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Paths for building cyber peace in 2022

1/18/2022

1 Comment

 
This is the fourth blog post in a series looking at an array of issues in 2022 related to weapons use, the arms trade and security assistance, often offering recommendations.
Picture
Allison Pytlak
Malicious cyber operations are already making headlines just weeks into the new year. Last week Ukraine was hit by an operation that defaced the websites of some governmental departments; two days later “highly destructive” malware was discovered on several private and governmental networks. Earlier in January, authorities blocked internet access in Kazakhstan following days of protest and an earlier crack down on social media platforms. Meanwhile, many companies, governments, and organizations are still dealing with the extensive fallout of the Log4j vulnerability which surfaced in December 2021.

What used to feel like science fiction is fast becoming a daily reality in our ever more wired lives. The scale and frequency of malicious cyber operations has intensified during the Covid-19 pandemic in line with a greater dependency on digital networks, even as digital divides persist. For instance, malware and ransomware attacks reportedly increased by 358% and 435% respectively in 2020. Software supply chain attacks rose by 650% last year while physical supply chains attacks have contributed to economic distortion. Disinformation, misinformation, and propaganda campaigns are increasingly affecting domestic political processes and Covid-19 pandemic response. A series of revelations about Pegasus spyware has demonstrated the extent to which authorities spy on individuals and organizations, and it is estimated that more than 486 million people were affected by internet shutdowns in 2021, an increase of 80% from the preceding year.

What this points to is not only that the misuse of information and communications technologies (ICTs) has become more frequent but also that ICTs are increasingly integrated into other methods of disruption, war fighting, and repression. While “cyber” was once viewed as a standalone domain, the use of cyber-related tactics or the targeting of ICTs directly has instead become a component of broader operations that pursue strategic goals. As just one example, the operation targeting Ukraine follows on from a history of Russia-linked cyber operations against the country—including one that knocked down Ukraine’s power grid in 2015—and has occurred in a context of current heavy military build-up and political tension. 

For many perpetrators, cyber operations are attractive because they cause disruption and have impact but do not risk the potential blowback of a physical attack. They can also provide anonymity and/or ambiguity, when that is desired by those responsible. A growing number of governments publicly acknowledge that they possess or are developing offensive cyber capabilities—many of whom maintain that it is within their sovereign rights to do so, provided that such capabilities are used responsibly. This is a narrative not unfamiliar to those in arms control and non-proliferation. While there is some debate among experts about if such a neat line can be drawn between offensive and defensive operations, there is little doubt that a “militarization” of technology appears to be well underway.

While less visible than a bomb blast, cyber operations have human costs and can escalate political tension. When medical facilities are forced offline—something that is occurring with growing frequency—it means that people awaiting surgery or receiving other forms of care take are affected. When a government turns off its internet, diverse human rights and fundamental freedoms are negatively affected. Power outages can have knock-on effects for other critical infrastructure upon which scores of people depend. There are also differentiated impacts of cyber operations in relation to gender, age, race, and ability, which is only starting to be documented and discussed.

Despite being sometimes portrayed as a lawless “wild west”, state action in cyberspace ought to be constrained by and undertaken within the boundaries of existing international law, as well as a set of eleven voluntary norms that have been developed through processes at the United Nations (UN). Through these processes, all UN member states have affirmed the applicability of international law to cyberspace. Most also maintain that existing law and the UN normative framework is sufficient for addressing cyber-related threats and harms and guiding state behaviour.

Except that it isn’t sufficient, as the examples cited in this blog demonstrate— or at least, it isn’t always being adhered to. Agreement on the overall applicability of international law is positive, but it is also a blanket statement that does not account for some of the unique complications posed by cyber operations and ICT misuse, for instance in relation to the interpretation of certain legal principles (sovereignty, territoriality, due diligence, and self-defence). Additionally, some states maintain that the UN Charter applies in its entirety while others disagree. There are complications in relation to attribution and legal accountability. A few countries still do not accept the applicability of international humanitarian law to cyber space and some don’t see the relevance of international human rights law when discussing cyber in an “international peace and security” context. 

In looking ahead to 2022, it is imperative that the international community take meaningful action to foster cyber peace by curtailing malicious cyber operations and challenging cyber-related militarism. Just as we are seeing in other areas where technology and military interests intersect, such as autonomous weapons, new and more specific law may well be required. Currently most countries feel that this is too political challenging, partially because the shadow of proposed cyber treaties past—and present—looms large (Russia, China, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan first proposed a draft cyber treaty in 2013, and some of these countries are now leading a controversial initiative to negotiate a UN instrument on cybercrime).

Given this context, focus must be placed for now on accountability and implementation of existing law and norms, as well as public exchange and sharing of how states interpret their legal responsibilities with respect to international cyber peace and security. This must go hand in hand with efforts to build resilience, capacity, and trust.

Several multilateral forums offer space to do just this. Within the UN system, the UNGA’s First Committee on Disarmament and International Security has just launched its second open-ended working group (OEWG) on ICTs which will build on the outcomes of the first one as well as those of the six UN expert groups that have been convened over the last nearly two decades. Most states and the OEWG Chair are in agreement that they do not want this forum to be just another “talk shop”. There are a few proposals on the table for accountability mechanisms, but it remains to be seen if the political will exists to develop them further. More than 50 states have also endorsed a proposal to develop a cyber programme of action, inspired partially by the programme of action on small arms and light weapons, which may gain traction in 2022. Within these forums, civil society and some states are also calling increasingly for human-centric approaches to international cyber security, a concept akin to that of humanitarian disarmament.

For us in the arms control and disarmament community, we can do more to call attention to the cyber-related risks of existing weapon systems, recognizing that those risks are powerful incentives to disarm and demilitarize. We can also do more to address the growing role of digital networks in facilitating the illicit trafficking of weapons, the potential role of existing arms control agreements to stop the spread of harmful digital technologies, and the pivot towards cyber products being undertaken by some traditional weapons producers. We can pull from our long and collective experience in challenging militarized narratives of “security” to push back against the willful misuse of ICTs, prevent cyber harm, and build cyber peace.


Allison Pytlak is a Program Manager in the disarmament program of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). 

1 Comment

Solving the Rubik’s cube: what’s next for norms in cyber space

12/27/2018

2 Comments

 
This is the fourth blog post in a series looking at an array of issues in 2019 related to weapons use, the arms trade and security assistance, at times offering recommendations.
Picture
Allison Pytlak
A slow drift toward a militarized cyber space has characterized the last few years. At the same time, an ever-growing patchwork of multilateral initiatives has sprung up to curtail hostile actions in this domain and articulate behavioral norms for states. From high-level political declarations to closed expert groups, governments, the tech sector, academics and others are full of ideas and suggestions. Yet, are these initiatives succeeding? Do they address human impact? Do they offer change, or accept and embody the same politicization and double standards that bedevil other security issues?  
 
In 2019, it is virtually certain that hostile cyber operations will continue to occur—both between governments, and between governments and citizens. What are these threats exactly, and how can the global community act to keep the peace in cyber space?
 
The threat, is real
 
2018 was another active year for hostile cyber operations, to put it mildly.  State-sponsored hacking groups zeroed in on prominent international entities such as the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, alongside other targets like universities and hotel chains. Data exposure schemes kept pace with data breaches. We learned more about the vulnerability of the United States’ electrical grid.
 
While these operations do not constitute the doomsday scenarios that early cyber watchers predicted, they have nonetheless generated an increasingly militarized response from governments and experts, in which it is taken for granted that this is and will continue to be a fighting domain, and the best we can do is establish some rules of the road for damage control. This mentality is reflected in the role that digital technologies now play in some national cyber strategies and military doctrines. For instance, in September 2018 the United States’ new National Cyber Strategy adopted an aggressive stance, promising to "deter and if necessary punish those who use cyber tools for malicious purposes." The U.S., the United Kingdom and Australia have been open about the use of offensive cyber tactics against the Islamic State. Germany has slowly been transitioning to a more offensive approach; other European countries have been open about seeking the same.  
 
The slow drift can also be seen in how and where states are discussing international cyber security. In the United Nations (UN), this is an offshoot of disarmament and arms control bodies. Other multilateral fora tend to bring together individuals with that background as well. Consequently there is frequently an effort to import and apply hard security concepts to this domain—“cyber deterrence” is one example; efforts to fit traditional arms control regime-style solutions are another.
 
Accepting the militarization of cyber space without question further risks adopting frameworks and guidelines that are more permissive of harm to the population than international law allows, pushing the possibility of achieving cyber peace further away.
 
Many responses, any real solutions?
 
Navigating through the volume of policy and normative proposals that exist to guarantee global cyber stability is a bit like trying to line up the colors in a Rubik’s cube: you can see some patterns, but getting all those squares to click into place is a challenge. Below is a non-exhaustive overview.
 
The UN, the world’s largest multilateral negotiating fora, has since 2004 been the home of a Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) on information and communications technologies, or ICTs for short. The early Groups examined existing and potential threats in cyberspace and possible cooperative measures to address them, while more recent ones worked to develop behavioral norms for actions in cyberspace, culminating in eleven norms that were recommended by the Group in 2015 and subsequently adopted by the General Assembly.  
 
This seems to have been a highpoint for the Group however—significant differences over foundational questions such as the applicability of international law and the UN Charter to cyber space prevented agreement on a report in the next round. The geopolitical lines along which countries were divided is nothing new (in general terms, the west versus the rest) yet the extreme degree to which this issue became polarized in 2018 was unexpected, and has resulted in a procedurally conflicted and potentially counterproductive two-track UN approach to one of the most ubiquitous security threats facing the international community today. In 2019, there will be two UN entities concurrently taking work forward on cyber security norms: an open-ended working group that originated from a Russian-led initiative, and a US-inspired GGE. Exactly how these entities will interact remains unknown and the cost and administrative burden of managing both is not insubstantial.
 
Some have noted that deadlock at the UN gives impetus to, and space for, the efforts of other stakeholders. Governments, the tech sector, and other experts have been interacting for years through the Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace, which, in November 2018 proposed a set of six norms toward cyber stability. Also in November, France launched its Paris Call for Trust and Security Cyberspace during the Paris Peace Forum. The Paris Call is unique in bringing together endorsements from government, industry, and non-governmental organizations, but so far lacks support of some states, including Russia, China, United States, India, and Brazil.
 
Within the technology sector, Microsoft has framed itself as something of a moral compass in this space, first by publishing its own International Cybersecurity Norms in 2015 and most recently by playing a driving role in the Cyber Tech Accord. The Accord binds together 60 companies to partner on initiatives that improve the security, stability and resilience of cyber space—although some critics argue that implementation has fallen short. Somewhere in between the norms and the Accord, Microsoft’s CEO also called for the development of a Digital Geneva Convention in 2017, building somewhat on the contributions of the International Committee of the Red Cross to the literature on the applicability of international humanitarian law to cyber space.
 
Clearly, from the number of times that I have used the word “norms” in the last several paragraph, both state and non-state actors alike are fans of developing some—or of implementing those that are already agreed. Yet what of something legally binding? That’s even more of a fraught issue, tangled up in geopolitical and ideological divide. Russia has been proposing a UN cyber treaty for well over a decade but has not gained sufficient support from other states, largely because elements of the draft it has put forward could legitimize some of their more nefarious domestic practices in curtailing internet freedom. Any new treaty-based initiative—and support for that does exist— would need to somehow account for this in a way that doesn’t isolate support or spark competition. It would also need to navigate existing regional and bilateral cyber security pacts.
 
Taking a people-centered approach in 2019
 
Perhaps the biggest blind spot in all the above initiatives is the human one. Very little information related to the human impact of cyber operations makes its way into multilateral discussion forums on cyber security and this contributes to institutionalization and taking for granted the broader societal harm of cyber conflict.
 
There is, however, an ever-growing and highly credible evidence base illustrating the negative uses of digital technology in repressing human rights, notably the rights to freedom of expression, speech, assembly, and privacy. This is not a practice limited to just a handful of governments, but one that is practiced in many parts of the world.
 
The human rights dimension of the cyber security agenda is usually separated out from the “international security” agenda, at least in the context of the UN. This is due in part to the structure of the UN itself, but possibly also because it’s politically awkward—some of the countries that are the largest proponents of cyber stability and norm development, for example, are also quietly permitting the export of digital surveillance technologies produced by companies in their jurisdiction. This has been an on-going debate among European Union countries in particular, in which the dual-use nature of digital surveillance technologies has been at times an excuse for not taking a meaningful policy response.  
 
Continuing to factor out human rights and humanitarian impact from inter-governmental discussions about global cyber security makes it easier to think of this domain in purely military and hard security terms. Our experience in banning nuclear weapons and regulating the global arms trade demonstrates that incorporating these perspectives can alter the discourse and generate people-centered responses.  
 
Where to from here?

Like a genie out of the bottle, it’s unlikely that the digital threats will decline in 2019, so to return to the question posed at the beginning of this blog: how can the global community act to keep the peace in cyber space?
 
First, we must stop using the same words, language, and approaches that we apply to traditional disarmament and security issues, and understand cyber space on its own terms: as both a medium in which conflict can occur, as well as a multi-faceted tool to cause disruption and harm offline. Trying to determine what a cyber bomb equates to in the kinetic world is futile; there is no such thing, and this of thinking encourages “round peg in square hole”-type solutions.
 
Yet, we cannot underestimate the vulnerability of digital networks and systems that prop up existing weapons and weapon systems. Nuclear weapons are vulnerable to cyber operation. The systems that enable unmanned aerial vehicles are vulnerable to cyber attacks. This should be further incentive to disarm.
 
Third, it’s frustrating that progress at the UN has been held hostage by power politics. It’s also concerning that two of the world’s largest cyber bullies are at the helm of new efforts. This can, however, be an opportunity for other states to step up and play constructive roles in bridging differences and brokering solutions,—as they’ve started to, along with other stakeholders.
 
Fourth, it will be important to harmonize efforts across the patchwork of responses identified here, in order to avoid redundancy and maximize knowledge and move toward implementation of what has already been agreed. States should establish the strongest norms against malicious operations—and reduce the motivation to pursue aggressive cyber capabilities.
 
Last, we must stop overlooking the human dimension and talking about cyber security in sanitized and faceless terms. Human rights considerations, for example, should be included in all discussions rather than being sidelined in the standard arms control and disarmament forums.


Allison Pytlak is the Programme Manager of Reaching Critical Will, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF)
 
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Cyber Insecurity Under Trump

4/29/2017

2 Comments

 
This is the seventh entry in a series examining actions during the first 100 days of the new Trump administration and their possible implications on the arms trade, security assistance and weapons use in the future.
Pytlak
Allison Pytlak
Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. election was one of the biggest stories in recent history. "Cyberwar"’ and "cyber security" dominated headlines at the outset of Donald Trump’s presidency, even before his inauguration. Yet despite the unprecedented media chatter and controversy, the President’s response to cyber issues has been underwhelming. Key deadlines on publicly articulated deliverables have been missed entirely and other initiatives are lagging.  While there are inklings of plans to strengthen America’s online infrastructure and systems, including through partnership with the private sector, technology moves notoriously faster than politics. If President Trump doesn’t act soon, it will continue to be dangerously vulnerable.  

Much of the story about Trump’s first 100 days in the cyber context is rooted in the
scandal over whether or not the Russian government played a role in determining the outcome of the U.S. elections, through various hacking and doxing schemes, and by extension, if the then-presidential candidate had a role in any of it.  To refresh our memories, this first began in June 2016 when the Democratic National Committee reported an intrusion into its computer network and the cyber security firm CrowdStrike publicly blamed Russian hackers, following their investigation. As stolen emails from the committee began to appear on public sites, there were other voices – from the government and the intelligence community – reinforcing the view that the attacks originated from the Russian government.

In December the already suspected motive for these actions gained credence when the Washington Post
disclosed a secret CIA assessment that declared it “quite clear” that a Trump presidency was the ultimate goal of the hacks. In January, the CIA, FBI and NSA – referring to themselves collectively as the “intelligence community” – publicly concluded that Russia had used cyber methods in pursuit of “undermining public faith in the U.S. democratic process, denigrate Secretary [Hillary] Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency”.

While attribution in cyber space is
complex and difficult, it is not impossible. Good forensics can uncover digital fingerprints. Ascribing such a clear and conclusive motivation to a cyber operation is more unusual, often because the evidence is circumstantial at best. Not surprisingly, the intelligence report prompted a maelstrom of finger pointing, accusations and reactions from President Obama before leaving office.

The response from then President-elect Trump was quite clear, in that he said he would appoint a team to
provide an anti-hacking plan within 90 days of taking office. This was reinforced by a tweet on January 13 and followed up by an event on cyber security in late January that featured former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, who now leads a group tasked with building private sector partnerships on cyber security. At the time Trump said, “We must protect federal networks and data. We operate these networks on behalf of the American people and they are very important.”

The 90-day mark for this plan has now come and gone with nothing in sight nor any updates on its status.  As we now hit the 100-day milestone, most in the community are wondering if this plan will ever emerge.

Also languishing is the Senate Intelligence Committee’s probe into the election interference, including whether there was any coordination between the Kremlin and Trump. The Committee announced it had agreed on the scope of its investigation more than three months ago, and claims it has done some initial work. But it is significantly hampered by lack of capacity, recently
promising to add more staffers after being criticized for lacking full-time dedicated staff, and those working on it part-time said to lack investigative experience.

On the international front, the State Department recently
argued that a proposed new treaty to govern cyberspace would be “misguided” and “misses the mark.” Microsoft has recently begun to call for such an agreement, referring to it as a “Digital Geneva Convention." There are various multilateral discussion fora in which states meet to discuss behavioral norms in cyberspace that the United States participates in; some wonder if this will change.

The one bright spot is a pending
executive order on cyber security that is expected any day. Leaked drafts indicate that it could mandate agency-by-agency reviews of security practices and requiring agency compliance with the National Institute for Standards and Technology cyber security framework. It might also make it a policy to modernize information technology or encourage the expansion of the cyber workforce. Overall, the emphasis would be on improvement and modernization; which could lay the groundwork for related legislation.

This would be positive. Research shows us that that the more developed and technologically sophisticated a country is, the more vulnerable it becomes to hacking and other malicious cyber operations because so much of how it functions involves digital networks. This vulnerability is true for both foreign and domestic cyber attacks. As Symantec
recently noted, the 2015 hack of the Office of Personnel Management continues to impact the federal government technologically and financially, while state and local governments, as well as universities, find themselves under constant attack and struggling to defend the safety of the vast amount of information they keep.

It’s also clear that this is not a problem that will go away anytime soon. To date, most cyber "conflict" actually entails
low-level antagonistic actions like hacking, distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks or similar. But what is very much on the minds of many governments is how to protect their critical infrastructure, which could range from electrical grids to, in the case of the United States, nuclear or other weapons systems. 

At what point does software become a weapon, and how can the arms control community, in the United States and elsewhere, address this? Experts believe it’s unlikely that a nuclear weapon could be detonated through a cyber operation or attack, but is a possibility not to be dismissed. More likely is that nuclear weapons software and associated systems could be altered as they are being built, or electronic signals might somehow be sent to nuclear weapons. Hackers could also wreak havoc through manipulating information that these systems depend on. The methods and means by which something like this, or other malicious operations, would occur require more thought.

Allison Pytlak is a Program Manager in the disarmament program (Reaching Critical Will) of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom
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The "business as usual" approach to arms sales? That’s so last year

1/10/2017

2 Comments

 
​This is the eighth blog post in a series looking at an array of issues in 2017 related to weapons use, the arms trade and security assistance, at times offering recommendations.
Picture
Allison Pytlak
You don’t have to be an arms control wonk to have noticed that 2016 was peppered with headlines about the sale of weapons to places they shouldn’t be and used in any number of horrific ways against soldiers and civilians alike. Many of these stories zeroed in on the double standards in play; namely that vendors of such weapons are some of same countries that had only recently championed the adoption of new legally binding standards on the arms trade in order to prevent such atrocities from occurring. The international community as a whole has largely failed to hold states to account for these transfers, yet a mushrooming of national-level advocacy has helped to bring the policy and practice of some countries better in line with their legal obligations. As always, there are a few outliers but as the new year begins, that club might just be shrinking.

Over the years many measures have been put into place to better regulate the international arms trade, usually by requiring governments to assess the impact of their arms transfers before they fully authorize them. At a global level the culmination of such efforts is the 2013 Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), an international agreement that built on good national and regional practices to establish a single global standard by which to assess the risks associated with transferring arms and to stop them from going to places they shouldn’t.

Lauded by many in the international community, the ATT has generated significant optimism that a corner had been turned and that humanitarian considerations would play the role that they ought to within the international arms trade.

This is why it has been extremely disappointing to see that many of the same countries that championed the ATT took a business as usual approach to their arms transfers in 2015 and 2016. This was especially notable with respect to transfers to Saudi Arabia from countries such as Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom (UK), and the United States (US) – although transfers to other countries have also caused concern. Saudi Arabia’s human rights record, both domestic and international, is widely condemned. The ATT is meant to prevent arms transfers where there is a substantial risk that those arms would be used in specific negative ways, such as perpetuating war crimes, human rights abuse or genocide, among other actions.

Many of these transactions took place in 2015. Some continued last year but 2016 also saw important actions being taken in national parliaments to push back on them. The Netherlands, for example, instituted a presumption of denial against transfers to Saudi Arabia, and the Spanish Congress passed a motion calling on the acting government to deny and revoke licenses to all parties to the conflict. Switzerland, Sweden and parts of Belgium have also either stopped authorizing licenses or denied them. Other countries however, notably Canada, France, the UK and the US have proceeded as normal.

So will 2017 bring more of the same?

The answer depends partly on where you look. For example, efforts to address this situation in an official way under the ATT, such as at its annual conference of states parties last August, were unsuccessful. Civil society united around efforts to see this addressed as part of the formal agenda and when that failed, utilized side events, media and bilateral advocacy meetings to make the point that such transfers are contrary to Treaty obligations for those countries that have joined. This should have been the single most relevant opportunity to take up the matter of treaty compliance but instead it was awkwardly shoved under the carpet.

As already mentioned, there are several national processes underway meant to hold governments accountable to their international commitments, similar to the approaches described above.  In looking ahead to 2017, these include a High Court hearing scheduled for early February in the United Kingdom on the legality of continued arms sales to Saudi Arabia in the light of Saudi violations of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) in Yemen. Italian civil society is continuing to strive to curtail Italian exports to Saudi Arabia through parliamentary channels and the media. A legal challenge has also been presented in Canada, following Ottawa’s decision last year to move ahead with a deal authorizing the sale of light armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia, even as it moves to finalize its ATT accession and has publicly condemned the country’s human rights record. The timing of the accession and the legal challenge bring these transfers under heightened scrutiny from media, civil society and legislators – which may be the means by which the deal could be stopped, although no one is holding their breath.

Tragically, the deepening famine in Yemen, coupled with growing evidence of foreign-made arms being used there indiscriminately by Saudi-led coalition forces, is finally starting to percolate through to the attention of the general public which, in turn, is putting pressure on policy makers. Public opinion could also be a factor that may shift government positions in 2017. In the United States for example, a decision was taken in December to "hold up" a sale of precision-guided munitions to Saudi Arabia out of concern for the kingdom’s continuing air strikes on civilian targets. It will continue to refuel Saudi aircraft that are a part of the Yemen bombing campaign though and other sales remain in place, which makes this a half-measure. The US is a signatory to the ATT and has in place its own export laws.

There may also be recourse through somewhat under-explored channels like reports by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on arms transfers law and human rights law, and through regional bodies such as the European Union, whose parliament voted for an arms embargo on Saudi Arabia last year.

All of this is very positive but national actions cannot become a replacement for multilateral accountability. More must be done to uphold existing international law in the first place via the institutions that were created for that purpose. If states continue to avoid implementing their obligations thoroughly, and if those that are in compliance do not make better use of these agreements to address breaches of them, then they will collectively devalue the very mechanisms that they have put so many resources into creating.

Taken together, it’s obvious that there are ample tools with which to push back against a business as usual approach in 2017 from those who still defend it. The real question is if there is enough political will.

Allison Pytlak is a Program Manager in the disarmament program (Reaching Critical Will) of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom


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