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Global Activism and Humanitarian Disarmament Edited by Matthew Breay Bolton · Sarah Njeri · Taylor Benjamin-Britton Global Activism and Humanitarian Disarmament Matthew Breay Bolton · Sarah Njeri · Taylor Benjamin-Britton Editors Global Activism and Humanitarian Disarmament Editors Matthew Breay Bolton Sarah Njeri Department of Political Science Africa Leadership Centre Pace University King’s College London New York, NY, USA London, UK Taylor Benjamin-Britton Lehigh University Bethlehem, PA, USA ISBN 978-3-030-27610-2 ISBN 978-3-030-27611-9 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27611-9 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover image: © kenkuza/shutterstock.com This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland F oreword The emergence oF humaniTarian disarmamenT and iTs impacT on weapons and Violence When we built the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) in the early 1990s, we were responding to a humanitarian crisis result- ing from the use of antipersonnel landmines in the regions of the world where the two superpowers had fought proxy wars during the Cold War. It was primarily civilians who were maimed or killed by those indiscriminate weapons of mass destruction in slow motion, as we came to call them in the ICBL. Once these wars ended, the landmines remained where they had been sown and all casualties were civilian. Not surprisingly, landmine survivors became some of the ICBL’s most powerful advocates for a treaty banning landmines. The ICBL was broad, deep, and creative and we partnered with a core group of pro- ban governments and the International Committee of the Red Cross to bypass the ineffective efforts to deal with landmines within the UN and negotiate a ban treaty in a stand-alone process. The work of the ICBL demonstrated that mass mobilization of survivors and nongovernmental organizations around the world could be a powerful engine for change. In 1997, our joint efforts resulted in the Mine Ban Treaty. The treaty created a framework to mitigate the humanitarian impact of landmines through risk education, victim assistance, and landmine clearance. Later that year, the ICBL and I were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for our work. In their announcement of the 1997 v vi FOREWORD Peace Prize, the Nobel Committee also said, “As a model for similar processes in the future, it could prove of decisive importance to the international effort for disarmament and peace.” Our success was not a fluke, nor was it the result of some special, innate capacity to which we alone had access. Since the Mine Ban Treaty, campaigns making up the emergent “humanitarian disarmament” community have achieved three major new treaties: the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions, 2013 Arms Trade Treaty, and 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017 for the TPNW. The movement against indiscriminate weapons has also shown that it can have a normative impact beyond supportive states. The landmine ban treaty has demonstrably changed the behavior of major military pow- ers—as they have adopted export moratoria, destroyed stockpiles and avoided using antipersonnel mines in conflict. Several non-state armed groups have also signed commitments to abide by its norms. We have also seen the cluster munition ban have similar effects. The humanitarian disarmament community has been consistently underestimated by academia, particularly those wedded to traditional, realist understandings of security, arms control, and disarmament. Their dismissal of our work is often framed in gendered terms, casting us as “emotional” and “naïve.” But in editing this volume, Taylor Benjamin- Britton, Sarah Njeri, and Matthew Bolton are helping to redress this lacuna. This book shows how activists, advocates, and practitioners have been able to constrain weapons and inhumane violence. Rather than critiquing from the sidelines, their work, as well as that of the other authors, is rooted in a commitment to making the world a safer place for us all. At a time of rising nationalist sentiment, used to justify all manner of atrocities, we need more thinking campaigners working in solidar- ity across boundaries to strip away the academic, political and military discourses that prop up violent people. The humanitarian disarmament community is one among many networks that show it is possible to resist militarism. This book tells our story. In reading it, I hope you are FOREWORD vii inspired to join our struggle, learn from our mistakes, and apply our lessons to your own efforts to build sustainable peace with justice and equality. Jody Williams Chair, Nobel Women’s Initiative 1997 Nobel Peace Prize co-Laureate with the International Campaign to Ban Landmines Westminster West, VT, USA Jody Williams received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 for her work to ban landmines through the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which shared the Peace Prize with her that year. At that time, she became the 10th woman— and third American woman—in its almost 100-year history to receive the Prize. Since her protests of the Vietnam War, she has been a lifelong advocate of free- dom, self-determination, and human and civil rights. Like others who have seen the ravages of war, she is an outspoken peace activist who struggles to reclaim the real meaning of peace—a concept which goes far beyond the absence of armed conflict and is defined by human security, not national security. Since January of 2006, Jody Williams has worked toward those ends through the Nobel Women’s Initiative, which she chairs. Her memoir on life as a grassroots activist, My Name is Jody Williams: A Vermont Girl’s Winding Path to the Nobel Peace Prize was released by the University of California Press in early 2013. c onTenTs 1 The Humanitarian Disarmament Movement: An Assessment and Review 1 Taylor Benjamin-Britton, Matthew Breay Bolton and Sarah Njeri Part I Emergence of Norms 2 When Scientists Become Activists: The International Committee for Robot Arms Control and the Politics of Killer Robots 27 Matthew Breay Bolton and Cayman C. Mitchell 3 The Agency of International Humanitarian Disarmament Law: The Case of Advocacy for Positive Obligations in the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons 59 Matthew Breay Bolton and Elizabeth Minor 4 Religious Advocacy and Activism for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons 103 Emily Welty with Gabrielle Chalk ix x CONTENTS Part II Challenges in Diffusing and Implementing Norms 5 US Arms Control Dynamics in the Era of Humanitarian Disarmament: A Case Study of the Convention on Cluster Munitions 141 Taylor Benjamin-Britton 6 The Politics of Non-recognition: Re-evaluating the Apolitical Presentation of the UN Humanitarian Mine Action Programs in Somaliland 169 Sarah Njeri Part III The Wider Context 7 The Relationship Between Humanitarian Disarmament and General and Complete Disarmament 199 Dan Plesch and Kevin Miletic 8 Addressing the Political Impact of Inclusion and Exclusion in Multilateral Disarmament Forums 225 Elizabeth Minor Epilogue: Whither Humanitarian Disarmament? 253 Sarah Njeri, Matthew Breay Bolton and Taylor Benjamin-Britton Index 261 n c oTes on onTribuTors Dr. Taylor Benjamin-Britton defended her Ph.D. in political science at Temple University in August 2016. She has taught courses in international relations and international organization in the Department of Political Science at Temple University as well as the Department of International Relations at Lehigh University. She is currently transition- ing to self-employment. Matthew Breay Bolton is Director of the International Disarmament Institute and Associate Professor of political science at Pace University in New York City. He is an expert on global peace and security policy, focusing on multilateral disarmament and arms control policymaking processes. He has a Ph.D. in Government and Master’s in Development Studies from the London School of Economics. Since 2014, Bolton has worked on the UN advocacy of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), recipient of the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize. Bolton has published four other books, including Foreign Aid and Landmine Clearance (I.B. Tauris) and Imagining Disarmament, Enchanting International Relations (Palgrave Pivot). Gabrielle Chalk is Donor Relations and Data Associate at Equality Now. She is an M.A. in International Affairs and Global Justice student at Brooklyn College and has a B.A. majoring in Political Science and Peace and Justice Studies from Pace University. xi