Date: Friday 20 November 2009
Time: 6.30-8pm
Venue: Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building
Speakers: Professor Mary Kaldor, HM Queen Noor

Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall is the time finally right to achieve the elimination of nuclear weapons? Leading proponents of nuclear disarmament discuss why achieving Global Zero – a world without nuclear weapons – is both necessary and realistic.

Mary Kaldor is Professor and Director of the Centre for the Study of Global Governance, London School of Economics and Political Science. She previously worked at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), and the Science Policy Research Unit and the Sussex European Institute at the University of Sussex. Her books include The Baroque Arsenal (1982) The Imaginary War (1990) New and Old Wars: Organised Violence in a Global Era (1999) Global Civil Society: An Answer to War (2003). She was a founder member of European Nuclear Disarmament (END), founder and Co-Chair of the Helsinki Citizen's Assembly, and a member of the International Independent Commission to investigate the Kosovo Crisis, established by the Swedish Prime Minister and chaired by Richard Goldstone, which published the Kosovo Report (Oxford: OUP) in autumn 2000. Mary Kaldor was also convenor of the study group on European Security Capabilities established at the request of Javier Solana, which produced the Barcelona report, 'A Human Security Doctrine for Europe' and in 2007 the follow-up report, A European Way of Security: The Madrid Report of the Human Security Study Group.

Her Majesty Queen Noor is an international public servant and an outspoken voice on issues of world peace and justice. She plays an active role in promoting international exchange and understanding of Arab and Muslim culture and politics, Arab-Western relations, and conflict prevention and recovery issues such as refugees, missing persons, poverty and disarmament. She has also helped found media programs to highlight these issues. Her conflict recovery and peace-building work over the past decade has focused on the Middle East, the Balkans, Central and Southeast Asia, Latin America and Africa.

Queen Noor is actively involved in a number of international organizations advancing global peace-building and conflict recovery. She is a founding leader of Global Zero, an international movement to eliminate nuclear weapons worldwide, an Advisor to the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Seeds of Peace, Council of Women World Leaders, Women Waging Peace, and the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, and Honorary Chair of Survivor Corps.

She is also President of the United World Colleges, Trustee of the Aspen Institute, Refugees International, America Near East Refugee Aid, and Conservation International, Patron of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, and Founding President and Honorary President Emeritus of Bird Life International.

In recognition of her efforts to advance development, democracy and peace, Queen Noor has been awarded numerous awards and honorary doctorates in international relations, law and humane letters. In the past year, Queen Noor has been honoured with the 2009 Healing the Planet Award from Physicians for Social Responsibility, the 2009 Global Environmental Citizen Award from Harvard Medical School's Center for Health and the Global Environment, the 2008 Amigo de los Niños Award from Save the Children, and the Humanitarian Award from International Relief and Development.

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