Participant countries:
Antigua and Barbuda · Argentina · Bahamas · Barbados · Belize · Bolivia · Brazil · Chile · Colombia · Costa Rica · Cuba · Dominican Republic · Ecuador · El Salvador · Guatemala · Guyana · Haiti · Honduras · Jamaica · Mexico · Panama · Paraguay · Peru · Saint Vincent and the Grenadines · Saint Lucia · Suriname · Trinidad and Tobago Uruguay · Venezuela
Speakers
List of speakers
As part of the Conference, we will have the participation of the following speakers:
Renata H. Dalaqua
D. Dr. Renata H. Dalaqua is a Political Scientist and Head of the Gender and Disarmament Programme at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR). Previously, she was the Deputy Director of Projects at the Brazilian Center for International Relations (CEBRI) and a Consultant with VERTIC’s National Implementation Measures programme.
A recipient of the United Nations Women Scholarship for Peace, Renata has published on topics related to gender mainstreaming in international security, focusing on the interlinkages between gender norms and weapons and violence in society.
Renata holds a PhD in History and Politics from the Vargas Foundation (Brazil) and a master’s degree in International Politics and Security from the University College London (UK).
Neil Davison
Neil Davison is senior scientific and policy adviser in the Arms and Conduct of Hostilities Unit, Department of International Law, Policy and Humanitarian Diplomacy, at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) headquarters in Geneva. Neil has represented the ICRC at various multilateral disarmament discussions since 2011 and has led the organisation’s efforts to address the challenges raised by autonomous weapons. Before joining the ICRC, Neil held policy and research roles in civil society and academia. A biologist by initial training, he holds a PhD in peace studies.
Stuart Russell
Stuart Russell is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of California at Berkeley, holder of the Smith-Zadeh Chair in Engineering, and Director of the Center for Human-Compatible AI and the Kavli Center for Ethics, Science, and the Public. He is a recipient of the IJCAI Computers and Thought Award and Research Excellence Award and held the Chaire Blaise Pascal in Paris. In 2021 he received the OBE from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth and gave the Reith Lectures.
He is an Honorary Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford, an Andrew Carnegie Fellow, and a Fellow of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence, the Association for Computing Machinery, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. His book “Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach” (with Peter Norvig) is the standard text in AI, used in 1500 universities in 135 countries. His research covers a wide range of topics in artificial intelligence, with a current emphasis on the long-term future of artificial intelligence and its relation to humanity. He has developed a new global seismic monitoring system for the nuclear-test-ban treaty and is currently working to ban lethal autonomous weapons.
Toby Walsh
Toby Walsh is Professor of AI at UNSW Sydney and Chief Scientist of UNSW.AI, UNSW’s new AI Institute. He is a strong advocate for limits to ensure AI is used to improve our lives, having spoken at the UN, and to heads of state, parliamentary bodies, company boards and many others on this topic.
His advocacy about the misuse of AI in warfare has led to him being “banned indefinitely” from Russia. He is a Fellow of the Australia Academy of Science, and was named on the international “Who’s Who in AI” list of influencers. He has written three books on AI for a general audience, the most recent is “Machines Behaving Badly: the morality of AI”.
Bonnie Docherty
Bonnie Docherty is a Senior Researcher in the Arms Division of Human Rights Watch. She is also a Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic and Director of its Armed Conflict and Civilian Protection Initiative.
Docherty has done extensive work in the field of humanitarian disarmament as lawyer, field researcher, and scholar. She has written widely on the problems posed by the autonomous weapons, the proposed elements of a new treaty to prohibit and regulate them, and the process for negotiating such a treaty. She has participated actively in the Convention on Conventional Weapons meetings on the autonomous weapons systems since they began.
Docherty been also been involved in the negotiation and implementation of the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions, the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, and the 2022 Political Declaration on the Use of Explosive Weapons in Populated Areas.
John Borrie
Dr. John Borrie is the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s Special Adviser for Disarmament, based in Wellington. Prior to transferring there at the end of 2022 he was based in the New Zealand Permanent Mission in Geneva and participated in the CCW talks on lethal autonomous weapon systems.
This role, from 2021, followed more than two decades of experience working in various roles at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR), the International Committee of the Red Cross and as a national disarmament diplomat. SJohn’s working experience has covered many aspects of arms control, disarmament and humanitarian affairs and he has published widely, including on issues around autonomous weapons. John holds a D Phil (PhD) from the University of Bradford and an Honours Degree from the University of Canterbury.
Laura Bruun
Laura Bruun is a Researcher at SIPRI, working on emerging military technologies. Her focus is on how emerging military technologies, notably autonomous weapon systems (AWS) and military Artificial Intelligence (AI), affect compliance with—and interpretation of—international humanitarian law (IHL). Before joining SIPRI, Laura worked at Airwars in London, where she monitored and assessed civilian casualty reports from US and Russian airstrikes in Syria and Iraq.
Andreas Bilgeri
Andreas Bilgeri is a Counsellor and disarmament expert at the Permanent Mission of Austria in Geneva. He has multilateral experience from a diverse set of international organizations in the fields of security and human rights, including the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Council of Europe and the United Nations. During his previous posting in Strasbourg he was involved in the Council of Europe’s work towards the regulation of Artificial Intelligence with regard to Human Rights, Democracy and Rule of Law. In Geneva he takes part in the discussions in the GGE LAWS as well as other Austrian initiatives related to emerging technologies in the military domain.
Ariana Macaya
D. in Public Law from the University of Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne. She has taught at both undergraduate and Master’s level at the same university. Since 2015 she is a Professor at the University of Costa Rica in the chairs of Human Rights and Public International Law.
Researcher, member of the CORE Constitutional Reasoning in Latin America project of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, the French Association of Constitutional Law and the International Society of Public Law (Icon-S).
She is currently an attorney at the Secretariat of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
María Soledad Bergara
She is a professor of history, a public translator of English and holds a master’s degree in human rights, globalization and democracy. She joined the Uruguayan Foreign Service in 2002 by competitive examination and merits. She worked in the General Directorate for Cultural Affairs, the MERCOSUR Directorate and the Regional Directorate for the Americas. Between 2007 and 2008, she was in charge of the Consular Section of the Embassy of Uruguay in Venezuela. Between 2009 and 2013, on special leave, she worked as a Spanish translator for the United Nations in New York. After her return to Uruguay, she served in the General Directorate for Cultural Affairs and was promoted to Counselor. Since 2018 she has been Minister Counsellor of the Foreign Service at the Permanent Mission of Uruguay to the United Nations and Other International Organizations in Geneva, where she deals with disarmament and cybersecurity issues.
Joseph Callixtus
Callixtus Joseph is the lead author of two of CARICOM’s transformational and influential security strategies; the CARICOM Crime and Security Strategy (2013) and the CARICOM Counter-Terrorism Strategy (2018); both adopted by the CARICOM Conference of Heads of Government, which is the highest decision-making body in CARICOM.
Mr Joseph served as an advisor and member of the CARICOM Diplomatic Team during the UN Arms Trade Treaty Negotiations from 2010 – 2013, as well as lectured on International Security at the University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago from 2008 – 2010. He was an expert facilitator for the German Federal Office for Economic Affairs and Export Control from 2015-2019. He has advanced and led CARICOM IMPACS’ negotiation of several cooperation agreements and arrangements, including a Memorandum of Understanding between CARICOM IMPACS and:
• Mines Advisory Group (MAG): [October 2022] [octubre de 2022]
• United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI): [diciembre de 2021].
• Small Arms Survey (SAS): [enero de 2021]
• Organisation of American States (OAS): [julio de 2014]
• United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC): [abril de 2014]
Mr Joseph has a Bachelor of Science in Government and a Master of Science in National Security and Strategic Studies from the University of West Indies. He is currently a candidate for the Doctorate of Business Administration in Artificial Intelligence and Data Science at Rennes School of Business, France. He has a keen interest in the impact of artificial intelligence on leadership and security. Mr He has a keen interest in the impact of artificial intelligence on leadership and security. Mr. Joseph currently coordinates CARICOM responses on Lethal Autonomous Weapons (LAWS).
