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Deciding How We Are Allowed To Kill Each Other: Controlling Weapons in International Law

Event date/time: 

Tuesday, December 5, 2017 - 4:00pm

Place: 

Commonwealth Honors College Event Room 160 West

International law places certain limitations on the weapons that can used in armed conflict. Over recent decades states have negotiated a number of treaties that prohibit certain categories of weapons. But how do such agreements come about?

Richard Moyes serves on the international steering group of ICAN, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017 for its work developing the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Previously he had a leading role in the negotiation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions and he is active in ongoing discussions on the regulation of autonomous weapons - or killer robots.

In this talk we discuss the role of states and civil society in framing issues of concern and in developing legal responses. It will focus on the tensions and uncertainties that form part of the lived experience of that work - but that often get lost in formal narratives and histories.  And it will find some humour, as different actors find ways to work and socialise together whilst discussing how they should or shouldn’t be allowed to kill each other.

 

Location: 

157 COMMONWEALTH AVE
Amherst, MA 01003
United States
157 COMMONWEALTH AVE Amherst MA