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

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drones | Arms Trade Treaty | killer robots | small arms and light weapons | explosive weapons in populated areas | gender | Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW)

Ray Acheson is the Director of Reaching Critical Will, the disarmament programme of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). They provide analysis, research, and advocacy across a range of disarmament and arms control issues, and bring a feminist, antimilitarist perspective to this work. Among other things, Ray leads WILPF’s efforts to stigmatise war and violence, including by challenging the arms trade, the military-industrial complex, 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. They have 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 is currently a Visiting Researcher at Princeton University's Program on Science and Global Security. They are author of Banning the Bomb, Smashing the Patriarchy and Abolishing State Violence: A World Beyond Bombs, Borders, and Cages.

​Recent Publications:

• "Briefing Paper for Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) Delegations Regarding Arms Transfers to Israel," Reaching Critical Will, May 15, 2024. 
• "In conversation with Ray Acheson: Finding global solidarity against the military industrial complex," 3CR Radical Radio podcast, April 2024.
• "Briefing Paper for States that have Endorsed the Political Declaration on the Use of Explosive Weapons in Populated Areas Regarding Israel’s Use of Explosive Weapons in Gaza," Reaching Critical Will, April 2024.
• "Cop Cities, Borders, and Bombs: Deadly Connections in the Desert," CounterPunch, March 17, 2024.
  
• "Editorial: Red Flags of Automating Violence," CCW Report, Vol. 12, No.1, Reaching Critical Will, March 11, 2024.
• "CCW Report", vol.11. no.4, Reaching Critical Will, November 20, 2023.
• ​"Stop Arming Israel: Disrupt the Death Machine," Counter Punch, November 19, 2023.
• ​"First Committee Monitor," vol 21. no.5, Reaching Critical Will, November 4, 2023.
• "First Committee Monitor," vol 21. no.4, Reaching Critical Will, October 21, 2023. 
• "First Committee Monitor," vol 21. no.3, Reaching Critical Will, October 14, 2023. 
• "First Committee Monitor," vol 21. no.2, Reaching Critical Will, October 7, 2023.
• "159 Recommendations to the UN General Assembly First Committee," Disarmament Dialogue blog, humanitariandisarmament.org, October 2, 2023. *
• ​"First Committee Monitor," vol 21. no.1, Reaching Critical Will, October 1, 2023. *
• "Solidarity at the UN Requires Justice, Not War," Reaching Critical Will, September 29, 2023. 
• ​"Editorial: Taking on the War-Builders," in CCW Report, vol. 11, no.2, Reaching Critical Will, March 14, 2023.
• "Abolishing Geopolitics and Building a World Without State Violence," Metapolis, January 2023.
• CCW Report, Vol. 10, No. 11 including Acheson's "Editorial: Procedural Tyranny Continues at the CCW," Reaching Critical Will, November 22, 2022.
• "Editorial: Working for Peace at the First Committee," First Committee Monitor, Vol. 20, No. 1, Reaching Critical Will, September 30, 2022.
• ​"Despair and determination at the UN General Assembly," Reaching Critical Will, September 28, 2022.
• ​"First Committee briefing book 2022" Reaching Critical Will, September 16, 2022.*
• "Editorial: Denial cannot stop the reality of momentum," CCW Report, Vol. 10, No. 9, July 28, 2022.*​ 
• "Editorial: Mitigating risk means prohibiting autonomous weapon systems," CCW Report, Vol. 10, No. 8, July 27, 2022.*
• ​"Potential convergence confronts persistent obstinance at the GGE on autonomous weapons," CCW Report, Vol. 10, No. 6, July 25, 2022.
• "Autonomous Weapons and Questions of Ethics, Control, and Accountability," CCW Report, Vol. 10, No. 4, June 3, 2022.*
• "Rhetoric vs. reality at the UN Security Council debate on the protection of civilians," Reaching Critical Will, May 26, 2022.
• ​"Intersessional meeting on autonomous weapons highlights two paths forward, and the urgency of action," CCW Report, Reaching Critical Will, April 28, 2022.
• "The political declaration on explosive weapon use must protect civilians, not militaries," Researching Critical Will, April 14, 2022.
• "CCW Report, Vol. 10, No. 2: We will not weaponize our way out of horror, " Reaching Critical Will, March 14, 2022.
• "End war, build peace," WILPF, March 1, 2022.
• "UN General Assembly condemns Russia’s war on Ukraine and calls for peace," Reaching Critical Will, March 4, 2022.
• "Militarism Cannot Prevent War: An urgent call for de-escalation, demilitarisation, and disarmament in relation to Ukraine and beyond," WILPF, February 14, 2022. 
• "UN Security Council debates war in cities and the protection of civilians," Reaching Critical Will, January 28, 2022. 
• "Environmental Peacebuilding through Degrowth, Demilitarization, and Feminism: Rethinking environmental peacebuilding to stay within planetary boundaries and champion social justice," Ecosystem for Peace - Medium, January 19, 2022.*
• "CCW Report, Vol. 9 No. 10-13," Reaching Critical Will, December 14, 15, 16, 17, 2021.* 
• CCW Report, Vol. 9 No. 9," Reaching Critical Will, December 9, 2021.*
• "First Committee Monitor: Volume 19, No. 5," Reaching Critical Will, November 5, 2021.*
• "First Committee Monitor," Volume 19, No. 4, Reaching Critical Will, October 22, 2021.*
• "First Committee Monitor," Volume 19, No. 3, Reaching Critical Will, October 16, 2021.*
• "First Committee Monitor," Volume 19, No. 2, Reaching Critical Will, October 9, 2021.
• "CCW Report," Volume 9, No. 7, Reaching Critical Will, October 4, 2021.*
• "First Committee Monitor," Volume 19, No. 1, Reaching Critical Will, October 3, 2021.*
• "Hope and hubris at the UN General Assembly," Reaching Critical Will, September  30, 2021.
• "CCW Report," Volume 9, No. 6, Reaching Critical Will, September 23, 2021.*
• CCW Report Vol. 9, No. 5, Reaching Critical Will, September 10, 2021.*
• "First Committee Briefing Book 2021," Reaching Critical Will, September 2021.*
• "CCW Report Vol 9 Issue 4," Reaching Critical Will, August 14, 2021.*
• "CCW Report Vol 9 Issue 3," Reaching Critical Will, August 8, 2021.*
• "WILPF Against Autonomous Weapons," in CCW Report Vol 9 Issue 2, Reaching Critical Will, August 2, 2021.
• "CCW Report Vol 9 Issue 1," including "Editorial: The imperative of preventing autonomous violence," Reaching Critical Will, July 13, 2021.*
• "Report on the March 2021 consultations on a political declaration on the use of explosive weapons in populated areas," Reaching Critical Will, March 12, 2021.
• Abolition, ePub edition, Women's International League for Peace & Freedom, December 2020.
• "Autonomous Weapons and Patriarchy," Reaching Critical Will, October 2020.
• "Autonomous Weapons and Gender-Based Violence,” Reaching Critical Will, October 2020.
• "Confronting the Pandemic of Militarism at the First Committee," First Committee Monitor, vol. 18, no. 2, Reaching Critical Will, October 18, 2020.
• "Choosing well-being over weapons," First Committee Monitor, vol. 18, no. 1, Reaching Critical Will, October 8, 2020. 
• "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. ​
• "Demobilising war," Women's League for International Peace and Freedom, August 25, 2020.

* indicates additional authors