Nuclear Disarmament

Ambassador Leonardo Bencini

8 Nov 2023, 5 pm (CET)

chair: Maurizio Bona 

(Former Advisor of the Director-General of CERN, and professor at University of Pavia (I))

virtual event - ZOOM only

please register at: https://tinyurl.com/NuclearDisarmament     

Nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation in the current international contest will be discussed. This has always been a divisive issue but the war in Ukraine has further complicated any prospect for further negotiations, both within the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) or outside of it. The questions to be discussed are: 

• how far are we from a world free of nuclear weapons? 
• has the risk of a nuclear weapon use increased recently, as the Doomsday Clock, now at 90 seconds to midnight, seems to imply? 
• is this the worst time in history from that point of view, after the Cuban missile crisis of 1962? 
• how can we move out of the current impasse and the current situation?

Discussion will be under Chatham House rule: participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed.

Ambassador L. Bencini is the Permanent Representative of Italy to the Conference on Disarmament. He has served in Rome, Rio de Janeiro, Oslo, Moscow, St. Petersburg and now Geneva. He has dealt with United Nations issues at various stages of his career – from human rights to peacekeeping and peacebuilding, from UN reform to sustainable development.

- Intro slides