Youth Fusion Podcast

Jannis is currently a PhD Student and Researcher at the esteemed University of Hamburg in Germany. He was also a Young Fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations, and he holds a Masters in International Conflict Studies. His main areas of focus encompass nuclear disarmament and international peace and security, and what's truly remarkable is that despite being in the early stages of his career, and a youth,  Jannis has already gained invaluable experience within the field, including with the United Nations and other international arenas.

Recently, Jannis wrote an exceptional paper on Feminist Foreign Policy, with a specific emphasis on Nuclear Weapons. When Youth Fusion came across his work, we were immediately interested, and knew we had to delve deeper into his research. Over the past couple of years, we've had the pleasure of crossing paths with Jannis at various conferences, and today, we finally have the opportunity to hear about his incredibly intriguing findings thus far.

Welcome to Youth Fusion: Peace Out! In the very first episode, Vanda chats with two young professionals from the nuclear disarmament & security fields: Aigerim Seitenova & Michaela Higgins Sørensen. Together, they talk about the struggles young individuals in the field have to face, but also why it is a field absolutely worth staying in. For more information about this podcast mini-series, visit Youth Fusion's website.

Gabriela Maier Tolic, a program assistant at Youth Fusion, sits down with Dr. John Burroughs, who is a senior analyst for the New York City-based Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy (LCNP). From February 1999 to September 2020 he was the Executive Director. Dr. Burroughs has represented LCNP in Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty meetings and negotiations on the Treaty to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons and was a member of the Marshall Islands’ legal team in its nuclear disarmament cases in the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Beyond this, he taught international law as an adjunct professor at Rutgers Law School. He has a J.D. and Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley and a B.A. from Harvard University.

Welcome to the second episode of the Youth Fusion podcast series on nuclear weapons in international law. This podcast series was established to help those interested in finding out more about nuclear weapons issues and how they are regulated in international law by providing an overview of the status of international law connected to nuclear weapons. This episode explores questions surrounding the threat and use of nuclear weapons in international law.

Gabriela Maier Tolic, a program assistant at Youth Fusion, sits down with Amela Skiljan, a PhD Candidate at the University of Bremen and Alyn Ware, the Global Coordinator of PNND. Amela Skiljan studied law in Bosnia and Herzegovina. She holds a masters in International and European law (LL.M.Eur) from the University of Bremen and she is currently writing her PhD thesis. Beyond that, she is the Deputy Chairwoman of the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms (IALANA) in Germany, a board member of IALANA and a Council Member of the International Peace Bureau. Alyn Ware is a peace educator and nuclear disarmament consultant representing various organizations, such as Aotearoa (New Zeeland Lawyers for Peace), the World Future Council and the Basel Peace Office.

Mélusine Lebret, a Youth Fusion intern, recently sat down with Almudena Azcárate Ortega, from the UN Institute for Disarmament Research. Almudena is the research assistant for the Space Security Program, as well as for the Weapons of Mass Destruction & Other Strategic Weapons Program, at UNIDIR.

In our chat with Almudena, we covered topics from her backgrounds to the current state of the research on outer space security and the actions that are being taken to pursue the disarmament movement in orbit and beyond. We began with a discussion around UNIDIR’s mission in outer space security, the most difficult space norms it aims at tackling and how its achievements help question the 1967 Outer Space Treaty for the better. As the conversation led to analyzing the effects of counter space acts on the militarisation of space, we focused on the breakthroughs UNIDIR’s Space Dossiers had on the subject.

Welcome to the new Youth Fusion podcast series on nuclear weapons in international

Russell Burrell, a Youth Fusion associate, recently sat down with Minister Phil Twyford, from New Zealand, and Alyn Ware of Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament. Minister Twyford is currently New Zealand’s Minister for Disarmament and Arms Control and State Minister for Trade and Export, and Alyn is PNND’s Global Coordinator.

In our chat with Minister Twyford and Alyn, we covered topics from their backgrounds to current state of international affairs and the disarmament movement. The most intriguing part of our chat, however, was the portion on Outer Space. In the context of today’s global challenges, we discussed the difficulties and challenges outlined in the disarmament handbook, Assuring Our Common Future, and more, but the bulk of our discussion rested on New Zealand’s own policies related to outer space; New Zealand has two primary policies, which Minister Twyford helped push forward: the 2017 Outer Space and High-altitude Activities Act and the 2019 Space Launch Guidelines, both of which aim to be in line with the 1967 Outer Space Treaty.

This podcast has been in support of the upcoming webinar “Ensuring that outer space remains a common good”, which takes place on September 29th, 2022. There will be two sessions: one at 7am CET for participants from the Indo-Pacific and Middle-East Regions, and one at 1pm CET for participants from Europe, Africa, and the Americas. This webinar is in support of the disarmament handbook “Assuring Our Common Future”, which can be found at disarmamenthandbook.org.

For more on the upcoming webinar, please see the PNND webpage or the IPU website’s event page.

Welcome to Youth Fusion: Peace Out! In this short trailer, Vanda will introduce the new series. For more information, visit Youth Fusion's website.

Russell Burrell, a Youth Fusion associate through Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, sat down with Professor Paul Meyer recently to discuss issues to do with peace versus militarization in Outer Space. Mr. Meyer is currently a Director of the Canadian Pugwash Group, Fellow at the Outer Space Institute, and adjunct professor at the School for International Studies at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia. Formerly, he was Canada’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations and the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva from 2003 to 2007. Mr. Meyer has published academic and other articles on several aspects of international security, including nuclear non-proliferation, cyber security, and outer space. He also contributed a great deal to the Space section of the Disarmament Handbook “Assuring Our Common Future”. In our interview with Mr. Meyer, we discussed his background, what brought him into international affairs, how he came to work with the Canadian Foreign Service, and of course, outer space.

Michaela Sørenen, a core member of Youth Fusion, had the honour of interviewing Dr. Becky Alexis-Martin, who has been involved with nuclear related issues for many years and has an impressive plethora of work on some pretty niche topics- which is what we love around here at Youth Fusion- we are all about niche and nuance! Just a quick snippet of information before we start, Dr. Becky was in Vienna for the MSP while this interview took place, and Michaela was fortunate enough to meet up with her there a few days later where they were on the same panel about The future of youth engagement with the TPNW!

Dr. Becky Alexis-Martin is currently a Lecturer in Cultural and Political Geography at Manchester Metropolitan University. On top of this, she is also the Principal Investigator of Nuclear Families, which is a large-scale, multidisciplinary social sciences project exploring the lives of British Nuclear test veterans and their families, as well as being the Principal Investigator of Atomic Atolls, a study that explores the colonial necropolitics of the South Pacific, among many other exciting things!

Check out Dr. Alexis Martin’s website at https://www.nucleargeography.com where she has a plethora of resources on nuclear related issues for you to read up on!