Ray Acheson
Director, Reaching Critical Will, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom
twitter: @achesonray
email: ray.acheson [at] wilpf [dot] org
phone: (212) 682 1265

---

drones | Arms Trade Treaty | killer robots | small arms and light weapons | explosive weapons | gender

Ray Acheson is the Director of Reaching Critical Will, the disarmament programme of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). She provides analysis, research, and advocacy across a range of disarmament and arms control issues, and brings a feminist perspective to this work. Ray leads WILPF’s efforts to stigmatise war and violence, including by campaigning for a nuclear weapon ban treaty, challenging the arms trade and the use of explosive weapons, and working to prevent the development of new technologies of violence such as autonomous weapons. In all of these efforts, Ray highlights gendered norms and perspectives and the impact these have on policies related to weapons and war. She has an Honours BA in Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of Toronto and an MA in Politics from The New School for Social Research, and previously worked for the Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies.

​Recent Publications:

• "Locked out during lockdown: an analysis of UN system during COVID-19," Reaching Critical Will, September 28, 2020.
• "Editorial: the importance of preventing the autonomy of violence"; Reaching Critical Will, CCW Report, Vol. 8. No.1, September 21, 2020. ​
  
• "Impacts, not intentionality: the imperative of focusing on the effects of explosive weapons in a political declaration," Reaching Critical Will, February 14, 2020
• "The Lethal Connections Between the International Arms Trade and the Use of Explosive Weapons in Populated Areas," ATT Monitor Vol. 13, No. 1, Reaching Critical Will, February 3, 2020
• "The CCW is still standing, but to what end?" CCW Report, vol. 7, no. 8, November 17, 2019
• ​"The unbearable heaviness of hypocrisy," First Committee Monitor, vol. 17, no. 6, November 11, 2019.
• "Preserving First Committee's Global Village," First Committee Monitor, vol. 17, no. 1, October 7, 2019. 
• "Turning from the final report to implementation, let’s make the ATT a treaty that save lives," ​(with Allison Pytlak) ATT Monitor vol. 12, no. 9, August 30, 2019; see also "News in brief" by Ray Acheson et al, ATT Monitor, Reaching Critical Will.
• "A fight for the moral and political credibility of the ATT," ATT Monitor vol. 12, no. 8, August 30, 2019.
• "Effective ATT Implementation means putting people above profits," ATT Monitor vol. 12, no. 6, August 29, 2019.
• "Making sure the rhetoric matches the reality," ATT Monitor vol. 12, no. 5, August 27, 2019.
• "While a few countries control the CCW, we risk losing control over weapons," vol. 7, no. 7, August 22, 2019; "This cannot be kicked down the road any further," vol 7., no. 6, August 21.
• “It’s Time to Exercise Human Control Over the CCW,” (No. 2), “Will the ‘Insignificant States’ Please Stand Up,” (No. 3), CCW Report, Reaching Critical Will, Vol. 7, No. 1-5, March 2019.​
• "WPS and Arms Trade Treaty", in "Oxford Handbook of Women, Peace and Security," Jan. 10. 
• "The gender and disarmament nexus recognized; feminism need apply for 2019 and beyond," Forum on the Arms Trade, 19 December 2018​
• "Gender, weapons, and power: the importance of feminism for disarmament," presentation at the Women and Weapons panel discussion, London School of Economics' Centre for Women, Peace and Security, 13 December 2018.
• Ray Acheson is main author for a week of daily updates from the CCW conversation on lethal autonomous weapons in Reaching Critical Will's CCW Report, week of Nov 13​, 2018
• First Committee Monitor, volumes I, II, III, IV, V, Final Oct 2, 9, 16, 23, 30, Nov 6, 2018.
• “Disarming the patriarchy,” First Committee Monitor, Reaching Critical Will, Vol. 1, Oct 8, 2018.
• “To Preserve Our Humanity, We Must Ban Killer Robots,” The Nation, Oct 1, 2018.​