Civil society organisations can and do have a significant role to play in building sustainable security. The story of Pugwash, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning organisation that deals with issues at the intersection of science and policy, highlights the importance of dialogue across divides in building sustainable security. As part of Rethinking Security’s series ‘Stories of People- and Planet-centred Cooperation’, Dr Tim Street tells the story of Pugwash’s successful work influencing arms control and reducing risks from nuclear weapons.
(This blog first appeared on the Rethinking Security website)
Albert Einstein’s last public act was to sign a manifesto warning that nuclear weapons pose a threat to the survival of humanity and calling for major efforts to address and contain these dangers. The manifesto was launched on 09 July 1955 at a press conference in London. The appeal, written by Bertrand Russell, and endorsed by some of the most eminent intellectuals of the 20th century, urged that the immense peril associated with nuclear weapons be recognised by governments and publics alike, and for world leaders to “learn to think in a new way”. Amongst the other signatories to the document were some of the world’s leading scientists, including Max Born, Percy Williams Bridgman, and Linus Pauling.
On 08 July 2025, a special event at the Royal Society in London marked the 70th anniversary of the Russell-Einstein manifesto. This event provided an important opportunity to remember the success of the Pugwash conferences in creating dialogue that led to the major powers taking important steps away from nuclear war, and towards sustainable security, during the second half of the twentieth century. In more recent times, the nuclear armed states—particularly Russia and the United States—have reversed much of the hard won progress on arms control. Civil society groups, parliamentarians, scientists and the public must now work together to resist a new nuclear arms race and revive disarmament.
The manifesto’s launch, which created the Pugwash movement, was chaired by Joseph Rotblat, its youngest signatory. Rotblat was a Polish-born scientist who had emigrated to Britain in 1939. He had taken part in the US Manhattan Project in 1944, but resigned when it became apparent that the risk of Nazi Germany acquiring atomic weapons had receded. He was the only wartime scientist to walk away from the project for moral reasons. Rotblat committed the rest of his life to peace advocacy and the ethical application of science, including helping to create the Pugwash movement.
The worldwide attention received by the Russell-Einstein manifesto led to the convening of the first Pugwash Conference in 1957, involving twenty-two scientists from East and West. The meeting was held at philanthropist Cyrus Eaton’s lodge in the village of Pugwash, Nova Scotia—hence the organisation’s name. Topics included ensuring the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, averting the dangers of nuclear weapons, and promoting the social responsibility of scientists. These threads continue to be woven into Pugwash’s work today, which has several national groups, including British Pugwash.
Pugwash’s role in international nuclear and WMD negotiations
As an organisation, Pugwash has made a unique contribution to the peace movement and sustainable security. It has consistently provided a respected forum for discussion where scientists and experts from different backgrounds and political systems take part as individuals and not as representatives of any government, primarily in “off the record” meetings. This ground-breaking approach provides channels to transmit information to the highest levels of government. Pugwash’s influence has been enhanced by its reputation for impeccable scientific integrity and lack of bias.
British Pugwash worked with International Pugwash to bring together scientists and public figures from both sides of the Iron Curtain to discuss some of the most sensitive security issues during the difficult Cold War period. The Pugwash Conferences have been widely credited with laying the foundations for some of the most significant treaties of that time, among them the Partial Test Ban Treaty, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and the Biological and Chemical Weapons Conventions.
Rising concern over radioactive fall-out resulting from nuclear weapons testing during the 1950s and early 1960s led to discussions on a nuclear test ban treaty. At a 1962 Pugwash meeting, US and Russian scientists developed the “black box” idea – the use of sealed boxes containing instruments to monitor seismic activity remotely. This meeting, and international discussions which followed it, influenced the signing of the Partial Test Ban Treaty in October 1963.
Negotiations on the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty benefited from the sustained involvement of Pugwash members, who had heard alternative arguments and ideas at Pugwash events, which then influenced their government’s positions. Drafts of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, submitted by the United States and the USSR to the 18-nation Disarmament Conference in Geneva, were reviewed by a working group at the 17th Pugwash Conference in 1967, and proposals to increase their acceptability were developed.
Pugwash has not only been concerned with nuclear weapons, but with all weapons of mass destruction. In 1959 the series of Pugwash Chemical and Biological Warfare Workshops were instrumental in bringing together technical experts, official negotiators, and industrial and academic experts to help lay the framework for the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention. Notably, this Convention owed a great deal to the activities of a British Pugwash member, Julian Perry Robinson.
The 1972 Biological Weapons Convention resulted from close cooperation between Pugwash, the World Health Organisation and the chairman of the UN-appointed committee, Sir Solly Zuckerman. A Pugwash study group on Conventional Forces helped to encourage the restructuring of force levels, setting the stage for the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty and the 1990 Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty.
Pugwash was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995, shared with its co-founder and the organisation’s most inspirational figure, Joseph Rotblat, in recognition of their “efforts to diminish the part played by nuclear arms in international affairs and, in the longer run, to eliminate such arms”. It was the first time the prize was awarded jointly to an organisation and an individual.
New challenges in the twenty-first century
In more recent years, Pugwash has continued to serve as a bridge for dialogue across divides in areas of nuclear risk, in addition to its more traditional arms control and disarmament brief. For example, the group held a series of “Track 2” discussions (meaning: unofficial, informal dialogue and interaction between non-state actors or experts, rather than between official diplomats) on security problems in the Middle East, including the Iranian nuclear issue. Meetings between Indians and Pakistanis promoted progress on Kashmir, nuclear issues and other confidence-building measures. In 2004, a Pugwash delegation visited Pyongyang and exchanged views on security developments in the region, followed by unofficial discussions.
At this time of rising nuclear threat and global tension, Pugwash’s mission continues to be vital. As Pugwash Secretary General Professor Karen Hallberg recently observed, “humanity is facing one of the most challenging moments” so that “we should rise to the responsibility passed on to us by the founders of this unique movement.” Politicians and policy-makers need well thought out, viable ideas which tackle the major challenges facing the world, such as how to deal with the dangers posed by nuclear weapons at a time of rising conflict and rapid technological change. At every level, whether in conferences at Westminster, international assemblies at the UN, or in community halls with our MPs, the peace and disarmament movement can and must offer a positive agenda, and share successes of previous initiatives to inspire alternative thinking on security.
Image Credit: Thinkers’ Lodge, Pugwash, Nova Scotia, Canada, the venue for the first Pugwash Conference in July 1957. Via Wikimedia.
