Contributor(s): Ray Acheson, Dr Renata Dwan, Rebecca Johnson | Launching the Arts and Humanities Research Council research project, A Feminist International Law of Peace and Security, that asks how a feminist reading of International Law can further disarmament and promote sustainable peace, a panel of leading experts discuss the role of women and disarmament. For over a century women activists have played a leading role in seeking universal disarmament and arms control and in initiating peace projects – from the 1915 Women’s Peace Congress in The Hague through to the negotiations for the Nuclear Prohibition Treaty in 2017. The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) has continuously lobbied for ‘total and universal disarmament’ and for nineteen years women protested at Greenham Common against the placing of cruise missiles in the UK. Despite these and many other efforts it is argued that rather than promoting peace, contemporary international law sustains militaris
