Award Winner ALYN WARE (New Zealand-Aotearoa)

Posted on by October 13, 2009 by Karin Styrenius

Alyn Ware (New Zealand-Aotearoa), the 2009 Right Livelihood  Award Winner “…for his effective and creative advocacy and initiatives over
two decades to further peace education and to rid the world of
nuclear weapons”.

Alyn Ware is one of the world’s most effective peace workers, who has led key
initiatives for peace education and nuclear abolition in New Zealand and
internationally over the past 25 years. He helped draft the Peace Studies Guidelines
that became part of the New Zealand school curriculum, initiated successful
programmes in schools and thousands of classrooms throughout the country, and
has served as an adviser to the NZ government and the UN on disarmament
education.

He was active in the campaign that prohibited nuclear weapons in New
Zealand, before serving as the World Court Project UN Coordinator that achieved a
historic ruling from the World Court on the illegality of nuclear weapons. Alyn
Ware has led the efforts to implement the World Court’s decision, including
drafting resolutions adopted by the UN, bringing together a group of experts to
prepare a draft treaty on nuclear abolition which is now being promoted by the UN
Secretary General, and engaging parliamentarians around the world through
Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament.

From kindergarten teacher to the United Nations
Alyn Ware was born in New Zealand in 1962. He acquired a Bachelor of Education and a
Diploma of Kindergarten Teaching from Waikato University in 1983. After a year
teaching kindergarten, Alyn established the Mobile Peace Van Society and for five years
taught and co-ordinated all aspects of its peace education programme in pre-schools,
primary schools and secondary schools. This included teaching in hundreds of
classrooms; training teachers; co-founding the Cool Schools Peer Mediation Programme,
initiating War Toy Amnesty events, launching Our Planet in Every Classroom;
distributing teaching resources to every school through the School Journal; and working
with the Department of Education to develop the Peace Studies Guidelines.
During that time Alyn was also active in the campaign to make New Zealand nuclearweapon
free. This included chairing the Hamilton nuclear-weapon-free zone committee,
co-founding Peace Movement Aotearoa and leading the 1987 Peace Walk for a Nuclear
Free New Zealand. In 1998 he travelled to the USA and USSR to share New Zealand’s
successful anti-nuclear campaigns with nuclear disarmament initiatives and organisations
in those countries.

In 1990 he established the Gulf Peace Team office in New York and lobbied the UN
Security Council on peaceful solutions to the Gulf Crisis. In 1991 he worked for the
World Federalist Movement monitoring developments at the UN on the proposed
International Criminal Court in preparation for the launch of the Coalition for an
International Criminal Court (CICC) – which was successful in establishing the ICC.
Alyn led the CICC Working Group on Weapons Systems during the ICC negotiations.
From 1992-99 he was the Executive Director of the Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear
Policy (LCNP), in which capacity he was also the World Court Project UN Co-ordinator.
Under his leadership, the project was successful in getting the General Assembly to adopt
a resolution requesting an opinion from the International Court of Justice on the legality
of nuclear weapons. He also assisted a number of countries in their cases to the
International Court of Justice in order to ensure a successful outcome. In its opinion, the
Court declared the threat or use of nuclear weapons to be generally illegal and laid down
a general obligation of states to achieve complete nuclear disarmament under
international control.

Current positions and peace initiatives
In 1999, after helping establish a human rights presence in East Timor and Indonesia
under Peace Brigades International, Alyn returned to New Zealand to take advantage of
the peace and disarmament opportunities arising with the new Labour government under
Prime Minister Helen Clark. Although based in New Zealand, this work required
extensive travel, particularly to North America, Europe and Asia. This included ongoing
work at the United Nations including the drafting and presentation to the UN Security
Council of a Judges and Lawyers’ Appeal on the Illegality of the Preventive use of Force
– one of the initiatives which helped ensure that the UN Security Council did not
authorise the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Alyn currently holds the positions of:
• Director of the Wellington office of the Peace Foundation, a peace education
activity in New Zealand schools and communities;
• Vice-President of the International Peace Bureau, in which he is most active on
their Disarmament for Development Program;
• Consultant to the Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear Policy and the International
Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms (IALANA) for which he is
responsible for the programmes promoting Nuclear Weapon Free Zones and a
Nuclear Weapons Convention;
• New Zealand Coordinator of the World March for Peace and Nonviolence which
started in New Zealand on 2 October 2009 and is travelling around the world
promoting nuclear abolition, an end to war and the prevention of violence at all levels
of society;
• Co-Founder and International Coordinator of Parliamentarians for Nuclear Nonproliferation
and Disarmament (PNND), which engages legislators from across the
political spectrum in nuclear disarmament issues and initiatives; and
• Board member or advisor of a number of other international organisations including
Abolition 2000, Middle Powers Initiative, Peace Boat, Mayors for Peace and the
Global Campaign for Peace Education.

Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament
In 2002, Alyn established Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-proliferation and
Disarmament (PNND), a project of the Global Security Institute and the Middle Powers
Initiative. PNND educates and engages parliamentarians in initiatives at the national,
regional and international levels.

At the national level, Alyn helps legislators to draft parliamentary resolutions, engage in
parliamentary debates, provide input into national policy decisions, adopt legislation, and
participate in civil society actions and initiatives relating to nuclear non-proliferation and
disarmament.

At the regional level, Alyn ensures that PNND is active in the development of nuclearweapon-
free zones, and in reducing the role of nuclear weapons in alliances such as
NATO, ANZUS (Australia and the US) and the Japan-US and South Korea-US alliances.
At the international level, Alyn leads PNND activities to engage parliamentarians in key
bodies such as the UN General Assembly, Conference on Disarmament, UN Security
Council and NPT Review Conferences. PNND also assists parliamentarians to be active
on specific issues and initiatives including nuclear testing, fissile materials, prevention of
an arms race in outer space, and achievement of a nuclear weapons convention.

Advancing a Nuclear Weapons Convention
In 1995 Alyn co-founded Abolition 2000, an international network now numbering over
2000 endorsing organisations that calls for negotiations to achieve a Nuclear Weapons
Convention – a treaty to prohibit and eliminate nuclear weapons under effective
international control. Following the 1996 International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion
on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons, Alyn drafted a UN resolution
on implementation of the ICJ opinion through negotiations for a Nuclear Weapons
Convention. Since then, this resolution has attracted every year the votes of some 125
countries in the UN General Assembly – including from the New Agenda Countries
(Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa and Sweden), the Non-
Aligned Movement, and some of the nuclear-weapons possessing countries – China,
India, Pakistan and North Korea.

Alyn then brought together a group of experts to draft a Model Nuclear Weapons
Convention – a 70 pages document outlining the legal, technical and political measures
required to achieve and sustain a nuclear-weapons-free world. This Model Nuclear
Weapons Convention has been circulated and promoted by the UN Secretary-General.
Ware is also one of two principal authors of the book Securing our Survival: the Case for
a Nuclear Weapons Convention, published by IPPNW and distributed to diplomats,
academics, scientists, parliamentarians, mayors, non-governmental organisations and
media around the world.

The links between peace education in schools and international peace
Alyn Ware believes that his peace education work in schools and his international peace
and disarmament work are intricately linked. He says:

Quote
”The principles of peace are the same whether it be in school, at home, in the community
or internationally. These are primarily about how to solve our conflicts in win/win ways,
i.e. in ways that meet all peoples’ needs. My kindergarten teaching was thus good
training for my international peace and disarmament work. And when I am back in the
classroom, I can help students see that the ideas and approaches they are using to solve
their conflicts are similar to the ideas and approaches we use at the United Nations to
solve international conflicts.”