Drawing Red Lines in the Dark: The Logic of Ambiguous Coercion

by Justin Canfil

When does ambiguity strengthen or weaken coercion? Prevailing theories assume that ambiguous threats are inherently weaker because they grant targets room to test unclear limits. We argue instead that coercers face a fundamental tradeoff between fixity and flexibility in threat design. Precise threats commit the sender to a commonly known threshold, producing predictable compliance but sacrificing enforcement discretion. Ambiguous threats preserve what we term interpretive authority—the sender’s flexibility to determine whether behavior is compliant—but trade added coercive leverage for unpredictability. When enforcers are seen as sympathetic, targets expect leniency and undercomply; when they are seen as unforgiving, targets anticipate adverse interpretation and overcomply. We test this argument in the context of US strategic ambiguity in the Taiwan Strait using a preregistered survey experiment on a representative sample of Taiwanese voters, embedded in a strategic game with real monetary incentives. Holding credibility and consequences constant, we show that ambiguity generates overcompliance relative to precision while increasing the risk of miscalculation. Our findings highlight the role of compliance subjectivity and speak to ongoing debates about the merits of strategic ambiguity in the Taiwan Strait and beyond.

Participants:

• Aya Badr* – PhD Candidate, Cairo University
  
• Umi Ariga – Research Fellow, Japan Institute of International Affairs
• William Faulkner – PhD Student, University of Sussex

Chair: Lotta Sjöström Becker – Secretary General, Swedish Fellowship of Reconciliation

Discussant: Clara Gullman Levin – Communications Manager, Swedish Physicians against Nuclear Weapons

Venue: Lecture Hall IV

Rethinking Peace and Security Approach in Time of Existential Threats: Gender, Human Security, and Nuclear Disarmament

by Aya Badr

The contemporary security landscape faces multiple challenges and existential threats, which require shifting from the traditional state-centric approach to the humanitarian security scope to consider and tackle the repercussions of these threats on individuals based on social gender norms and biological sex. Nuclear weapons are one of the most critical threats that require adopting a holistic approach to tackle their multi-aspect repercussions.

Current global security paradigms remain largely state-focused and militarized, often overlooking the perspectives of those most impacted by security threats, especially women and marginalized groups. Existential threats like nuclear weapons present unique challenges that demand innovative peace and security strategies. Including gender perspectives and human security priorities creates a more inclusive and effective approach to nuclear disarmament and conflict prevention.

Recent developments, notably the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), reflect a shift toward recognizing the gendered impacts of nuclear weapons and the centrality of human security in disarmament efforts grounded in the Women, Peace, and Security Agenda (WPS). However, data On Gender and Disarmament confirms that gaps remain in the way of translating these insights into traditional security policies and practices.

The assumption is that a comprehensive human-security approach could be achieved through merging and implementing WPS principles in tackling nuclear threats and nuclear disarmament efforts. Through the intersectional analysis of the gendered dimensions of nuclear weapons and disarmament mechanisms, the paper aims to develop evidence-based policy recommendations for achieving the humanitarian security objectives. In other words, the paper focuses on solving a research puzzle that revolves around: How can peace and security frameworks be rethought to encompass gender and human security perspectives in addressing existential nuclear threats and strengthening nuclear disarmament? How does the (WPS) agenda intersect with nuclear disarmament initiatives, and what are the implications for policy and implementation?

The research paper reviews the main related literature on the gendered harms of nuclear weapons, the feminist critiques of dominant security paradigms, and the shifts from traditional paradigm towards human security scope in the nuclear field, and evaluates the major reflections of that shift on the related efforts, mainly the TPNW as gender-sensitive framework, and then analyze the remaining gap and the needed policy recommendation for promoting the integration of gender considerations into peace, security, and nuclear disarmament.

Rearming the Markets: The Post-2022 Normalisation of Nuclear Weapons in European Finance

by Umi Ariga

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 triggered a dramatic rearmament cycle in Europe and an equally dramatic shift in financial markets. After three decades in which nuclear weapons system producers had become emblematic “sin stocks” and were widely excluded from European portfolios, major pension funds and asset managers have begun to reverse long-standing nuclear-related divestment policies. This paper examines how and why this reversal occurred, and what it implies for nuclear disarmament.

Drawing on 16 interviews with European institutional investors, and complemented by analysis of EU sustainable finance regulation documents, the paper traces how post-2022 political signalling reshaped the boundaries of “responsible” investment. It shows how regulatory ambiguity around “controversial weapons”, benchmark pressures, and client sentiment enabled nuclear-delivery-system producers to be recategorized as legitimate, even “normal”, investments.

The paper argues that this financial re-entry reflects a shift in how nuclear weapons are socially interpreted. Justifications invoking deterrence and alliance solidarity legitimise private-sector gains from nuclear insecurity, normalising profit from expanding arsenals. In doing so, financial reinvestment contributes to a wider erosion of the nuclear taboo. The conclusion outlines policy recommendations for clarifying the status of nuclear weapons in sustainable-finance frameworks and strengthening normative safeguards in an era of geopolitical pressure.

Coevolving Scientific and Political Framings of Nuclear Winter

by William Faulkner

Scientific knowledge about nuclear winter shares conceptual and methodological attributes in common with other global atmospheric risks, but has not generally translated into sustained policy attention. This paper presents early findings from a systematic literature review organized around the question: “Why has scientific knowledge about nuclear winter, despite its kinship with other existential risks, not translated into sustained attention or integration within policy?”

The analysis reconstructs how nuclear winter research has been framed, circulated, and interpreted across scientific and advocacy domains since 1982. Using bibliometrics, content mapping, and qualitative coding, the study identifies the dominant patterns of reasoning that structure the field, the assumptions that organise those patterns, and the points at which scientific arguments entered, or failed to enter, policy discourse. Preliminary results suggest that nuclear winter’s trajectory differs significantly from phenomena with similar scientific profiles, such as human-induced ozone depletion and large-volcanic-eruption climate effects, each of which achieved markedly different levels of policy uptake.

By clarifying the historical and conceptual architecture of nuclear winter research, the paper aims to support a more coherent understanding of how scientific claims about nuclear weapons’ global effects are constructed, contested, and mobilised in contemporary debates about nuclear risk reduction.

Participants:

• Abhishek Saxena – Doctoral Candidate, Shiv Nadar University
• Jennet Charyyeva – Graduate Student, Middlebury Institute of International Studies
• Nikita Degtyarev – Research Coordinator, Open Nuclear Network
• Stanislava Dimitrova – Communications Intern, British American Security Information Council

Chair: Peter Jones – Executive Director, Ottawa Dialogue; and member of AMC’s Working Group on Negotiations

Discussants: Laust Schouenborg, Associate Professor, Roskilde University; and member of AMC’s Working Group on Nordic perspectives & Tapio Juntunen, Lecturer, Tampere University; and member of AMC’s Working Group on Nordic perspectives

Venue: Lecture Hall XI (no live streaming)

Pokhran’s Lingering Shadow: India’s Nuclear Testing Legacy and the Shared Responsibility for Nuclear Justice

by Abhishek Saxena

Although the global movement for victim assistance and environmental remediation has gained urgency under the 2021 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), South Asia remains ostensibly absent from both academic scholarship and international forums. Such neglect is exacerbated by official claims of no radioactive fallout in India and Pakistan, and the dominance of a strategic discourse that privileges questions of deterrence and national security over the everyday consequences of nuclear testing. For nuclear justice to become truly global, this paper contends, the radioactive bodies of South Asia must be recognized within international efforts to deliver medical care, provide psychological and financial support to victims of nuclear tests, and undertake environmental remediation of contaminated areas. Drawing on a month-long ethnographic fieldwork in the villages of Chacha, Khetolai, and Loharki, bordering India’s nuclear testing site in Pokhran, Rajasthan, this paper brings to life the often-unseen suffering of people enduring the health and environmental effects of nuclear testing.

The Nuclear Grey Zone: Activities That Challenge the Spirit—But Not the Letter—of the NPT

by Jennet Charyyeva

States increasingly engage in nuclear activities that technically comply with the NPT while still undermining its broader goals. This “nuclear grey zone” includes behaviors that do not violate the treaty’s letter, but clearly challenge its spirit—such as accumulating large stocks of separated plutonium, pursuing ambiguous fuel-cycle capabilities, or using civilian cooperation agreements to advance latent weapons potential. These activities complicate verification, weaken trust, and blur the boundaries between peaceful use and hedging.

Instead of treating the grey zone as a legal loophole, this paper frames it as a political and strategic phenomenon—one driven by uncertainty, regional rivalries, technological incentives, and the asymmetries within the NPT itself. Using case examples across different regions, it maps out how states signal, hedge, and test boundaries without crossing formal red lines. By drawing attention to this underexamined space, the paper argues that understanding the grey zone is essential for assessing the future stability of the non-proliferation regime and the credibility of the treaty’s original bargain.

Russia’s Role in Nuclear Risk Reduction on the Korean Peninsula

by Nikita Degtyarev

Although neither North nor South Korea have a clear intention or need to initiate an attack or invasion, the risk of rapid escalation leading to the use of nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula remains. This risk exists due to the poor state of inter-Korean relations, absence of communication, frequent military exercises and other activities that could lead to unintentional conventional clash along the border. Currently, there is no trust between the two states, and restoration of direct dialogue seems a distant prospect. In this environment, nuclear risk reduction on the Peninsula is a very challenging endeavour.

Establishing an environment of trust and reducing inter-state hostility should precede serious nuclear risk reduction talks, as without a foundation of trust, tangible outcomes are highly improbable. Russia could play a role in creating such an environment. This could be pursued through the 2024 North Korea-Russia Treaty on Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, the Russia-South Korea diplomatic dialogue, or cooperation on specific topics, such as agreements aimed at mitigating nuclear safety risks at DPRK facilities. The paper explores how, despite the conflict with the West, Russia’s mediating role could ease communication barriers and contribute to the reduction of crisis instability on the Korean Peninsula.

Juche for Peace? Ontological (In)security and the DPRK-IAEA Relationship (1974-1994)

by Stanislava Dimitrova

Despite decades of research on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s (DPRK) nuclear-related foreign policy, the DPRK’s membership within the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) remains underexamined. A state driven by an ideology centred on independence and opposition to US hegemony, juche, the DPRK was nevertheless a member of the multilateral, US-founded Agency for nearly 20 years before a fallout occurred. This paper investigates how the inherent challenges of the DPRK-IAEA dynamic for the DPRK’s juche-based state narrative informed North Korea’s management of this and other relationships within the Agency as a forum during the 1974-1994 period. By employing an ontological security studies framework to analyse records from the IAEA Archives, I argue that since a relationship with the IAEA could initially be used to reaffirm the DPRK’s state narrative, the latter was able to manage its fundamental anxiety vis-a-vis the Agency from a place of ontological security. However, the Agency confronting the DPRK over its nuclear weapons programme in the 1990s challenged that narrative and contributed to the DPRK’s withdrawal in 1994. The paper thus makes a broader contribution towards understanding the DPRK’s notoriously ‘erratic’ nuclear-related foreign policy that dominant realist theories have struggled to explain.