Cardiff workshop 'Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament and Arms Control: Lessons for Trust-building'

The DDMI organised a workshop on 1-2nd February 2008 at the Temple of Peace, Cardiff to discuss the prospects for multilateral nuclear arms control and disarmament. The meeting, which was held under the Chatham House rule, brought together a distinguished group of diplomats, officials, academics and practitioners from the NGO community to explore these issues from the perspectives of trust and distrust in international politics.

Click here for the rapporteur's summary of the meeting.

A BBC Wales article covering the Cardiff meeting is available here.

The Institute would like to express its grateful appreciation to UNESCO Cymru-Wales and the Welsh Assembly Government for funding this event.

As one of the diplomats present remarked, 'trust has been the most neglected of all the concepts in the field of disarmament and arms control'. The workshop in Cardiff rectified this.

It also provided an opportunity for participants to explore ideas developing out of the Institute's project on Trust-building in Nuclear Worlds, specifically the contribution that a multidisciplinary approach to trust can make to our thinking about nuclear arms control and disarmament.

Two papers from the event are also available to download:

• Professor Geoffrey Hosking, 'Growing distrust between Russia and the West'
• Professor Farhang Jahanpour, 'The elusiveness of trust: the experience of the Security Council and Iran'