1 00:00:00,300 --> 00:00:02,790 Good morning, everybody, and thanks for having me. 2 00:00:02,790 --> 00:00:09,450 My name specifically Williams, I'm the co-director of a think tank in London that promotes meaningful dialogue to build international trust, 3 00:00:09,450 --> 00:00:12,730 reduce nuclear risks and advance disarmament. 4 00:00:12,730 --> 00:00:18,550 My central argument today is that whereas the international community has traditionally favoured the pursuit of legally 5 00:00:18,550 --> 00:00:25,270 binding arms control measures to regulate weapons and prescriptive rules to regulate domains such as the Law of the Sea, 6 00:00:25,270 --> 00:00:33,110 today we're seeing a serious interest in alternative approaches that aim to establish non-binding norms or standards of acceptable behaviour. 7 00:00:33,110 --> 00:00:38,840 Specifically, we're seeing the language of responsibility, responsible behaviour or responsibilities, 8 00:00:38,840 --> 00:00:42,770 which are all forms of what Marianne gladdened called responsibility talk, 9 00:00:42,770 --> 00:00:50,900 appear as a common thread in parallel diplomatic discussions about arms control and the secure and sustainable use of the global commons. 10 00:00:50,900 --> 00:00:57,380 For this reason, I would theorise that what we're seeing is a shift currently to responsibilities based approach to the regulation, 11 00:00:57,380 --> 00:01:02,030 control and ultimately governance of strategic weapons technologies and demands. 12 00:01:02,030 --> 00:01:10,130 And I'd situate this is one specific kind of principles based approach to regulation, which can be contrasted to a rules based approach. 13 00:01:10,130 --> 00:01:15,980 So as Julia Black defines it, writing in the context of financial sector regulation, in general terms, 14 00:01:15,980 --> 00:01:22,640 principle based approach means moving away from reliance on detailed, prescriptive rules and relying more on high level, 15 00:01:22,640 --> 00:01:29,450 broadly stated rules of principles to set the standards of my ten minutes or so today, 16 00:01:29,450 --> 00:01:34,040 I'm going to talk to you about where we're seeing these shifts in the realm of international security, 17 00:01:34,040 --> 00:01:40,540 why we might be seeing them and what they might mean for the future. To start with. 18 00:01:40,540 --> 00:01:47,620 There are three weapons technologies and associated domains where responsibility talk has become an important feature cyberspace, 19 00:01:47,620 --> 00:01:50,210 space and nuclear weapons. 20 00:01:50,210 --> 00:01:57,740 Over the past 10 years, we've seen the development of a diplomatic conversation about responsible behaviours in cyberspace, quote unquote, 21 00:01:57,740 --> 00:02:03,500 with the language being particularly picked up by the 20 15 group of governmental experts that year, 22 00:02:03,500 --> 00:02:10,620 senior or one hundred ninety three UN member states agreed on a framework for responsible behaviour of states in cyberspace. 23 00:02:10,620 --> 00:02:15,930 Over the past year, we've seen an equivalent conversation on responsible behaviours emerge in relation to outerspace. 24 00:02:15,930 --> 00:02:22,950 This began when the United United Kingdom even tabled a resolution entitled Reducing Space Threats through Norms, 25 00:02:22,950 --> 00:02:27,840 Rules and Principles of Responsible Behaviours at the UN General Assembly First Committee, 26 00:02:27,840 --> 00:02:33,260 which was formally adopted with one hundred sixty four votes in favour, 12 against and six abstentions. 27 00:02:33,260 --> 00:02:42,540 In both cases, it's worth pointing out that this approach has been opted for at the expense of pursuing stricter, legally binding approach instead. 28 00:02:42,540 --> 00:02:48,360 Over the past five years or so, basic, my organisation and the icks the Institute for Conflict, 29 00:02:48,360 --> 00:02:52,140 Cooperation, Security at the University of Birmingham have been working with a range of states, 30 00:02:52,140 --> 00:03:00,140 including the United Kingdom, on the subject of responsibilities in relation to nuclear weapons, which we called nuclear responsibilities for short. 31 00:03:00,140 --> 00:03:07,730 So with more time, I'd say a bit more about sort of how each of these conversations have emerged, but since a bit of time, 32 00:03:07,730 --> 00:03:14,820 I'm just going to focus on nuclear weapons before saying a bit about why I think a responsibility based approach has fetched. 33 00:03:14,820 --> 00:03:18,630 So I've been working on the idea of responsibility in relation to nuclear weapons since twenty sixteen. 34 00:03:18,630 --> 00:03:22,160 As director of the Programme on Nuclear Responsibilities. 35 00:03:22,160 --> 00:03:28,520 The purpose of the programme is to stimulate and support a global conversation about our responsibilities in relation to nuclear weapons, 36 00:03:28,520 --> 00:03:34,820 and our contention is that just as it seems to have helped unlock diplomatic discussions on this and more recently on space, 37 00:03:34,820 --> 00:03:39,320 a responsibility based approach could open up room for a new kind of dialogue that could reverse 38 00:03:39,320 --> 00:03:44,900 the mutually destructive culture of blame that we currently see in the nuclear weapons debate. 39 00:03:44,900 --> 00:03:48,020 We call this way of thinking, talking and writing about nuclear weapons, 40 00:03:48,020 --> 00:03:54,880 the nuclear responsibility's approach for short, and it's both a mindset and a model of dialogue. 41 00:03:54,880 --> 00:04:02,560 Our results so far have suggested that it creates opportunities to reduce distrust and nuclear risks and so pave the way for nuclear disarmament. 42 00:04:02,560 --> 00:04:07,450 And we've tested the nuclear responsibility's approach with a wide range of countries in the past four years at 43 00:04:07,450 --> 00:04:14,020 national roundtables and also international multistakeholder dialogues to make it as robust as we can make it again, 44 00:04:14,020 --> 00:04:18,730 in the interest of time. I'll be happy to say a bit more about this in the Q&A, if you'd like to hear about it. 45 00:04:18,730 --> 00:04:24,730 We're primarily working with states, but we're also open to engage with any actors who have the capacity to affect nuclear futures, 46 00:04:24,730 --> 00:04:29,410 including international organisations, alliances and nongovernmental organisations. 47 00:04:29,410 --> 00:04:33,850 And currently we're exploring the nuclear responsibilities approach at the regional level and conversations 48 00:04:33,850 --> 00:04:38,020 on nuclear responsibilities in the Asia Pacific with a view to framing dialogue between India, 49 00:04:38,020 --> 00:04:39,700 Pakistan and others. 50 00:04:39,700 --> 00:04:45,610 But we're also looking at ways that we can initiate a more inclusive dialogue on nuclear responsibilities at the multilateral level, 51 00:04:45,610 --> 00:04:51,210 echoing in a way that the kinds of conversations we're seeing on cyber and space. 52 00:04:51,210 --> 00:04:56,850 We'll be publishing the nuclear responsibility approach in a new practical toolkit in June or July. 53 00:04:56,850 --> 00:05:05,150 So I invite you all to account for that. We're not the first to invoke nuclear sorry responsibility talk in relation to nuclear weapons, 54 00:05:05,150 --> 00:05:09,770 as professor we learnt tattling our 20 reports nuclear responsibilities, 55 00:05:09,770 --> 00:05:14,450 a new approach for thinking and talking about nuclear weapons, the language of special responsibilities, 56 00:05:14,450 --> 00:05:18,410 primary responsibilities and shared responsibilities existed in diplomatic discussions 57 00:05:18,410 --> 00:05:22,920 around nuclear weapons since the 1960s and since the end of the millennium, 58 00:05:22,920 --> 00:05:29,360 the idea of a responsible nuclear weapons state or responsible nuclear sovereignty has also matched. 59 00:05:29,360 --> 00:05:36,470 So I welcome the programme has never sought to build on these foundations and the work of others, amongst them William Walker, Scott Sagan, John Gowa, 60 00:05:36,470 --> 00:05:42,270 Amelia Morgan and Heather Williams and Nina Tannenwald to translate academic thinking on responsibility, 61 00:05:42,270 --> 00:05:46,120 talk in relation to nuclear weapons into something more practical. 62 00:05:46,120 --> 00:05:53,470 At the moment, the responsibilities based approach in relation to nuclear weapons is not as established as that in relation to cyberspace or space, 63 00:05:53,470 --> 00:05:55,420 yet we're seeing it pop up more and more. 64 00:05:55,420 --> 00:06:00,700 And the feedback that we're getting from states is this is the kind of shift that the nuclear weapons conversation needs. 65 00:06:00,700 --> 00:06:04,530 So I think we'll see it gather momentum. 66 00:06:04,530 --> 00:06:10,710 I'd like to spend my last few minutes considering why we might be seeing a responsibilities based approach popping up in the cases of cyberspace, 67 00:06:10,710 --> 00:06:16,690 space and nuclear weapons, and I suggest that there are both push and pull factors at play. 68 00:06:16,690 --> 00:06:22,990 The main push factor, I'd suggest, is the challenge of and loss of confidence in agreeing legally binding arms control measures, 69 00:06:22,990 --> 00:06:27,290 of which there are a few aspects to consider. In the case of nuclear weapons, 70 00:06:27,290 --> 00:06:32,960 the arms control agreements of the Cold War have fallen away one by one as either Russia or the United States have left them. 71 00:06:32,960 --> 00:06:37,710 Yet even these were immensely challenging to agree and evidently to sustain. 72 00:06:37,710 --> 00:06:46,470 In today's world, things are far more complex with more adversary actors and more technologies, as Marina Talk amply demonstrated. 73 00:06:46,470 --> 00:06:48,090 Well, it doesn't mean that we shouldn't try. 74 00:06:48,090 --> 00:06:54,920 It is unclear in the nuclear sphere what could be controlled next or even which actors will even be involved in such an agreement. 75 00:06:54,920 --> 00:06:59,370 The Trump administration sought to no avail to bring China into the next round of arms control. 76 00:06:59,370 --> 00:07:08,990 Russia and China have both, not unreasonably, response. Why not the U.S. and France, both India and Pakistan? 77 00:07:08,990 --> 00:07:16,040 It's not that we may never achieve such a multilateral and nuclear arms control agreement. 78 00:07:16,040 --> 00:07:20,110 It's a question of whether we have time in light of today's growing risks. 79 00:07:20,110 --> 00:07:24,460 The same is true in the case of cyber and space weapons, which have even more players in the game, 80 00:07:24,460 --> 00:07:28,900 thus the agreement of even a limited set of core political responsibilities or 81 00:07:28,900 --> 00:07:34,490 standards of responsible state behaviour might serve as a crucial stopgap measure. 82 00:07:34,490 --> 00:07:41,340 Other challenges for legally binding measures in the case of cyberspace are the difficulties of attributing attacks and verifying compliance. 83 00:07:41,340 --> 00:07:49,110 And again, I can say a bit more about this, if you'd like to hear. Not to say a few words on the pull factors first, 84 00:07:49,110 --> 00:07:54,900 one of the common features of responsibilities based approach seems to be that the processes through which they develop a more inclusive, 85 00:07:54,900 --> 00:07:58,560 pluralistic and open ended, they take a less traditional approach. 86 00:07:58,560 --> 00:08:05,040 And as rather than a state designing a specific proposal on capital, capital and then lobbying others to agree with it, 87 00:08:05,040 --> 00:08:08,790 they instead get all of the parties together from the start and ask the broad questions about what 88 00:08:08,790 --> 00:08:14,220 direction regulation should go in because responsibilities are inherently socially constructed, 89 00:08:14,220 --> 00:08:18,120 a responsibility based approach allows for plurality of views to be shared, 90 00:08:18,120 --> 00:08:25,200 meaning all parties feel heard and their perspectives are taken into account better as frameworks are developed from a process perspective, 91 00:08:25,200 --> 00:08:31,670 it seems like an improvement. Second, as with principles based regulation, more generally, 92 00:08:31,670 --> 00:08:35,210 the outcomes of any agreement seem likely to be more future proofed because they rely 93 00:08:35,210 --> 00:08:39,680 less on prescriptive rules written down at a point in time and which risk obsolescence. 94 00:08:39,680 --> 00:08:43,640 The technologies and technology producers evolve. By contrast, 95 00:08:43,640 --> 00:08:49,130 agreeing to a set of higher level responsibilities that are more technologically and temporally agnostic is likely to 96 00:08:49,130 --> 00:08:56,710 be more resilient because it puts the focus on the actor using the technology rather than one technology or another. 97 00:08:56,710 --> 00:09:00,340 Third, although non-binding approaches have been around much longer. 98 00:09:00,340 --> 00:09:03,700 I wonder whether part of the reason for the emergence of responsibilities based 99 00:09:03,700 --> 00:09:08,830 approaches is that they are more evocative and therefore more likely to be complied with. 100 00:09:08,830 --> 00:09:15,250 Soft norms and guiding principles have been used for decades, but they imply to me voluntary standards. 101 00:09:15,250 --> 00:09:18,160 By contrast, even as they are socially constructed, 102 00:09:18,160 --> 00:09:23,590 responsibilities feel deeper and more eternal and as though they are the standards that exist and should be followed. 103 00:09:23,590 --> 00:09:30,670 Even in the absence of law, we must pay attention to the impact of language on our emotions in international politics. 104 00:09:30,670 --> 00:09:34,390 And finally, I note that there's been a wider move towards responsibilities based approaches 105 00:09:34,390 --> 00:09:39,520 that goes beyond the field of international security in the climate change regime, 106 00:09:39,520 --> 00:09:44,350 for instance, the principle that states have common but differentiated responsibilities and respective 107 00:09:44,350 --> 00:09:49,520 capabilities to address global heating has run through the agreements of the past 30 years. 108 00:09:49,520 --> 00:09:53,510 Under the auspices of the United Nations, the Global Compact, formed in 2000, 109 00:09:53,510 --> 00:10:00,200 pushed for a principles based approach to global business in relation to human rights, labour, the environment and anti-corruption. 110 00:10:00,200 --> 00:10:05,960 And, of course, what I've just discussed sits within a broader set of conversations about the ethical or responsible uses of technology, 111 00:10:05,960 --> 00:10:08,210 much of which emanates from the private sector. 112 00:10:08,210 --> 00:10:15,780 It's a language that they understand to which is helpful for for public private multistakeholder regulation. 113 00:10:15,780 --> 00:10:24,210 So the thought I'd like to leave you wondering is this is a responsibilities based approach, one whose time has come in the 21st century. 114 00:10:24,210 --> 00:10:28,920 Are things getting so complicated today that what we need are simple principles 115 00:10:28,920 --> 00:10:34,020 framed evocatively as responsibilities that we can follow in various domains? 116 00:10:34,020 --> 00:10:37,380 And if these conversations continue to emerge in a Bottom-Up way, 117 00:10:37,380 --> 00:10:42,820 other perhaps some general metter responsibility that we can eventually draw out as a world? 118 00:10:42,820 --> 00:10:48,990 Or is a responsibility based approach a cop out of negotiations to agree stricter measures? 119 00:10:48,990 --> 00:10:53,640 To me, responsibilities based approaches might at the very least serve as a stopgap measure to 120 00:10:53,640 --> 00:10:59,040 stand in the way of total pandemonium while rules based approaches are under negotiation. 121 00:10:59,040 --> 00:11:08,250 They might also serve as the precursors to those rules, helping crystallise and solidify principles and norms, paving the way for hard law to follow. 122 00:11:08,250 --> 00:11:11,820 This might even become standard procedure for states in the future as they 123 00:11:11,820 --> 00:11:17,130 look at new weapons technologies or domains or hard law may never eventuate, 124 00:11:17,130 --> 00:11:21,660 in which case at least the responsibilities based approach will be there. 125 00:11:21,660 --> 00:11:26,910 Of course, it would be good for the peace community to take an active part in these discussions to develop understandings 126 00:11:26,910 --> 00:11:34,220 of responsible behaviour in relation to nuclear weapons and a range of other weapons and means as they emerge. 127 00:11:34,220 --> 00:11:41,240 With that, I will conclude it's been a pleasure to speak to you and I look forward to you Q&A, I will be delighted to answer any more questions. 128 00:11:41,240 --> 00:11:47,900 And you can also email me at Rexy Williams at Basic L.A. dot org, should you wish to discuss anything further. 129 00:11:47,900 --> 00:11:50,818 In the meantime, thank you listening.