 Cool. Awesome. Right. So thank you very much. And I should say that I'm very pleased to be presenting in this conference today. Let me introduce myself first. So my name is Carolina. I am a PhD candidate at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. My research looks at the emergence of the TPNW through feminist post-structuralist lenses. But today I'm going to be presenting a paper that I've been working on for the last couple of months. And it looks at the NPT Disarmament Principle. So let me begin with the story behind what kind of let me to actually write about the NPT Disarmament Principles. So here I'm engaging with a question on why nuclear weapons remain a persistent feature of global politics. And although there isn't like a single answer to this, I believe that this paper kind of offers a really interesting perspective and a really interesting dynamic to help us understand why. Thank you very well, Carolina. Sorry, could you, if you can up your volume. I know it's the joys of Zoom. I'm sorry to interrupt you. No worries yet. Let me just try with that. So if it helps. That's better. It breaks up slightly, but you sound louder, which is great, which is lovely. Thank you. And there's a note from Paul. Could you give me access to my audio and video controls? I've done that, Trish. It's okay. Lovely. Okay. Lovely. Okay. I'm sorry to interrupt you, Carolina. I'm sorry. No, it's good that no, I think it's just that people hear me. So can you hear me well now? Should I adjust anything? You can. It does drop out in and out a bit, but maybe just keeping it to the mic, maybe. I'm not very good at these things myself. I'll try and go a little closer here. It's always a challenge with Zoom and with technology. Okay. Let me try a little bit. If you can't hear well, just interrupt me again and I'll try and fix things. Right. So I'm a little closer to the mic now, so it should work now. So I was saying I think it really provides an interesting story about the design and principle. So one thing that got me thinking about this was the UK's announcement that would be increasing the number of warheads by 40%. And in that announcement, the document, the policy document, it announces that. I think it's a difference of two pages that the UK reiterates its commitment to the design and principle. So I remember reading the report and talking to a friend of mine here at the Auckland Union. I was like, isn't it interesting that the UK is doing the wrong thing, but then it reiterates the design and principle and reiterates its commitment to design. And then my friend said to me, well, there's nothing extraordinary about it. It's just what the NPT tells them that's the right thing to do. They possess weapons and they should commit to design. And I remember saying, well, maybe that's the problem. We've taken it for granted. So that's how it started. And the idea here is really pause to reflect on whether the design principle is always really helping us in achieving this argument. So let me tell you what the argument is here. So the argument is that the NPT design principle is affected by the politics that produced it. So basically the design narrative rather than helping us renders nuclear possession acceptable upholding the nuclear status quo. So I draw attention to how the NPT provides nuclear states with the norms that can be used to produce less violent and more responsible possessors. So revealing a story in which the design principle makes possible the very thing it is supposed to prevent. So how do I support all of this? I turn to the work of Kimberly Hutchings and Maya Zafis. So basically we work in their arguments into the context of nuclear politics. And by doing that, I seek to contribute to the conversation of what sustains a nuclear status quo. So here is a little bit of their work. So Hutchings, she provides a feminist analysis of ethics and she draws attention to how gender can be used in producing the kind of ethical subjects and also can be used to legitimize violence. So the analysis, for example, of war and how the US becomes a responsible and ethical actor at war. For example, the war of Afghanistan, talking about saving women and still engaging in war. So kind of legitimizing violence and making violence more acceptable. And I find it interesting that Hutchings talks about how for you to legitimize something, it's not about the rational argument itself, it's about putting the conditions in place for the argument to be accepted as rational, to be understood as rational. Maya Zafis talks about the ethics of war and she places some critical eyes on the practice of war itself. And what I find really interesting about her argument is that she talks about the laws of war as making possible the very thing that is supposed to prevent. So kind of drawing a parallel here with the design principle, I find interesting how these ideas connect. In her analysis of the civilian immunity principle, for example, she talks about how if conditions are met, for example, if killing is unintended, then it justified. It's just a side effect of war and permissible military action. So again, what is interesting here for me is that rather than being a solution, the laws of war for Zafis actually become the problem. And I find interesting as well when she talks about how the declarations of strict observance of the civilian immunity principle by Western states coincided with significant numbers of civilian deaths. So at war. And for me, it's quite similar to what happens in your politics. So we have all of like the the P five talking about your commitment to this argument, but at the same time, you have the P five still possessing your weapons, increasing numbers, modernizing the arsenals. Right, so that's the theoretical framework. And here's how I plan to develop the argument. So firstly, I will talk about the social expectations established by the NPT and how these social social expectations are grounded and responsibility. So it's not only about possessing weapons, but possessing nuclear weapons responsibly. And I analyze the case of the United Kingdom, and look at policy documents, statements dating from 2010. And I look at how in the statements, the United Kingdom justifies possession by using references to the NPT and particularly the design principles. So just to find possession and kind of reiterating that responsibility using article six, article six the design principle of the NPT. In the second part, I return to my theoretical framework to Zaifu's and Hutchings, and I develop the arguments a bit further kind of connecting the case study with the idea, for example, Hutchings talks about gender and how these narratives legitimize violence. So I talk about the design, the design narrative carrying meanings linked to non-violence responsibility. So masking the violence, which is the act of possessing nuclear bombs. So basically, the design narrative, the design principle is reiterating that responsibility and getting us into the cycle of reiteration, producing dominant understandings, which are the normal conduct in nuclear politics. And so long we continue to reiterate this normal understandings, dominant understandings, but probably we'll continue there where things won't change much. So another thing I draw attention to and here drawing on Zaifu's is how the civilian immunity norm for Zaifu's allows ethical differentiation. And I kind of draw a parallel to the design principle and how it helps to differentiate the nuclear possessors there in the scenario of nuclear politics. So making them conform to the established terms of intelligibility for an acceptable possessor. Right, so some conclusions here and probably I think the most important, I don't know how long we've been going with this, but probably nearly 15 minutes. So I just want to draw attention to my third point and probably the other two for the Q&A part. Just in terms of achieving nuclear design, I think it's really, really important that we try to understand nuclear order and the status quo as much as we can. And I don't think we fully understand it yet with it's important and only by doing so we'll be able to grasp and seize possibilities for change. Yeah, so I'll finish here and I'm looking forward to the discussion. I hope you could hear me well. Thanks. Thanks, Carolina. Okay, Abhishek. Are you there Abhishek? I'm directly conflicting. Don't think we can hear you. Abhishek, we can see your slides but we can't hear. Yeah, we can hear you now. Yes. Is my presentation visible? It is, it is. It is. Okay, thank you. Hello everyone. I'm Abhishek. I've just completed a master's from South Pacific University in New Delhi and right now I'm involved in my research on engineering nuclear assessment negotiations but I'm also following on how gender intersects with the domain of cyber security and how it helps in kind of increasing the deterrence and how states look at that and how gender can be an important role in kind of limiting the idea of deterrence which is seen as interdiction then. So my topic basically deals with where do we locate the gender element when we talk about the nuclear disarmament negotiations and I share my concerns with the previous speaker which she also talked about how when we found when we see the kind of discourse in international politics around the nuclear weapons it becomes very important to kind of talk about where do we where do we locate gender and where do we see gender when we talk about disarmament negotiations. So why is engineering of nuclear disarmament important? So in 2020 nuclear arm states spent around 2070, 2.6 billion dollars on the nuclear arsenals. All nuclear arm states have qualitatively tried to expand their nuclear arsenals and particularly six nuclear arms states China, India, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia and UK are increasing the size of this stockpile and this is seen as a clear violation of the NPT article 6 which play talks about to pursue disarmament for state parties and this brings about that how the states still looks at the idea of nuclear disarmament as something which as something which is used as conventional war and contemporary times against not they've used this idea of deterrence in both conventional wars and non-conventional wars too. So and so this mentality of the states is basically shaped by the masculine perspective of national security which looks at the complete annihilation of the other as a sign of victory and the instrument used here for deterrence is nuclear weapons and in contemporary times where nuclear disarmament negotiations have been going on for decades and not progressing much there has been a call for more diverse engagement in negotiation on nuclear disarmament through various means and nuclear disarmament is only one part of it which is still considered as a gender blind domain where women's entry has been restricted and limited by a state security perspective dominates but with increasing call for inclusion and gender representation in the negotiation on specially security matters the process has seen as a little improvement. So when we talk about locating gender we should first talk about why gender is very important or vital in nuclear disarmament negotiation. So as we all love women and girls are affected differently by conflict and weapons women men boys and girls affected differently when we talk about conflict of weapons because of their lived experience and standpoint therefore incorporating gender perspective into all disarmament policies processes and analysis become very crucial inclusivity and diversity in negotiation process has been the hallmark of effective decision making in negotiation processes and both these points brings out the best results and help in a comprehensive analysis of issues and we have seen this again and again in many of the treaties which have been signed including the ban of landmines and the third part is the gender perspective highlight asymmetric power structure. So gender perspective on weapons of mass destruction draw attention to issues of power inequality, cultural expectations, division of labor and family reproduction as well as biological differences and the fourth one which is very important to highlight here is that it has been scientifically proven that ionizing radiations affect with more harmful health risks to the men than men because of 50 percent more high risk body tissues such as sensitive protective and fatty tissues as well as metabolic differences. So gender becomes a very important factor when we talk about people at the fence because women's experiences both when you talk about nuclear security try to highlight the issues of feminine values and also their own perspective on how they deal with weapons of mass destruction. In my study I've tried to explain what do I mean by nuclear disarmament here and what do what do I mean by gender and what it passes. So here the nuclear disarmament as traditionally seen as is the reduction or complete elimination of a state nuclear weapons either by unilateral bilateral and multilateral commitments by legal treaties. Nuclear disarmament normatively is about the evolution of nuclear weapons which is also about halting, proliferation, stockpiling and also upgrading of nuclear weapons. But here I have tried to kind of broaden the idea of gender because we see that gender means only what is feminine or what is feminine. But here as I said before the idea of gender is by bringing in other aspect of like norm agencies normatively which are often kind of kept periphery when in the discourse of nuclear disarmament and gender here is about these structured political cultural power hierarchies that are embedded in practices of disarmament negotiations like the dominance of one discourse of deterrence as a way to national security or about the power structure in disarmament regimes that renders non-nuclear weapon states particularly opinions as void. Gender here touches upon a spectrum of macro issues both like structures of masculinity, power asymmetry with great powers, post-colonial mindset to micro narratives of norms, representation, diversity, behavior and importance of actors such as NGOs and self-society. A nuclear disarmament in my study I've tried to locate a general in nuclear disarmament negotiation basically in two levels. First is a traditional forum where we see the state dealing with each other and kind of deciding on what are the how do they go on to dealing with issues of nuclear disarmament negotiations and we see we locate these particular in the first committee which deals with the issues of disarmament and international security issues, multilateral forums, bilateral treaties and particularly with diplomacy which is the institutional form of negotiations but also in non-traditional forms which have been gaining traction more and more with civil society movement which are working very closely with non-state actor with state actors for example the campaign against nuclear weapon evolution and also women's activism which have been trying to mainstream the feminist values into the theoretical and diplomacy of international negotiation. And why non-traditional forum becomes more important here is as we saw that the most of the nuclear disarmament negotiation discourse have been dominated by T5 countries plus 4 which are not signed NPT. These countries have dominated the discourse and they have tried to control the discourse around the nuclear disarmament negotiation. So non-traditional forums gives both civil society and to kind of mainstream the idea of humanitarian perspective in working with states which are non-nuclear pen states. So when we talk about diplomacy one area which have been which have which have seen a lot of progress is the falling of feminist forum policy. So as so as I said that a feminist forum policy is basically deals about the mainstreaming of gender equality in processes and negotiations for multilateral forums. So it basically highlights the importance of women's perspective their experiences lived experiences and how women faces conflict and nuclear and weapons of mass destruction differently how they see them differently. So feminist forum policy try to mainstream this perspective in international negotiations be it in UN Security Council or non-traditional forums such as first committees. So as you see the increasingly new countries have been following in feminist forum policy and trying to mainstream this perspective. And what what helps feminist forum policy to kind of mainstream this perspective as it is based upon the in concerns with UN Security Council which acknowledge that women's roles in areas of peace building and to create sustainable peace is as much important in the current geopolitical environment where discourse is very much masculine. And it tries to broaden the aspect of national security and particularly focus on the idea of representation and no. And one example which I'd like to put here is the example of GCPOAD which happened with Iran where women representative were involved and after many years of failed negotiations and decades of enmity the Republic of Iran and a group of countries formed by the United States which is P5 plus Germany reached a historic deal to curb nuclear weapons of Iran. And one important feature of that deal which is often kind of not highlighted so much is the prominent leadership of three women, Frederica Mogrini, Helga Schmitz of European side and both of European side and Wendy Sherman for United States. These women build on the previous work of another women, Catherine Aston the EU chief diplomat until late 2014. And but they hear the case was but also to point out also about here was it was a case of representation and less of agency. I hear the women were seen as more of a good negotiator getting a good deal out getting a good deal out of with Iran rather than have a priority and also have a good high priority of success rate. And rather than following on what should be the basic core of nuclear weapons that is abolition. To put this graph on your side that this graph points out that how in all four major forums that the first committee the NPT PREP comm, TPNW and also in conference at disarmament. We can see the blue blue color shows the presence of men and the green color shows the presence of the men representation. And we can see that in all four forums men representation has been more than 60% and women representation has been less than 34%. So just this shows how skewed the representation of women has been in important forums on nuclear disarmament and why it becomes more important to see and to analyze where does the general general kind of highlight itself discourse of the government. I would also quote one data from you an idea report which talked about the analysis of general balance of eight NPT meetings from 1999 to 2015 which showcase that every average proportion of women participation was 20.95% and the first committee which deals with issues of nuclear disarmament and international security attracted the lowest percentage of women representation as opposed to third committee which gives you the idea of which is the domain of humanity in perspective. So in 2018 10 of 160 delegation to the first committee were made up of just one diplomat of these 10 individuals eight were men and two were women and this constitute a women percentage of 20%. Another seven delegations were made up of just two diplomats of these nearly half 18 were all male and five were all female that has 14 was split evenly producing an average proportion of women in 2% delegation of 32% also pointing also talking about the another forum which is NPT prep con in 2018 seven delegation were made up of just one diplomat of these seven persons they were only when women which are pointed about 14% of representation for delegation with two diplomats the average proportion of women was 23% while the average proportion for delegation with four or more diplomat for 30%. So just this staff number shows us how that the women the representation of women are still so much underrepresented in forums which deals with issues of nuclear disarmament negotiations and how there is a need to focus more on representation. We have two minutes left, Abhishek, we have two minutes left. Okay, talking about gender and non-trivial spaces. So traditionally the gender and nuclear disarmament process has been influenced the masculine some shifting in form of militarism and other flexible forms but to beat about ideology or post-colonial mindset gender here is seen more about as asset concept and normative rules. So when we talk about focusing on gender norms what is also important to focus on the diffusion of norms and how normed diffusion helps in mainstreaming feminist normative values and the convergence of different normative values which resonates with every actor engaging a different level of level at which disarmament aggression takes place. Norm diffusion here also challenges these names for masculine notions of militarism by possessing nuclear events and challenging indigenous theory but what makes it more important that norm diffusion helps in influencing labeling and challenging policies and treaties as fair, just, good and so forth. Gender here also brings out the aspect of diversity and inclusiveness and we see that the non-nuclear ban treaty or the treaty of NPT is more gender sensitive than the NPT or the nuclear policy and the preamble of NPT acknowledges the humanitarian gender aspect of nuclear and we have seen that how non-traditional spaces like ICANN have worked very closely with states to kind of mainstream this perspective and bridge the theory and practices which is very important for nuclear disarmament negation. Some trends which we have seen is that states, some trends which I've seen from the researchers, states have given priority to men in forums so they show that traditionally the space for diplomacy has been reserved for men and women are not allowed to participate and when the state has a chance of giving a single representative it almost chances for selection is of men, women are typically loaded as a second or one of the third or the fourth member of the delegation and the nature, the second part is the state gives more priority to women only in forums with humanitarian disarmament as I've also told earlier that the first committee recently achieved a level of 30% women's delegation, a mark surpassed by the third committee decades before in 1985 and the nature of committee decides the proportion of gender representation so it depends upon which committee it is the state decides who it should send to represent the topic and more gendered voices are raising not just spaces as compared to traditional spaces as I talked about that social movements in society women's activism has been working closely with non-nuclear and states to kind of mainstream. The time is up I wish you have to wind up now. Okay sure and as I said the focus the sector has been ICANN and ICPL which have also received nuclear also received Nobel Prize for their activism and work kind of mainstream treaties and as I found that there are some limitations which are seen as a representation as a set power representation only way without an agency is seen as feminist foreign policy has also seen a little bit of failure especially in case of Canada which is also not signed TP and W are also NATO states and civil society and social movements are becoming more inclusive but they'll need to need to go a way forward with this also and I just like just concluding why locating. Be trying to be really quick I wish it be quick. Yes sure sure locating gender here brings out the association between nuclear weapons position and it's deciding how powerful masculinity is getting on the way of disarmament diplomacy and corporate security but in addition locating also have discovered and put things in exact position and here it is what context contextualizing gender and nuclear disarmament negotiations to locate and analyze assist in understanding the nuclear weapons process and rectify it by mainstreaming gender restrictive masculinity current boundaries through inclusivity diversity norms diplomacy and feminist policy. Thank you. Okay thank you very much our next speaker now is going to be Ramesh. Thank you Dr. Lavringos. Let me just share my screen give me a minute. Can you see my screen? Yes I can. Okay thank you. Thank you Dr. Shamai and Dr. Lavringos for giving me the opportunity to present today. I'm actually an MA candidate at the Norman Patterson School at Carlton University in Ottawa so it's pretty early in the morning today but I'm really glad to be joining you guys for this for the conference. So my topic actually is on the US send initiative which is creating an environment for nuclear disarmament which is a new initiative that the United States launched in 2019 and this is a paper that I'm kind of at a very early stage of trying to kind of work on and so I'm just trying to present some basic some fundamental ideas from this paper and I would really like to hear from you about you know how I can kind of proceed with this. So this is an initiative that was launched in 2019 and it was actually kind of positioned as a dialogue amongst all of the different participants in the nuclear debate, both nuclear weapon states, non-nuclear weapon states, states that are not nuclear processors that are not part of the NPT and you know the international community in general. So I'm just going to talk a little bit about what's the state of nuclear disarmament today and talk a little bit about send and you know because this has been a kind of a diplomatic initiative I'm just going to kind of lay out a little bit of a timeline. What are the main objectives of the send has essentially the United States has communicated to the world and then particularly in the context of the RevCon that's due to be convened in January of 2022 where does send kind of fit into that and what is the future of nuclear disarmament in general with this new initiative so that's kind of the general kind of a layout of this presentation. So in terms of different approaches to nuclear disarmament we have you know several initiatives that have been essentially kind of been approached by different states at different times and I've kind of laid out the broad kind of divisions in these approaches. There are several other initiatives that have been also launched over the years but these are kind of the the main ones that are currently being kind of followed by different players depending on where they come from and who they are. Of course the most common thing that you would hear in the disarmament discourse and in disarm literature is the step by step approach to nuclear disarmament which is kind of this notion that the way you go about disarmament is to take initial steps towards certain initiatives which would then lead to other goals and then that you would gradually kind of move towards achieving nuclear disarmament and here you start with essentially the CTBT you know signing and ratification because still there are quite a few states that I haven't really ratified the TTS yet and then kind of move into FMCT and so on and so and then kind of go into verification disarmament and eventually kind of total disarmament. So that's kind of the general kind of mainstream approach to disarmament that you know particularly the nuclear arm states have been having kind of following and quite a few of and in fact all of the non-nuclear allies of the nuclear weapon states who come under the nuclear umbrella you know NATO in particular and some of the other US allies also kind of follow this particular approach. The second approach is the global zero initiative which is not so much kind of an approach but it's more like a civil society initiative run by policymakers, you know officials in government just launched in 2008 I believe in Paris and that is an initiative that's kind of more a kind of a civil society initiative. The third approach is the humanitarian approach which is the fundamental driver behind the TPNW and the and that approach of course as we know that there's quite a bit of literature that's now been published on this where about I think 86 states have signed this treaty and about 56 states have actually ratified the treaty. So the humanitarian approach came about because many of these states were frustrated with the lack of progress on the part of the nuclear weapon states to fulfill their disarmament obligations under article 6 of the NPT and the failure of the 2015 NPT review conference to arrive at any kind of a consensus on the way forward. So I think 122 non-nuclear weapon states you know adopted the treaty the ban treaty in September 2017 and I think essentially 50 states were supposed to be supposed to sign to actually ratify it and we seem to have hit that number already so that treaty is already in and so the ban treaty essentially kind of prohibits the development, testing, production, stockpiling, transfer use and threat of nuclear weapons as well as to provide any assistance or encouragement to anything that's prohibited. So for nuclear arms states the treaty provides you know an opportunity to either destroy and join the treaty or join and then destroy their weapons and stipulates a kind of a time bomb framework for negotiations leading to verifiable and irreversible elimination of nuclear weapons. So that's essentially kind of a nutshell what the TPNW is seeks to achieve. Then of course there's the stepping stones initiative which is kind of an initiative that's led by Sweden and this is essentially you know a Swedish initiative to kind of you know look at nuclear disarmament and then we have the IP and DV which is essentially focused more on verification and putting together a verification regime and then of course the last of that is the one that I'm kind of going to be talking about today which is the send initiative. Now the send initiative I call it an approach but that's still kind of I think a debatable thing because you know the send is essentially being positioned as a dialogue so we are not so sure whether the United States is essentially abandoned the step-by-step approach that it has been kind of following and most of its allies have essentially been following over the last so many decades or is this a dialogue which will essentially end in 2023 which is when the final report on the send is supposed to be published and what happens after that we are not so sure about this or is this a fundamental departure in the US approach to a nuclear disarmament. In other words are we kind of backtracking and we are going back in terms of backsliding in terms of our efforts to you know bring about nuclear disarmament. So the kind of the the paper kind of asks several questions so I'm kind of in a very early stage of this paper trying to kind of figure out as to how this is going to be structured and I'm going to work on it so the main question I'm asking is is creating the send initiative a radical departure in US approach to nuclear disarmament and is it a fundamental shift in strategy or is it more as a dialogue you know given the security conditions in the world today and what are the goals of the United States seeks to achieve with this approach and and you know what progress has been made what are the prospects for success and what are the impediments and the more important question that I'm also trying to be that I'm going to look into to answer is that how are the US allies actually responding to this initiative and how are the other non-nuclear weapon states responding to it how are China and Russia you know responding to the initiative and so on so and what are the implications for arms control and the future of nuclear disarmament as a result of this so that those are kind of some of the research questions I'm trying to kind of address in this paper. So the the send initiative as I said is a is a working group to foster dialogue among states on nuclear disarmament and it's essentially built on this notion that that the current disarmament initiatives and the processes have essentially kind of stalled to some extent in other words progress on those initiatives have stalled to a larger largely and that's at least what the United States believes and also because of the fact that there are fundamental changes to global security that are unfolding which means that you know old ways of looking at disarmament are not working and we have to fundamentally change our approach to how we kind of address disarmament moving forward and so the foundational idea is that you know it's about to recast the debate in other words it's almost like a kind of a reaction to the TPNW and to see you know and to kind of more in favor of you know how nuclear weapons states approach this problem. So so and this has been essentially spearheaded by Dr. Christopher Ford who is the US undersecretary for nonproliferation and international security. So in the initiative itself there are about 15 security conditions that that are part of a you know a white paper that was published by the United States which essentially discusses these 15 conditions. I'm not going to go into all of those 15 conditions. They are quite you know exhaustive and they cover almost a plethora of security issues around the world and the main thing that came out of this initiative was that three subgroups were formed led by you know countries like Finland, Netherlands and the Republic of Korea and then there were some coaches that have also been part of this initiative. Three person meetings were held and you know there was a lot of discussion in the media, a lot of commentary about the first meeting and then slightly less commentary about the second meeting and my research that's essentially something that I found and there were some discussions about virtual meetings in 2021 and of course I think there are going to be some meetings as part of the NPT RevCon as well which I'm not entirely sure about but I've just kind of put it in there. So there have been a series of meetings and the dialogue has essentially kind of progressed to a point where I think the the the initiative is kind of gaining some momentum and but what I found interesting was that in the first meeting there were about 43 states that participated whereas the second meeting that dropped about 30 states. So I'm not sure what to make out of it but but there seems to be you know kind of a little bit of a cooling off period also maybe it's because of the fact that we haven't had any face-to-face meetings in a while because of COVID. So the three subgroups are essentially looking at you know three different areas which are kind of the main main objectives of SEND for the subgroups to actually kind of debate and discuss them. So the first subgroup is looking at exploring measures for reduction of the incentives for states to acquire and increase the stockpiles. The second one looks at is looking at the functions and effectiveness of existing disarmament mechanisms in institutions. So it's looking at the institutional frameworks that are currently in place and the third subgroup is looking at interim measures to reduce risks related to nuclear weapons. So the next steps in the process are essentially you know this this I'm kind of looking forward to what's going to come out of the NPT RevCon and how SEND is going to be perceived in the RevCon and if it is going to play a role in the in any kind of consensus statement that might or may not emerge out of the RevCon. So there's a two-year timetable that was taken up by the subgroups and I think what's been announced is that there's going to be a final report of the subgroups to be published in 2023 which will kind of complete this phase of this dialogue process. Now what comes after that and how the United States is going to lead this initiative going forward it remains to be seen and it's also noteworthy that in 2015 the last RevCon we did not have a consensus statement and I think prior to that I think in 2005 as well I think we didn't have one. So that's going to be interesting to see as to whether you know the different parties can actually arrive at some kind of a consensus in 2022. So in terms of the the future of this initiative and what's going to come out of it essentially what's happened is that what we are finding right now is that there are more the NPT is getting more afraid in other words it's clearly under a lot of pressure. Typically we've now seen a clear division because all of the states that you essentially had the P5 and then the non-nuclear weapon states who are all pretty much in agreement about the NPT until 2017 or so. Okay so now we have the anti-NPD states so which are essentially the states that have signed and ratified the TPMW then we have the non-TPMD and non-nuclear weapon states who have not still signed or ratified them. Then we have the P5 NPT states and the the states that are allied with the P5 who are currently in a separate grouping of states that are looking at this problem fundamentally very different differently from before but there's a lot of pressure that's coming on NATO states who are aligned with the United States because of the TPMW particularly states like Canada for example are coming under a lot of pressure and then you have the non-NPD nuclear processors India Pakistan Israel who are also kind of participating in the scent initiative but we're not sure as to where they really stand on it. So that's one part of it. So the way I think this particular initiative is being pursued is that one of you is that it's a very cynical view is that essentially the United States has discarded all the previous NPT REF CON consensus statements from 2000, 2010 and essentially is following a fundamentally different approach. In other words there is we are seeing a fundamental shift in the US strategy towards the Solomon. The second view is slightly less cynical and it's about the fact that the US is essentially trying to bring the existing security conditions in the world today into the into a debate format. So in other words states actually get to discuss their problems that they've been kind of putting away and this actually gets a lot of attention within these forums and in these subgroups. And the third kind of more empathetic view is to say that the US wants to make real progress. They are making some fundamental, they're taking steps in order to kind of move the disarmament discussion and also to kind of I think give it some additional oxygen in a sense so that the parties can essentially all come together and figure out as to what the next steps are and how to move forward. So with that let me conclude and thank you very much for giving me this opportunity. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Ramesh. I thought all those talks actually work very well together. I think Abhishek's discussion around, there's a lot of noise in the background probably, Abhishek's discussion around gender and feminist perspectives worked well with the first paper and I thought you had some interesting empirical content there as well. And Ramesh, I think you're asking a very important question in the run up to of course Biden's present Biden's nuclear posture review and where send figures in that. I have my own questions but I'm going to open it to the floor to see if there are any hands. I think there is already one hand, Jolene. So Jolene, would you like to go ahead and ask your question? Yeah, sure. So firstly for Carolina, I think it's a great topic that you're addressing. When Tom Sauer and I proposed our argument on ditching the NPT, we got a flag from the arms control community and we were very surprised about that and they were saying well, the NPT is the only leverage, legal leverage that states have on nuclear weapons to disarm and you have to really kind of dismantle the whole idea of disarmament in the NPT to move the process forward. That's at least our view. So very interesting, interested in what you're doing. And then for Abhishek, your numbers on representation, I think what I missed in your paper is actually to see how that works. How does representation, it's not an automatic, because you can have female representation in these committees but the state's positions are already formed and they just go and present these. And if they talk, if they say something else in these committees and negotiate something else, it's not the state position, it really, you know, they get fired or they get called back. So the representation in my opinion doesn't automatically translate into more of a gender-focused discussion. And then on the CND, well, the South African position on this, especially when it was first circulated, the document, it was called something along the lines of creating the conditions for nuclear disarmament. And the South African diplomats said you better take conditions out of that label because it's not going to go down because nuclear disarmament is not conditional. Okay, the MPTC says negotiations must happen. It's not conditional. So they listened to that, they took it out of the name. But because of this resistance that South Africa showed, the country was not invited to CND as I understand it from my sources. So we're not participating in this initiative. Initially I thought it was because the country didn't want to, but then afterwards I heard we were just not, South Africa wasn't invited to the meeting. So I think that's very interesting. And this diplomat that I spoke to famously said of CND, if you dress up the cat to look like a puppy dog, don't think that the mouse won't notice. I think that's something that you can also work into your paper. Thanks so much. I didn't know this either, Julien. So it's fascinating. Thank you, Paul. Would you like to ask your question or questions as well? Well, one is an observation on the last presentation. I don't know what I've been watching CND develop. I tried to cross the question, Christopher Ford, when he was in London, the Americans aren't giving anything away. And since they're not preparing the ground and as a new administration, so it will have different attitudes than the one that launched the initiative. So whatever it is they're going to unfurl, it's not going to be able to count on any cultivated opinion. And I therefore would be skeptical that it's going to be a could be a huge inflection in American policy. Simply because they haven't prepared the ground. They can't prepare the ground without things leaking. So whatever is being said in these restricted sessions with diplomats is so unsensational, it hasn't come out. And that's, I think, all you can conclude from there. But my other point is a general one, and it will crop up in my own tour, if anyone stays for that, which is that I'm struck by such a difference in the language. Nuclear decisions are taken by nuclear governments, mostly men, yes, and no surprise there, in secret conclave on the basis of intelligence assessments and nuclear strike plans. How will discussions of post feminist, post structuralist feminist theory, and many of the other phrases that crop up here, how would you expect them to translate across? How could the ideas in those languages get taken up by the very brutally different discourses that are actually the way that nuclear decision makers talk, although perhaps not when they disguise it in the disarmament archipelago. There's a genuine question of mutual comprehensibility and relevance given the way that the discourse in different areas is developing. Can that be bridged or don't you care? Okay, thanks Paul. I'm going to add on a question to that because I had a very similar question that was perhaps more oriented to the first two papers, but in particular I was taking Carolina with your use of Kimberly Hutchings and Major Seifers's work because I know they work well, and I also know the wide work on the laws of war ethic because of the nature of my husband's own expertise. And I was just a bit struck about, I mean, some of the arguments, for instance, Zeifers is making, I mean, that's made in non-feminist circles, right? I mean, if you look at you know, work on humanitarian intervention, you look at work by Janina Dill, for instance, at Oxford, she's not working in the feminist phase, she's working on the construction of Spain. If you look at, you know, Cecilia Fapp, for instance, as well. So I just wondered what's the, yeah, what's the, I think I can see it more in the Hutchings case, but, you know, issues around intentionality and issues around civilians and so forth. These are things that are, you know, have been hotly debated for way before for decades in, you know, just war theory and in, you know, so I'm just, I guess what I'm asking is a somewhat similar question about, could you elaborate more on the feminist aspect here? I can see that perhaps in the Kimberley Hutchings case, but I mean, it's just more of a, I guess more of a, you only have a short time to talk about it. So it's more of a sort of sense of the feminist angle here and next to that, you know, of course, there's also a lot of non-feminist discussion around responsibility and you can go back as far as Hedley Bourne, his, you know, work on The Great Irresponsible. So I wondered where you think that interacts with and how does it interact with the feminist discourses that you want to bring in? So thanks very much. And I should say, shall we go in order of Ramesh first and the questions around CMD and then Abhishek and Karolina? Yeah, thanks, Paul, for that question. Yeah, you know, that's still, as I said, like it's essentially being positioned as a dialogue right now. So we are not sure as to whether this is a fundamental departure and strategy in the U.S. nuclear disarmament strategy. I think we also need to look at it in the context of what's going on with regard to arms control treaties and the fact that there's rearmament happening right now with China, Russia. So you have an environment in which the United States is pushing for this kind of a dialogue because I think you need to look at the larger geopolitical context of where this is headed and what's happening around the world right now in terms of nuclear weapons, missiles, new missile technologies, hypersonics. So I think, and one of the big issues that was discussed was in the whether the United States should discuss ballistic missile defense in any new future arms control treaties with China or with Russia, which is a new topic that's come into arms control because BMD was typically kind of kept out of it for very many years. It was essentially when we talked of arms control, we always discussed nuclear weapons and missiles. We never really talked about BMD. But apart from BMD, you have hypersonic missiles as well now, which are coming into the equation. So that kind of gives me pause to think about whether this could mean something more fundamental than we are kind of, when we look at the optics of it from the, in terms of what's going on, it looks like it's just a dialogue and we'll see a report at the end of this in 2023. But I'm skeptical about whether this is just that or something that's much more fundamental that's unfolding, which might kind of, it's not something that the Trump administration was pushing through, but something that the Biden administration might continue with this because Chris Ford still is in office. He's still kind of there. And the most interesting thing for me at least to look out for is what comes out of the nuclear posture review that the Biden administration is working on right now. So that will kind of give us some indication of where this might be headed in future. Okay, thanks very much. Abhishek, would you like to address any of the questions? Yeah, sure. To address Julian's questions, like she talked about how representations work. So in my paper, I have first tried to identify where does the integral figure out in the nuclear disarmament equation. So as I gave an example of representation doesn't as she correctly pointed out that the state's position is fixed. So representation or increasing representation affects very less. But what it also, what representation also contributes to these the kind of treaties which are formal, which are formulated, what kind of language it is used. So when women diplomats are represented, it is seen that women that the kind of language and the treaties are more sustainable nature. As I gave example of GCPO that was negotiated by women, it was very sustainable, but due to the geopolitics and the kind of when state national interests are kind of kind of portrayed in a certain manner, those kind of treaties becomes very much challenging in that sense. So representation works with kind of mainstreaming certain norms and feminist policy that helps in that way. But representation is also working is to give women the representation. It's also about the women narratives to be kind of mainstream. And as I said before that the right now, we have seen that the non-traditional spaces such as civil society are working very much in close coordination with states which are non-nuclear and state. And those non-nuclear and state try to mainstream those narratives when we go into negotiations. So and through them representation is how it kind of influences the broader of the negotiations on nuclear disarmament. And to the question of Paul, I think feminist as he mentioned that the broader geopolitical context kind of in how do feminists a narrative figure out into that. I think like the main thing is the feminist kind of challenges in narratives that we have been locked tradition of the feminist challenging the deterrence theory that has it worked out or not. And the kind of the latest deal on occurs has again related to this kind of legacy of feminist activism and also that these kind of narratives about kind of confrontation or kind of annihilation is against the way that the NPT kind of thought about about kind of articles which talk about it nuclear disarmament fully. So feminist kind of challenges that notions of that language and that is how the kind of mainstream society of the government. Okay, thanks Abhishek. Carolina. I can't hear you very well Carolina, sorry. Sorry. I think we just need to lean into the mic like you did last time. I think it might be quite sensitive. See how it is if you just talk close to the mic. No, it's still quite quiet. Is it better now? Yeah, it's much better. Thanks. Yeah, maybe I don't know what's going on with this computer today. Anyways, I just want to say thank you everyone for comments and questions and particularly jollying for your comments and I completely agree. I think things out there are quite normalised. So I think we need to pause and reflect on whether you know, things made to help us are actually doing their job or not. On Nicola's question. So in terms of Zaifus's work, I think I just want to say that I think it's particularly interesting how it connects to Kimberly Hutchings in a way that they talk about international law and putting the conditions in place for things to be accepted. I think that's particularly interesting in how they connect to each other in terms of arguments. Even though Zaifus does not address things from a very feminist perspective, I would say that a lot of the work is kind of grounded in that feminist anti-war tradition and that's how I try to frame the paper. So in the very beginning, I talk about the feminist anti-war tradition and how I'm asking the question on why Nicola weapons is so persistent from that perspective. And that's how I kind of decided to use both of them because I think it connects really well with the feminist anti-war tradition. So in terms of feminism, I would say that the way I'm trying to frame this is that design is connected with kind of gendered meanings and in that time, like meanings, there are more connected to feminine characteristics, peace, non-violence, as opposed to the more dominant discourse as Paul was addressing before of the strategic language, talking about security, talking about deterrence and so on. So that's how I'm trying to think about design in terms of gender there. And I think that's how it connects to feminism, if that answers your question. Yeah, thanks, Colin. I guess I wanted to ask something slightly different as well, which was about the relationship between some of the things you're interested in around the law and ethics and some of the dynamics that you bring out, how the law actually is quite commissive of things that maybe ethics wouldn't be. Those things can be brought out in other theoretical frameworks and have been. And so I thought it might be interesting to look at the interaction between these feminist arguments and non-feminist arguments elsewhere that are making somewhat similar, I think, points about the law and ethics when it comes to new matters. But I also thought that your bigger point at the beginning about the NPT and how the disarmament principle is, in effect, actually not helping itself, right? I thought that was a really powerful argument. So I thought the broader overarching arc of your paper was very important. I have another question, not for Caroline. Could I just ask? I don't think my question was answered. It seems to me very unlikely that work done in this tradition, with this language, is going to influence those male strategically minded decision makers who will determine the nuclear future. Maybe you don't think that's true. Maybe you think it will influence them. But if it doesn't influence them, does it matter to you? Are you happy just to spend years working in this vein, even if it has a high likelihood of not affecting the way that decisions are taken in the nuclear world? I mean, I'm genuinely humanly curious. I don't think I actually haven't really thought about it because maybe it's not part of how I think politics and international relations, which is quite interesting to pause and reflect on. So I don't think I have an answer to that particular question. For me, the analysis is really important. The way I understand international relations as not being just about strategy, not being just about deterrence and being about other things as well, and hearing about how bringing gender perspectives and bringing that post-structuralist analysis into the conversation kind of reviews hidden stories, stories that we haven't really looked at. And those stories are really important to influence change and to influence future policy. So I think that's what I would say. I don't know if it answers your question in particular, but yeah, that's what I would say about that. I'm just fascinated because it's how you are spending your life. And then you say I haven't really thought about it, the significance of this. That's fascinating. I'll take away the memory of you saying that. It helps improve my understanding of how academics work, how thinking is conducted, how campaigns happen. Thank you. Yeah, I mean, I guess there's a broader point to say. I mean, not all academics work is intended to transform the world and transform the policy world necessarily, right? I mean, it might be analysis in and of itself, right? But I think, as I said earlier about Carolina's broader point, I think her point is very that has policy relevance, right? I mean, I think the argument you're making, Carolina about the disarmament principle within the MPT has a very strong policy relevance. So, you know, maybe the theoretical framework and applying those, as I understand it, has academic and theoretical value in and of itself. Forget, you know, policy and everything else. I think the broad argument does have a very strong policy. Okay, I'm waiting for other hands. I see Jolene's hands. Jolene, would you like to come in on this? Just on this point, on Paul's point, I mean, Ray Atchison wrote that book on banning the bomb, smashing the patriarchy. So, I mean, I recommend that you read that to look at the impact, even if it's the TPNW, but the impact that feminist voices and changing the discourse can have. Thanks, Jolene. I think that is your hand. Okay, I have also a question I wanted to ask and, Carolina, if you want to come back later to that, please do. I have a question to ask with Ramesh about the CND. And I think it's a little bit unfair because it's sort of gazing into the future, because we don't know how the CND will look like, you know, this time next year. But I didn't know what Jolene mentioned about the South African you know, relationship to the CND and for the lack of representation there and not being invited. But it's very much a diplomatic outfit, right, CND. It's very much about reaching out, as I understood it from people like Heather Williams and who's been involved, it was about reaching out to sort of allies, non-NPT members, that was a key part of it, right. But it wasn't able to sort of reach out to China and some other tricky ones. But my question is not necessarily about state representation. It's more about the people themselves who are involved. So as I understand it, most of them have been diplomats. And in a way, it just seems like another forum with the same people you know, that discuss the NPT and you know, the runs up and run up to those. And I wonder if the CND has space to be more than just a diplomatic outfit and what you think about that. And who could you bring in who would be willing to be bought in to make it something more transformative given that your question is about whether it's a radical change or departure? Yeah, I think one of the main criticisms of the CND has been the fact that it's essentially a state led kind of initiative involving other states and state actors, officials, policymakers, and it doesn't involve any civil society or any of the other members. So that's I think been one of the main criticisms. I'm not so sure if that's going to fundamentally change because I think the United States wants to very closely control this process. What I'm seeing at least they want to set the agenda. They want to kind of, you know, control as to who's actually in these meetings and how these discussions are held and what the format is and so they want to kind of move this in a direction that's kind of has a lot of kind of preset ideas about. So I'm not so sure as to whether they're going to kind of expand the tent, if you will, to bring in more people into the tent to kind of, you know, engage in these discussions and dialogue. And also because of the fact it's so security focused because if you look at those 15 conditions or the 15 different issues that they are like, you know, they want to kind of discuss in these meetings, it ranges from anything and everything that you want to kind of you look at the there's a monopoly of issues out there all the way from North Korea's, you know, to disarm North Korea of nuclear weapons to Iran, to regional security issues, South Asia, South, you know, East Asia, the Middle East and the Middle East weapon free zone. So this there's almost everything has been kind of thrown into it and a lot of it is all security focused. So that's I think one of the problems with this approach. And the question is can they kind of move this forward and what happens after 2023? So we're not, you know, when this report is finally published, does it end with that? And we kind of move on, move back? Or is this a fundamental change in the discourse and that the United States is trying to kind of push forward? So that's the question that I'm hoping to kind of answer in this paper. And I'm going to look at fundamentally how other people, other countries are responding to this initiative, particularly, you know, countries that are the the non nuclear weapon states that are US allies, because they are the ones who are now in a very difficult situation. Okay, thanks. Thanks very much. Khalia, did you want to come in or shall I go to the next question? And you mean, in terms of responding to, to what question? Sorry, I think I missed there wasn't really. I mean, yeah, there really wasn't much. It was Jolene mentioned a particular book. True, true. That's true. Yeah, I definitely agree. It's a very important contribution. And we can't say that there isn't change happening if the whole humanitarian initiative is grounded in this, you know, feminist anti-war tradition with the change in discourse and all of everything that we have seen in the past couple of years with the emergence of the TPNW. So I believe that that's that's proved that change is possible. And by bringing different perspectives, we able to grasp and seize possibilities for change. So yeah, thanks. Thanks, Colin. Okay, I've got a hand. I think that's you. Yes, that's me. Thanks. Thanks. Three comments really first to Ramesh, thanks for the presentation, really good. And I agreed with with or I recognize all the different initiatives that you identified, but I wonder if one way of classifying all those different initiatives or the fundamental distinction there is one, in my view, between stigmatization and non-stigmatization, right? It's whether you want to pursue disarmament through stigmatizing nuclear weapons and creating political will, or whether you want to pursue disarmament while still sort of pending the completion of disarmament, see a legitimate role for the potential use of nuclear weapons in certain circumstances, right? So that's how I kind of see it, because in a way it seems to me strange to contrast the humanitarian initiative and ban treaty approach on the one hand with the step-by-step approach on the other, because I think very few, if any, supporters of the humanitarian initiatives and TPNW would object to the step-by-step approach if it did actually happen, you know? It's, I think, for many of those who support the TPNW and humanitarian initiatives, the entire idea is to give fuel to the step-by-step approach or just any approach, right? Because the idea is that in the absence of a more sort of permissive normative environment for nuclear disarmament, then it's probably not going to happen whether it's through a step-by-step approach or any approach, right? So that's the first comment. And then second, just a literature tip for Carolina. I think, I suppose you have probably enough theory already, but just nevertheless, just a tip. Samuel Moyne has a recent book on how, in his view, the development of the laws of war enabled the forever war in the United States. So that sounds like it dovetails quite nicely with some of the arguments that you're making. And then finally, just a quick comment on, I think Paul's very important question about how discourses travel and the potential uptake of discourses in the structures of powers that exist. And I think the entire question there, which is a good one, rests on a theory of change centered on persuasion, right? The underlying idea there is that in order to have policy relevance, we must persuade the people who are in power now. But I think perhaps the theory of change that at least could be argued to underpin some of the more critical work, which I think Carolina is working within, is that the alternative way of changing the world is to replace people or to change power structures, right? So the idea would be that in order to have progress on disarmament, the intelligence people and strategic studies people within Ministry of Defense, often unelected, shouldn't be the people making nuclear policy, but rather other people, perhaps democratically elected leaders or civil society organizations, whatever. I just wanted to highlight that difference and how we think about how change might happen. Personally, I think that it's not very plausible to persuade some of the people who are in power right now of disarmament. The current, as Linda talked about yesterday, three of the five last bit secretaries of defense in the United States have worked for Rayfium, for one of the world's largest nuclear weapons producers. I think persuading them of abolition is probably not going to happen. But what is at least more plausible is that someone else, someone from a completely different tradition, would be appointed to a role like that sometime in the future and would bring in a completely different way of thinking. So yeah, thanks. Thanks. So that was very helpful. Any panellists want to come back on Ramesh, did you want to come back first with the comments about CND? Yeah, I think that's a point well made. I think about the fact that the humanitarian approach is not fundamentally kind of antithetical to the step by step as long as there's progress and that. I think that's something that I would kind of incorporate into my own analysis because I didn't think of it that way. So thank you for that observation. Camerilina, I appreciate it. Would you like to come back on any of those? I just want to thank you for the comments. They're very, very useful. And I think thinking about change is really important as well. And the theories we have available out there to explain change is something that we need to look at in order to theorize about this element. And yeah, it's definitely important to look at replacing power structures. The way I see power structures working in NUCAPolitics not necessarily mean replacing people, but I think about it as kind of the way we replace ideas. Of course, people and actors are the key elements in this world of NUCAPitings, but I do think ideas are important as well. So perhaps maybe trying to connect theories that look at ideas and theories that look at the role of actors would be a good way to go. Yeah, just wanted to add that. I think why it's necessary to kind of question the current contemporary kind of theories and the kind of characteristics associated with the nuclear field is a way to change the way forward we are going. And looking at the current development, it doesn't kind of show any positive signs to the direction in the future we are looking at. And so that becomes necessary to kind of challenge those notions and mainstream those theories which kind of kind of talk about more peace, sustainable peace and inclusivity and diversity. Thanks so much, Linda. Thank you for putting your hand up because I was going to pick one. So, Linda. Thanks very much, Nicola. Yeah, I mean, fascinating conversation. Thanks all. I've done a lot of writing and thinking around these issues, so I can't resist just weighing in. And on Chauvinist theories of change on Paul and his question about the theory of change. So, you know, my piece yesterday was around the Hotel California effect and I focused on money in that context. But actually, you can break down the Hotel California effect in lots of ways, money, politics, psychology, beliefs, etc. And on this issue of theories of change, I just want to revisit the psychological belief based aspect of that and how it relates to international law, basically, and the NPT, generally, and the Ban Treaty theory of change specifically with its humanitarian approach, including post-colonial feminist, etc. perspectives. I guess the core point I'd make is that disarmament and deterrence are fundamentally incompatible. They don't exist in the same universes, either making nuclear threats enhances security and peace, in which case you don't want to get rid of nuclear weapons, or making nuclear threats does not enhance security and peace. And therefore, you do want to get rid of nuclear weapons. Those are mutually incompatible positions, in my personal opinion. I've done a lot of research around this in the NPT context. And actually, if you look at the texts of the NPT meetings, speeches, working papers, etc., I believe that they very strongly reinforce that perspective. Because if you go back through NPT history, every time there's any discussion of disarmament or movement in the direction of disarmament, whether it's no first use, ratifying the protocols to nuclear weapon-free zones, sole purpose, whatever it is, which people on the disarmament side of the ledger who do not support nuclear deterrence would say is a step in the direction of disarmament. In all of the open source literature, what happens is that the allies and the nuclear weapons states get up and go, we would love to do that. We would love to adopt no first use. We would love to whatever it is, but we can't. And the reason is because we need to keep making nuclear threats. And so in the open source literature, that's what the official narrative is. And stepping back from that to the kind of theoretical level, I really want to highlight the point that arms control is not disarmament. Arms control is the strategic twin of deterrence. It is not the strategic twin of disarmament. Arms control was created and developed and advocated and adopted in response to the quote utopias, the fictional utopias of disarmament. So it was explicitly developed as a means to stabilize deterrence relationships, in other words, to stabilize and maintain nuclear threat making. And so every time that we talk about arms control, unless it is wrapped in a process to explicitly eliminate nuclear weapons, what we're actually doing is we are legitimizing the idea of making nuclear threats. We're legitimizing the idea that we can control nuclear deterrence relationships, that we can stabilize them, and that we can therefore continue to maintain nuclear weapons in perpetuity. So with all of that said, to the extent of the nuclear weapons state to use the NPT language as a means to legitimize their practice of making nuclear threats, to me there is just no, and so this goes to your point, Paul, and also to some of the stuff that Caroline said, it's like to me there is no credible, rational, logical pathway in the NPT towards disarmament as long as we keep making the claim that nuclear weapons ensure security, you know, and we make that claim in terms of guarantees, central for security, guarantees, international peace and security, as long as we keep making that threat, as long as we keep making that claim publicly, then there's no psychological incentive to get rid of nuclear weapons, there's no economic incentive because there's trillions of dollars to be made making nuclear weapons and making nuclear threats, and because there's trillions of dollars to be made making nuclear weapons and nuclear threats, there's no political incentive because you've got 10,000 people replacing the GBS, you know, the ground-based secured, ground-based strategic deterrent missile force in the U.S., and as a result, there's an instant mob ready to just jump on any senator that suggests reducing any part of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, they'll jump on them in Twitter, they'll crucify them on Fox News, and that person will be voted out of office the next two years, you know, so yeah, that's all I have to say on that. I think the theory of change feeds into that right because we're changing the narrative around what security is, and if we change the narrative around what security is through these post-colonial feminist approaches, then we can change our beliefs about whether making nuclear threats of annihilation does actually equate to security and peace. Yeah, thanks very much. Thanks, Lyndon. I see you have inspired two more hands and they're going to be the final hands for the panel. Trish and Henrietta, if you could be really quick, I mean, I think we can go into another five minutes, it's not a big deal, and then we'll give the panelists the option to reply or not as it is. So Trish, do you want to? Mine is just very quick. Just to say, I think Lyndon's point about making that distinction between arms control and disarmament is really important, and I think often because that distinction isn't made, then there's misunderstandings about what different terms make. So my ears always prick up when I hear the word stigma, and it occurred to me when I was hearing the discussions that that is one of the biggest problems we face is a misunderstanding about stigma and about what that wording means, and that wording is very much associated with the total nuclear weapons test and treaty. It's always associated with the total ban, but it's misunderstood. It's not black and white. You can't say, well, you accept nuclear weapons, therefore, they're not stigmatized. They are stigmatized, but our understanding of stigma is not black and white. We human beings, if we're talking about ideas, human beings are complicated. They'll accept something and not accept it at the same time. So I think when we're looking at these puzzles, we need to not be quite so black and white in our thinking, and I think making that distinction between disarmament and arms control and understanding that they're separate rather than just assuming, well, they're all about nuclear weapons and they're about limitations on nuclear weapons. Therefore, they've got to be the same thing. They're not. One is absolute and one is accepting, and I think that that's very helpful in trying to understand the issues and the challenges we face, and it ties in with Caroline's point about we need to understand ideas and the discussions we've been having about feminist perspectives, et cetera. It's about understanding these different ideas and really just sort of moving away from this cold war dominated thinking that the world is black and white. It's not, and so I just think that those discussions were extremely helpful, and there were some really important points raised there. Thank you. Thanks, Trish. Henrietta. Thanks. I'm sorry, I was late. I had another meeting this morning, and I'm just, I've missed the talks. I'm really sorry because they looked fascinating, and the conversation that I've been part of, that I've heard is brilliant. So, I mean, like Patricia, I just want to kind of messy up the picture a little bit. Lyndon, your comments. I recognize the picture that you're portraying about the discourses with the NPT kind of present some sort of complete dichotomy between disarmament and the possession of nuclear weapons, but I want to kind of just raise the question, how does one account then for the disarmament that has taken place while the NPT has been, you know, these discourses have served to deliver some disarmament. I know it's not complete disarmament. I know there's limitations to it, but it feels to me, not just in this context, but in all sorts of contexts, the art of policymaking is squaring in possible circles. And in theory, there are these hard and fast dichotomies, and then in practice, sometimes, not often, not always, but there are chances for wiggle rooms. So, I hope that was even half coherent. Thank you. Thanks, Lyndon, for replying in the in the chat box. It's such a shame we don't have a coffee session now for you to extend that conversation. I just want to give the remaining literally two minutes now to the palace if you want to reply to that. You don't have to, but if you have any comments on the last three questions, comments we have. So, I'll go in the order. Carolina, would you like to add anything? No, I just want to thank everyone for commenting. Discussion, fascinating discussion, really interesting ideas. So, I just want to thank everyone. Thank you, Carolina. I appreciate it. No, ma'am, thank you for giving this opportunity and for the lovely comments and questions, and especially Lyndon, for kind of comprehensively explaining the idea of disarmament and positioning. Wonderful. Thank you. And Ramesh? Yeah, thank you so much. It's been a real interesting discussion, and I really enjoyed it. And I also want to kind of thank Lyndon for his article in the, I think the, was it the Bureau of Atomic Scientists that he wrote an article, which I kind of benefited from in discussing Send as well. And thank you for all of your comments. Thank you, all of you, for a wonderful panel. I think it had a very rich discussion. Trish, shall we say we come back at quarter past still, or would you like to extend the break, start in?