background

TalkWorks IS AN INDEPENDENT NOT-FOR-PROFIT INITIATIVE OPERATING ON A MINIMAL BUDGET
WE URGENTLY SEEK FURTHER SPONSORSHIP
PLEASE CONSIDER SUPPORTING US TO MAKE FILMS OF LEADING INTERNATIONAL EXPERTS AND POLICY MAKERS
TALKING ABOUT THE CONCRETE STEPS BEING TAKEN TOWARDS ACHIEVING THE GOAL OF NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT,
AND TO DISSEMINATE THEIR KNOWLEDGE AS WIDELY AS POSSIBLE

If you like this film series please provide a link from your website
If you wish to support us or suggest subjects for further films, please contact:
Rosie Houldsworth
www.TalkWorks.info
Oxford UK

JUNE 2010

Learn more about the issues at the following websites:

International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament (ICNND)

Global Zero Campaign (A World Without Nuclear Weapons)

(In Britain)
The Foreign Office: Global Issues-Nuclear Weapons-Disarmament
Top Level Group of UK Parliamentarians for Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament and Non-Proliferation
The British-American Security Information Council (BASIC) “Getting to Zero”
The David Davies Memorial Institute for International Studies (DDMI) “Trust Building in Nuclear Worlds”
The Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy
Come Clean – The WMP Awareness Programme
Pugwash UK
Medact
ICAN UK: Campaign for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons
Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR)
Bradford University Disarmament Research Centre

For informative reports and factsheets on the question of civil nuclear power, global warming and security, visit: http://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/work/global_security/energy.php
For further information on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament issues, visit Oxford Research Group’s Nuclear Issues Programme webpages at: http://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/work/global_security/deterrent.php http://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/work/previous/index.php

(In the USA)
The Nuclear Threat Initiative
The Nuclear Security Project
The Global Security Institute
The EastWest Institute
International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW)

(In Europe)
The Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research (TFF)

Background to TalkWorks TalkWorks is a small independent film project which grew out of the Niwano Peace Prize-winning work of the Oxford Research Group (ORG) which, under its founder-director Scilla Elworthy, sought to find ways to turn back the nuclear arms race and make progress towards a world in which nuclear weapons and war were no longer used as instruments in international defence and security policy. At the height of the Cold War and during the 1990s, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, ORG researched and published on nuclear weapons decision-making, and facilitated informal face-to-face dialogue between senior decision-makers and their critics from all the nuclear nations. ORG’s approach was to invite nuclear adversaries to meet each other face-to-face as human beings in environments conducive to open dialogue. In the presence of independent experts and skilled mediators, they would listen to each other’s point of view and begin to develop trust in a way that led to cooperating in seeking means to reduce nuclear threats and enhance global and human security. ORG ceased to work on nuclear issues in December 2007 in order to focus its research on dealing with the root causes of global threats, and ways of promoting the resolution of international conflict by non-violent means, with a special focus on Israel-Palestine.

TalkWorks was conceived at that time by Rosie Houldsworth and Anne Piper from ORG’s founding nuclear dialogue group, with the aim of giving a wider public airing to the weight and breadth of expert opinion that was gathering behind President Obama’s historic initiative to lead the world in taking concrete steps towards the abolition of nuclear weapons, triggered by the earlier public statements of four senior US statesmen, George Shultz, William Perry, Sam Nunn and Henry Kissinger

ORG Symposium on Nuclear Futures: Realities and Choices In December 2007 Oxford Research Group held a high-level international symposium on ‘Nuclear Futures: Realities and Choices’ at the Royal Society in London to mark the end of its nuclear programme and to honour the lifetime’s work of its eminent consultant on nuclear issues, Dr. Frank Barnaby. Twenty-five of the most knowledgeable and experienced nuclear and global security and political experts gathered around a table to discuss Frank Barnaby’s keynote paper, Consequences of a Nuclear Renaissance, and to assess the current critical situation with regard to nuclear weapons proliferation and the increased risks of nuclear terrorism, and to discuss what could be done about it:

The symposium at the Royal Society was hosted jointly with the
Trust Building in Nuclear Worlds Programme of the
David Davies Memorial Institute of International Studies (DDMI) of the the University of Aberystwyth
TalkWorks’ Forum for Dialogue on Nuclear Futures

TalkWorks was set up in 2008 by Rosie Houldsworth and Anne Piper of the Oxford Research Group (ORG)
to support the continuation of dialogue among experts in the field of nuclear weapons and international security,
and to promote the wider dissemination of their insights on these issues into the public domain.

In June 2008 TalkWorks convened a 24-hour ‘Forum for Dialogue on Nuclear Futures’ at Charney Manor in Oxfordshire for thirty leaders of UK-based non-government organisations (NGOs), academics and other nuclear specialists. This broad coalition of experts came together with those who fund their work to assess the implications of the fact that nuclear strategists and political leaders worldwide were beginning to take nuclear disarmament seriously, and to discuss how they may best support the US-led initiative during the critical period leading up to the May 2010 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference, and beyond.

Read the aide-mémoire from discussion that took place at the Forum for Dialogue on Nuclear Futures:
Nuclear Futures Forum Final Report
& The paper presented to the forum by former Swedish Disarmament Ambassador, Dr Maj Britt Theorin,
is accessible as a pdf:  'Four Sworn Men'

TalkWorks’ Film Project
“Talking about nuclear disarmament”
was launched in February 2009 with the aid of a generous seed grant from an individual sponsor. The project was conceived as a way of using the personal and direct medium of film to allow influential politicians, diplomats, military and strategic experts, historians, nuclear scientists and others to communicate their views, knowledge and practical proposals on the initiative to a worldwide audience via the internet. The 10-minute films are drawn from informal, personal interviews granted to TalkWorks by the contributors, which are professionally edited and published to the internet.

If you want to explore the issues raised in the films in more detail, we advise you to search the contributors’ names on the internet for their published papers, or go to the websites of their affiliated organisations and institutes, some of which are listed below.

SEE ALL THE FILMS ON
TalkWorks’
DEDICATED
YOUTUBE CHANNEL

“The accelerating spread of nuclear weapons, nuclear know-how and nuclear materials has brought us to a nuclear tipping-point….. we call for a global effort to reduce reliance on nuclear weapons…and ultimately to end them as a threat to the world.”
George Shultz, Henry Kissinger,

William Perry, Sam Nunn

Wall Street Journal, January 15, 2008