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Calls for submissions! 3rd Essay Contest on a “Nuclear Weapons Free Future”

2024年4月26日

Calls for submissions! [JPN]
3rd Essay Contest on a “Nuclear Weapons Free Future”

This year’s theme:“What would you say to the leaders of countries that currently rely on nuclear weapons?”

The Research Center for Nuclear Weapons Abolition, Nagasaki University (RECNA), with the support of the Nagasaki Shimbun, invites youth between the ages of 16 and 29 to submit an essay on a “Nuclear Weapons Free Future.”

The conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza show no signs of abating, and the specter of nuclear war persists in various regions. Against this backdrop, the year 2024 has emerged as an international “election year” with potentially significant implications for nuclear policy. The presidential elections in the United States and Russia are the most prominent, but Japan is also grappling with the prospect of a general election.

If you were to send a letter to a single leader of one nuclear weapons state, or the leaders of several or all of the nuclear weapons states, considering the worsening situation surrounding nuclear weapons, what would you ask them to do? We would like you to compose such a message, that you may address to the leader of one nuclear weapons state, or a state under the nuclear umbrella of a nucler weapons state, like Japan, or the leaders of all or some of the nuclear weapons states ^(*1) and umbrella states^(*2).

Entries will be divided into two groups: youth aged 16 to 19 (Under 20) and youth aged 20 to 29 (Under 30). Awards will be given to outstanding essays and there will be one grand prize winner for each age group. The two winning essays will be published in the Nagasaki Shimbun newspaper and the winning authors will be invited to participate in the award ceremony in Nagasaki on Saturday, September 21st, 2024. If the winner resides in Japan, she/he will be invited to Nagasaki to participate in person. If the winner resides overseas, he/she will be invited to participate in the award ceremony online.

［⇒ Winners & Opinions of the First Essay Contest］
［⇒ Winners & Opinions of the 2nd Essay Contest］

^{*1: Russia, United States, China, France, United Kingdom, Pakistan, India, Israel and North Korea

*2: Japan, South Korea, Australia, NATO non-nuclear weapon states (Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Türkiye, Greece, Germany, Spain, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Romania, Albania, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Finland, Sweden), and Belarus (Following the invasion of Ukraine, Russia has declared that it is also extending a nuclear umbrella to Belarus, where Russia has deployed nuclear weapons. Consequently, Belarus is now also considered to be included in this category.)}

ELIGIBILITY
• Under-20 (Ages between 16 and 19), Under-30 (Ages between 20 and 29) as of July 31, 2024.
• Any residence or nationality is welcome.

APPLICATION
Please submit the following documents in PDF format by e-mail to opinion@ml.nagasaki-u.ac.jp
1. Application　[form] * For download
2. Your Essay　(Essays should be about 1000 words, in English, and must be original and unpublished. Your essay should be in the form of a letter/message to the leader(s) of a “nuclear armed states” or a country under the “nuclear umbrella. Make it clear in the title or in the text which leader(s) the message is addressed to.)

SUBMISSION DEADLINE
July 31, 2024
You will receive a notice of receipt approximately one week after submission. If you do not receive a notice please contact us at the contact information below.
* Please note that applications will not be accepted at the contact e-mail address.

ABOUT THE PRIZE
For Youth Under-30:
• The grand prize winner will receive a commemorative plaque, prize money of 50,000 yen, and, for a winner who resides in Japan, an invitation to the award ceremony in Nagasaki. (A winner who resides outside Japan will be invited to participate online.)
• The second prize winner will receive a commemorative plaque and prize money of 30,000 yen.
For Youth Under-20:
• The grand prize winner will receive a commemorative plaque, prize money of 30,000 yen, and, for a winner who resides in Japan, an invitation to the award ceremony in Nagasaki. (A winner who resides outside Japan will be invited to participate online.)
• The second prize winner will receive a commemorative plaque and prize money of 10,000 yen.

AWARD SELECTION AND ANNOUNCEMENT
Two grand prize winners and two second prize winners will be selected after strict screening by the selection committee. The committee members are:
• Yuichi SEIRAI, Akutagawa Award-winning author (Chair)
• Gregory KULACKI, Visiting Fellow of RECNA (Chair of the English Review Subcommittee)
• Yoshiki YAMADA, Editorial Director, Nagasaki Shimbun newspaper, visiting professor of RECNA (Vice chair)
• Keiko NAKAMURA, Associate Professor of RECNA (Vice chair)
• Tatsujiro SUZUKI, Professor of RECNA,
• Suzuka NAKAMURA, Co-president of KNOW NUKES TOKYO
• Sumiko HATAKEYAMA, Co-president of Peace Boat
• Ayane MURAKAMI , 9th member of Nagasaki Youth Delegation

SCREENING CRITERIA
Your Essay will be evaluated on the following criteria:
(1) Clarity and Logical consistency, (2) Factual content, (3) Creativity and originality, (4) Expressiveness

ANNOUCEMENT
The results will be announced in the Award Ceremony.
Time and Date: Saturday, September 21, 2024, 1-2 p.m.
Venue: Nagasaki University (https://www.nagasaki-u.ac.jp/en/)
The Grand Prize-winning essays will be published in full in the Nagasaki Shimbun newspaper at a later date. All winning essays will be published on the RECNA website.
* The copyright of the submitted essays belongs to entrant, but the organizer (RECNA) holds secondary use (publication online or paper format, etc.) right of the winning essays.

Sponsored by: the Research Center for Nuclear Weapons Abolition, Nagasaki University (RECNA)

Supported by: Nagasaki Shimbun Newspaper

Nominal support organizations: Nagasaki Prefecture, Nagasaki City, NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) Nagasaki, KTN (Television Nagasaki Co.,Ltd.), NBC (Nagasaki Broadcasting Company), NCC（Nagasaki Culture Telecasting Corporation）, NIB (Nagasaki International Television Broadcasting, Inc.)

* This project is funded by a donation for the Research Center for Nuclear Weapons Abolition, Nagasaki University (RECNA).

Contact
Research Center for Nuclear Weapons Abolition, Nagasaki University (RECNA) TEL: +81-95-819-2164 E-mail: recna_staff@ml.nagasaki-u.ac.jp Website: https://www.recna.nagasaki-u.ac.jp/recna/en-top

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【Special report No.20】”Revisiting the Comprehensive Security Roadmap to Reduce the Risk of War on the Korean Peninsula” （NU-NEA Project）

2024年4月19日

Image: policy puzzle map of Northeast Asia generated from Puzzle Paradigm here

Revisiting the Comprehensive Security Roadmap to Reduce the Risk of War
on the Korean Peninsula

Leon Sigal, Morton Halperin, Peter Hayes,
Chung-in Moon, John Delury, Tom Pickering

April 19, 2024

This report is published under a 4.0 International Creative Commons License the terms of which are found here.
This report is simultaneously published by the Asia-Pacific Leadership Network, Nautilus Institute, and the Research Center for Nuclear Weapons Abolition, Nagasaki University (RECNA).

Acknowledgements: Funding from John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and New Land Foundation.

Overview

In this paper we revisit the concept of comprehensive security in Northeast Asia as the guiding principle that should be used to reduce tension, avoid war, and re-engage on a constructive peace-making cooperative security agenda in Northeast Asia, including reducing then eliminating the threat of nuclear war. In section 1, we outline the mostly negative security trends in the region over the last five years. In section 2, we explain how the DPRK’s¹ nuclear breakout has become the most urgent threat in the region, but also now demands a more indirect approach at a regional level than in 2018 when we last addressed the issue of comprehensive security.² In section 3, we explore how inter-Korean relations have spiraled into hostility, rupture, and potentially rapidly escalating conflict and unraveled hard-won channels of communication, cooperation, and collaboration due to how the two Koreas have responded to the evolving external security context and to their respective domestic imperatives. In section 4, we suggest four steps that could ease insecurity in the region, especially in Korea, namely:
	a) The US and China tacitly act in concert whereby the US tries to restrain Seoul from provocative threats or actions animated at Pyongyang while China seeks to restrain Pyongyang from issuing and acting on threats, especially nuclear threats; b) China reaches out to reassure the ROK³ with concrete steps while the US takes unilateral steps to reassure the DPRK; c) The US engages China to propose a joint statement with all parties on the inadmissibility of use of nuclear weapons and a dialogue on creating a nuclear-weapons-free zone including changes in the nuclear postures of all nuclear-armed states in the region; d) The US and the ROK explicitly outline the benefits to the DPRK of curbing its nuclear arming including improved security, access to advanced information technology, access to space services, and its integration into regional and global institutions with concomitant increased stature.
In section 5, we conclude that the steps being taken to reinforce deterrence may lead to a downward spiral that leads to rather than deterring war; and that progress in easing tensions in Korea could then inspire cooperative security efforts elsewhere in Northeast Asia to the benefit of all parties in the region while re-establishing the conditions needed for a comprehensive approach to realizing the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.
¹ DPRK, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, sometimes referred to as “North Korea.” ² See: Morton Halperin, Peter Hayes, Thomas Pickering, Leon Sigal, “GENERAL ROADMAP AND WORK PLAN FOR NUCLEAR DIPLOMACY WITH NORTH KOREA”, NAPSNet Special Reports, April 10, 2018, https://nautilus.org/napsnet/napsnet-special-reports/general-roadmap-and-work-plan-for-nuclear-diplomacy-with-north-korea/ MORTON HALPERIN, PETER HAYES, THOMAS PICKERING, LEON SIGAL, PHILIP YUN, “FROM ENEMIES TO SECURITY PARTNERS: PATHWAYS TO DENUCLEARIZATION IN KOREA”, NAPSNet Policy Forum, July 06, 2018, https://nautilus.org/napsnet/napsnet-policy-forum/from-enemies-to-security-partners-pathways-to-denuclearization-in-korea/ ³ ROK, the Republic of Korea, sometimes referred to as “South Korea.”

Authors’ Profile:

John Delury is associate professor of Chinese studies at Yonsei University; Morton Halperin is an American expert on foreign policy and civil liberties; Peter Hayes is Director of the Nautilus Institute and Honorary Professor at the Centre for International Security Studies at the University of Sydney; Moon Chung-in is a distinguished professor emeritus of political science at Yonsei University; Thomas Pickering is retired US ambassador; Leon Sigal directs the Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project.

Full text (PDF) is here.

The views represented herein are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the institutional positions.

The page for this project is here.

Category TOPICS

【Special report No.19】”Behavioral Arms Control and East Asia” （NU-NEA Project）

2024年4月16日

image(left): Wikimedia Commons, US President John F. Kennedy shaking hands with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.
image(right): U.S. DepartmentofDefense, Marine Corps Gen. Joe Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. Fang Fenghui of the Chinese army, chief of China’s joint staff, sign the joint strategic dialogue mechanism following a roundtable discussion at the Ba Yi, the People’s Liberation Army headquarters in Beijing, Aug. 15, 2017. DoD photo by Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Dominique A. Pineiro.

Behavioral Arms Control and East Asia

Ulrich Kühn and Heather Williams

April 16, 2024

This report is published under a 4.0 International Creative Commons License the terms of which are found here.

This report is simultaneously published by the Asia-Pacific Leadership Network, Nautilus Institute, and the Research Center for Nuclear Weapons Abolition, Nagasaki University (RECNA).

Abstract

Throughout the nuclear age, states have made a wide array of threats to use nuclear weapons. There is, however, often little clarity as to whether such threats are legal or illegal under international law. This article is the second in a two-part series, and in this piece we examine how two specific sets of international legal rules apply to select examples of past nuclear threats. In particular we analyse the legality of certain threats under the jus ad bellum regime of international law that regulates recourse to war between states, before turning to consider specific threat examples in the context of the jus in bello regime, which applies to regulate the conduct of hostilities during an armed conflict. Throughout the article, we identify a number of complexities and deficiencies in the ways that the rules of jus ad bellum and jus in bello apply to nuclear threats in practice.

Keywords: Nuclear weapons; international law; threat of force; nuclear threat

Authors’ Profile:

Ulrich Kühn is Director of the Arms Control and Emerging Technologies Program at IFSH, University of Hamburg, and a Non-Resident Scholar with the Nuclear Policy Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Heather Williams is the Director of the Project on Nuclear Issues at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. She is also an associate fellow with the Project on Managing the Atom, Harvard Belfer Center.

Full text (PDF) is here.

The page for this project is here.

Category TOPICS

【RECNA Newsletter】 Vol.12 No.2(March 31, 2024)

2024年4月1日

RECNA Newsletter Vol.12 No.2 (March 31, 2024)

Results of the initiative to put online and digitize the reality of the atomic bombing, and the future
— Mitsuhiro Hayashida

The Steady Growth of the Journal for Peace and Nuclear Disarmament: Recent Developments and an Interview with Dr. Masao Tomonaga
— Hibiki Yamaguchi

FY2023 Citizen’ Lectures and Special Citizens’ Seminar
— Kimiaki Kawai

Final Report of the Project on “Reducing the Risk of Nuclear Weapons Use in Northeast Asia (NU-NEA)”
— Tatsujiro Suzuki

RECNA Workshop on Nuclear Disarmament report： Interaction with UCS, SIPRI, UNIDIR
— Fumihiko Yoshida, Tatsujiro Suzuki

The Twelfth Nagasaki Youth Delegation members begin their activities
— Members of the Twelfth Nagasaki Youth Delegation

[Full text]　

Category TOPICS

【Final Report】”What Should Be Done? – Practical Policies to Prevent Nuclear Catastrophe” published. （NU-NEA Project）

2024年3月29日

【3^rd year】 What Should Be Done? – Practical Policies to Prevent Nuclear Catastrophe (March, 2024)

Report-Cover [English・Full-text: PDF]*New version was uploaded (Apr. 15, 2024).

[English Summary: PDF] [Chinese Summary: PDF]
[Korean Summary: PDF] [Russian Summary: PDF ]
*New version was uploaded (Apr. 15, 2024).

The page for this project is here.

Category TOPICS

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Calls for submissions! [JPN] 3rd Essay Contest on a “Nuclear Weapons Free Future”

RECNA Newsletter Vol.12 No.2 (March 31, 2024)

Calls for submissions! [JPN]
3rd Essay Contest on a “Nuclear Weapons Free Future”