Reaching Critical Will E-News, December 2025

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Ellen Thomas

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Dec 18, 2025, 8:18:17 AM (4 days ago) Dec 18
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Reaching Critical Will E-News, December 2025
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E-News, December 2025

It’s been a hard year. Probably most of you reading this newsletter are feeling overwhelmed by the non-stop horrors of genocide, war, militarism, fascism, racism, transphobia, misogyny, and more. In our own lives, and globally, it’s hard to know what to do, and easy to feel like there’s nothing we can do to make a difference. But showing up, trying our best, and not giving up is what we can do in this moment and any other. In another recent newsletter, abolitionist organiser Mariame Kaba shared a poem by Bonaro W. Overstreet, called Stubborn Ounces. I think it’s relevant for us all as we move from this year to the next:

               You say the Little efforts that I make
                will do no good: they never will prevail
                to tip the hovering scale
                where Justice hangs in balance.

                I don’t think I ever thought they would.
                But I am prejudiced beyond debate
                in favor of my right to choose which side
                shall feel the stubborn ounces of my weight. 

It’s also important to mark what we have accomplished, and what we’ve tried. This E-News rounds-up Reaching Critical Will’s top five efforts for disarmament and demilitarisation this year, and highlights the many publications, statements, and other materials we’ve produced. We hope this provides some inspiration and hope as we move into 2026.

We’ll be honest: RCW is struggling. We regret to announce that as of March 2026, Emma Bjertén will be leaving RCW due to budget cuts at WILPF. The rest of the team needs your support to continue our work and hopefully to increase our capacity again in the future. If you use the RCW website, archives, analysis, reporting, research, or coordination services, please consider helping to sustain our work. Any amount is significant to us. 

There are many ways you can give: you can sign up for a one-time donation or a monthly pledge through PayPal, or you can send money orders, cheques, or wire transfers—just email us for details! Thank you for considering us in your holiday giving this year. Happy holidays and best wishes for the year ahead! 

In peace,

Ray Acheson, Director of Reaching Critical Will
Read this and other editions of the e-news online

In this edition: 


Top Five Highlights from 2025:
       1. Working to end arms transfers that fuel genocide
       2. Building momentum against autonomous and AI weapons
       3. Demanding nuclear abolition
       4. Mobilising against militarism
       5. Advancing gender in disarmament
Meetings We Covered
Statements We Drafted or Co-Drafted
Statements We Signed
Submissions We Made
Publications We Produced
Blogs We Wrote
Articles, Book Chapters, Interviews, and Presentations We Did
Advocacy and Research We Engaged In

Top Five Highlights from 2025

 

1. Working to end arms transfers that fuel genocide

After Hamas’ attacks against Israel on October 2023, Israel’s escalated its genocide of Palestinians, committing countless war crimes, violations of international humanitarian law, and human rights abuses. RCW has been actively working at the United Nations and in city streets to call for an end to arms transfers to Israel, demand a two-way arms embargo, and support the work of the Boycott, Sanctions, and Divestment movement in calling on all governments, companies, universities, and financial institutions to cease any and all material support for Israel’s genocide, apartheid, and occupation of Palestine and its attacks against Iran, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen. (Photo credit: Hugo Breyer on Unsplash)

As part of these efforts in 2025, we amplified global actions by activists, governments, and others against arms transfers to Israel through our monthly E-News. We also worked through the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) to inform states of their obligations to end arms transfers to Israel. We prepared an updated briefing paper for ATT delegations, and reported on the ATT Working Group meetings and on the  Eleventh Conference of States Parties. RCW also contributed to WILPF’s statement to the Human Rights Council on the UN Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights’ Report on Arms Transfers.

We also joined several joint statement and campaigns regarding arms transfers to Israel, including in relation to the F-35 fighter jet program and the Danish shipping company Maersk’s shipments to Israel. RCW’s Director Ray Acheson was invited to join over twenty of the world’s leading arms trade experts in a joint statement in support of UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese and her report “From Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide”. RCW wrote a blog welcoming this report and also assisted in drafting the WILPF statement on the report delivered at the Human Rights Council.

RCW also wrote or contributed to all of WILPF’s other statements and blogs on this subject, including the statement to mark the BDS Movement’s call for a Global Day of Action; a blog welcoming the commitments to halt genocide made at the Emergency Conference on Palestine in Bogota, Colombia in July 2025; a blog welcoming the report of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory confirming genocide; a statement welcoming the ceasefire and calling for justice and Palestinian liberation; and a reaction to the UN Security Council resolution endorsing colonialism in Gaza.

In September 2025, RCW monitored the UN General Assembly high-level general debate, indexing all references to Israel’s genocide of Palestinians, among other issues. We also wrote a report providing analysis of this aspect of the debate. In October–November 2025, RCW monitored and conducted advocacy at the UN General Assembly First Committee on Disarmament and International Security. Part of our advocacy with diplomats and our editorials in the First Committee Monitor addressed the genocide and called for an end to arms transfers and other to Israel.

2. Building momentum against autonomous and AI weapons 

Technological developments in artificial intelligence and autonomous systems are moving the world closer to the development and use of autonomous weapon systems (AWS). We are already seeing the deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) in military systems, including Israel’s use of AI systems in its  commission of genocide. It’s all too clear what will transpire as software and sensors are increasingly used to kill. Work continues at the UN in both Geneva and New York to try to adopt rules and regulations, but these efforts are lagging far behind technological developments. (Photo credit: Hanna Barakat  & Archival Images of AI + AIxDESIGN / https://betterimagesofai.org / https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

RCW has been a member of the Stop Killer Robots campaign since its founding and continues to contribute substantially to offering intersectional feminist perspectives on AWS and to advocating for a legally binding instrument prohibiting AWS. We also have been able to have a unique voice in connecting work against AWS with broader work against the integration of AI in the military domain and into nuclear command and control systems.

In 2025, RCW engaged in advocacy at and provided analysis from the UN Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) on AWS, and posted statements and documents on our website. We also conducted advocacy at, and monitored and reported on, informal consultations on AWS at the UN in New York. RCW also covered the issue of AWS at the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) Meeting of High Contracting Parties in November. 

RCW wrote a submission on behalf of WILPF to the UN Secretary-General’s report on artificial intelligence in the military domain, and a blog post highlighting the dangers of weaponised AI and another calling for divestment from AI.

At the UN General Assembly First Committee on Disarmament and International Security in October and November 2025, RCW promoted the adoption of a resolution on AWS and on preventing the integration of AI in nuclear command, control, and communication systems. We worked closely with governments to help shape the content of and work for the adoption of the resolution on AI in nuclear systems. We also worked with Stop Killer Robots to include coverage of AWS and AI in the military domain in the First Committee Briefing Book and First Committee Monitor. RCW’s Directory Ray Acheson was invited to speak at a side event hosted by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) and the Permanent Mission of Germany to the UN about the legal and humanitarian implications of bias in military AI, where they called for the prevention of use of AI in the military domain.

3. Demanding nuclear abolition 

Hostilities are high among the nuclear-armed states. This has been exacerbated by the unlawful bombings of Iran by Israel and the United States, by nuclear-armed Russia and Israel engaging in war and genocide respectively, and by nuclear-armed India and Pakistan engaging in open conflict with each other. And as all of the nuclear-armed states are investing billions into the modernisation of their arsenals while some make threats to resume nuclear testing or even to use nuclear weapons, nuclear disarmament is more urgent than ever. (Photo credit: ICAN)

In 2025, we conducted advocacy at and provided analysis from the Third Meeting of States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) and the Preparatory Committee to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). We maintained archives of statement and documents for both meetings, published an NPT Briefing Book, and issued regular NPT News in Review and TPNW Nuclear Ban Daily reports. At the TPNW meeting, RCW also logistically supported the Nuclear Truth Project’s Community Hubs for atomic bomb survivors and affected community members.  At the UN General Assembly First Committee on Disarmament and International Security in October and November 2025, RCW promoted resolutions calling for nuclear abolition, supporting the TPNW and work on nuclear disarmament verification and the humanitarian impacts of nuclear weapons, and on AI in nuclear systems. We also included coverage of nuclear weapons in the First Committee Briefing Book and First Committee Monitor.

RCW led WILPF’s advocacy in relation to the Israeli and US attacks on Iran, including drafting an article condemning the attacks and offering recommendations for action that highlight the need for nuclear abolition. RCW also wrote a second article after the Israel-Iran ceasefire was reached, which focused on rising military spending, unlawful aggression, and the importance of nuclear disarmament. And we contributed to WILPF’s analysis and reactions to the conflict between India and Pakistan.

RCW wrote blogs, articles, and did interviews and panels around the 80th anniversaries of the US atomic bombings in New Mexico, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, including a blog on the 80th anniversary of the Trinity Test; a blog on the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; an article about the 80th anniversaries; a joint statement on the 80th anniversaries calling for demilitarisation; a blog on the International Day against Nuclear Tests; a joint statement on the International Day against Nuclear Tests; an interview with The Progressive Magazine about nuclear weapons and abolition; and a panel discussion on the 80th anniversaries of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and current state of nuclear weapons.

RCW also issued a statement about the possible announcement by the US government about restarting nuclear testing, condemning this rhetoric and calling for the prohibition on nuclear testing to be maintained. And we made a submission to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights about nuclear colonialism and transformative justice in relation to the legacy of US nuclear testing and waste in the Marshall Islands.

4. Mobilising against militarism 

Military spending globally is at an all-time high, with more than 2.7 trillion USD being spent in 2024 on weapons and war. NATO has made a commitment to increase their military budgets to 5 per cent of GDP, the US is manufacturing consent for new wars and unlawful attacks in Latin America in the Caribbean, while genocide and armed conflict escalate globally. Rising military spending is feeding the military-industrial complex and the global war machine, creating a vicious cycle of violence and investments in weapons and undermining global peace, justice, and wellbeing of people and planet. International law is under grave threat from the war profiteers pursuit of dominance and control. (Image credit: WILPF)

RCW is a leading voice within disarmament coalitions and multilateral disarmament forums demanding meaningful reductions of military spending and end to militarism and war. In 2025, we led the drafting of a submission on behalf of WILPF, to the UN Secretary-General’s report on military expenditure and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). RCW was invited to participate in a consultative meeting organised by the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs on gender and the impact of military expenditure and the SDGs, as well as a side event at the ECOSOC Youth Forum on the subject of military expenditure and the SDGs. When the UNSG’s report was published, we contributed to an analysis of it along with the UN special rapporteur on foreign debt’s report on Financing for Peace. We also wrote blogs for WILPF’s Move the Money campaign about reducing military spending and divesting from AI.

RCW also issued a statement opposing the extrajudicial killings and threats to invade Latin America and the Caribbean. And we organised online meetings with activists in Australia and the United States to discuss the Australia-United Kingom-United States (AUKUS) military alliance and how to coordinate opposition transnationally. RCW also challenged military spending and militarism through various talks to universities and in activist spaces. Among others, RCW spoke to the DREAM Lab at Simon Fraser University, where students are imagining alternative futures that can be built through the reduction of military spending. 

5. Advancing gender in disarmament  

More states are talking about gender in relationship to disarmament, but have mostly focused on increasing the participation of women rather than other aspects. At the same time, we are globally facing massive pushback to gender across sectors, including in disarmament. Maintaining a clear, consistent, and strong voice for gender diversity in participation, study of gendered impacts of weapons and war, and for an assessment of gender perspectives and analysis of norms and actions in relation to militarism are essential. Pushing back against the push back is vital to ensure we don’t back track but keep moving forward. (Photo credit: WILPF)

One of RCW’s core objectives is to generate and amplify feminist analysis of weapons and war, and to encourage great gender, geographic, racial, and other forms of diversity in disarmament. This year, we coordinated two statements on gender and intersectionality at the First Committee and the NPT Preparatory Committee. We also included chapters on gender and intersectionality in our First Committee Briefing Book and NPT Briefing Book and included weekly reports on gender in the First Committee Monitor. At the First Committee, RCW’s Director was invited to speak at a side event about recent initiatives to bring the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda into disarmament processes, hosted by the Permanent Mission of Malta to the UN and the UN Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR).

We also advocated for the inclusion of gender perspectives in the Preparatory Meeting of States on the Global Framework for Through-life Conventional Ammunition Management and delivered a statement on gender and wrote a report on the meeting. And we contributed to WILPF statements in relation to International Women’s Day, the OHCHR report on firearms, and the CEDAW Committee’s consideration of gender stereotypes.

RCW also engaged in other efforts to bring feminist views on weapons and war to a broader audience through panel discussions and talks with students, academics, and activists, as well as various articles and interviews.


Meetings We Covered


Statements We Drafted or Co-Drafted


Statements We Signed

Submissions We Made

Publications and Reports We Produced 

Blogs We Wrote 

Articles, Book Chapters, Interviews, and Presentations We Did 

Advocacy and Research We Engaged In 
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