Disarmament from the Margins

Last autumn, over two days in Glasgow, Disarmament from the Margins brought together scholars, activists and community organisers to rethink what disarmament means, and who gets to define it. What distinguished this conference was its commitment to equal platforming: activists and academics sharing the stage not as case studies or commentators but as co-producers of knowledge and expertise. Voices often spoken about, but rarely with, were placed at the centre, enabling participants to imagine disarmament from the legal, political and geographic margins. The atmosphere was collaborative and urgent. Activists with decades of experience in anti-nuclear, anti-militarist and anti-colonial struggles pushed conversations beyond legal frameworks, reminding everyone that resistance is lived, not abstract.  

Disarmament as Decolonial and Feminist Praxis 

The opening panel further set this tone: disarmament cannot be separated from struggles against colonialism, racial hierarchy and imperial power. Leila Hennaoui offered a compelling reading of the TPNW as a form of ‘juridical reworlding’: a reclaiming of legal authorship by states, survivors and civil society long excluded from the global nuclear order. Rather than seeking validation from nuclear powers, she argued, the TPNW asserts new normative authority rooted in lived harm and postcolonial solidarity.  

Other speakers traced the colonial violence of French and British Nuclear testing in Algeria, Polynesia and Micronesia, highlighting protest, litigation and intergenerational organising as crucial forms of decolonial resistance that continue to shape the TPNW’s political force (Gina Heathcote, Loveday Hodson and Catherine Eschle). Together the panel demonstrated that disarmament’s most transformative possibilities emerge when legal analysis is placed in dialogue with the histories, solidarities and lived experiences of those who have long resisted nuclear imperialism from the margins.  

Beyond Traditional Frameworks  

Panels throughout the conference challenged narrow legalism. Activists like Janet Fenton and Jane Tallents drew from their experiences of decades of direct action – from Faslane Peace Camp to Trident Ploughshares – underscoring that anti-militarist knowledge has been forged in struggle and community. Academics echoed this call, urging a move beyond managerial soft approaches toward bold, justice-driven agendas.  

Discussion ranged from the limits of international law in regulating extraterritorial military bases (Juneseo Hwang) to linking disarmament with domestic struggles against policing, fascism and settler-colonial violence (Ray Acheson). Again and again, participants insisted: dismantling militarism requires structural critique and grassroots solidarity.  

Disarmament beyond the state 

The third panel explored how disarmament can be shaped when traditional state-based frameworks collapse or fail. Sameer Rashid Bhat highlighted Afghanistan under Taliban rule, where NGOs and local actors, shoulder the job of disarmament amid legal uncertainty and humanitarian crisis. Francois Naaman turned to Lebanon, showing how transitional justice can foster demilitarisation rooted in dignity and community participation, rather than coercion. Madelaine Chian added historical depth, reminding us that civil society has long shaped global disarmament, from the interwar World Disarmament Conference to today. These insights underscored a key truth: when states fail, the margins sustain the fight and possibility for peace.  

Public Lecture 

Karen Engle’s and Vasuki Nesiah’s public lecture, ending day 1, wove together historical memory, feminist peace activism and the radical imagination needed to confront nuclearization, militarised policing, colonial extractivism, nuclear energy and interconnected forms of violence. Nesiah added a sharp critique of colonial legacies in law, urging us to confront how legal frameworks perpetuate these longstanding hierarchies. Together they reminded us, abolitionist thinking is not history; it is a blueprint for today.  

Innovations from the Margins 

Day 2 spotlighted creative legal strategies and technological tools, from using tort litigation to hold arms manufacturers accountable to deploying open-source intelligence to track illicit weapons flows. Speakers emphasised that most generative developments in disarmament today are emerging outside formal diplomacy, driven by activists, indigenous communities, and alternative legal imaginaries.  

Opening the day, Ankit Malhotra mapped emerging terrains of tort litigation, showing how the shift from inter-state responsibility to private accountability unsettles traditional disarmament frameworks and reveals new pressures generated by non-state actors. Building on this, Stacey Henderson drew attention to the often-overlooked force of non-binding measures, demonstrating how informal cooperation—exemplified by the Australia Group—has quietly but decisively shaped global efforts to constrain chemical and biological weapons. 

The conversation then moved to the evolving landscape of nuclear governance, with Rhys Crilley and Carolina Patoliano reframing the ‘Third Nuclear Age’ through the political energy surrounding the TPNW, positioning it as a site of possibility for reimagining nuclear policy. Completing the panel, Ragul OV foregrounded how contemporary disarmament practices sideline marginalized communities, insisting that any transformative vision of disarmament must centre those most affected and anchor its principles in equity and human security. 

The final panel examined the political economy of disarmament foregrounding how economic structures, universities and rights frameworks sustain and also disrupt militarisation. Selma Mustafic argued that contemporary student encampments, boycott-divestment campaigns and global solidarity protests constitute a form of economic disarmament from below. Mustafic, alongside Cooper Christiancy and Vanessa Vuille, showed how student activists, indigenous communities and civil society actors are targeting the financial infrastructures that enable arms production, pressuring universities, banks, and states to divest from military-industrial networks. These movements expand the meaning of disarmament, treating divestment as both tactic and theory.  

A Shared Commitment  

The closing reflections, delivered by conference organisers Charlie Peevers, Anna Hood, and the public lecture speakers Karen Engle and Vasuki Nesiah, captured the ethos of the event: disarmament is inseparable from decolonisation, anti-racism, feminism and community self-determination. The cross-pollination between movements and academia generated feeling that new alliances, strategies and vocabularies were evolving in real time. What emerged across two days was not a single answer but a shared commitment: to continue learning from those at the frontlines of militarism and to reimagine the role of law, scholarship and activism as jointly building more peaceful, just worlds. This conference did more than examine how disarmament looks from below. It recentred the conversation itself placing global south scholars, early career researchers and activists at the heart of knowledge production.   

~ Laia Harman and Nicky Oo (School of Law Research Interns)