19/07/2021

A comparison of national reviews of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

Summary This paper maps and analyses the national reviews of the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) conducted by Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. These reviews differ in length, depth and purpose, but present a wide range of important arguments from both legal and policy perspectives. The focus is on three...

Nora Miralles

01/06/2021

Blurring the monopoly on violence: Private Military and Security Companies and coercive state power

The state’s role in security has been progressively privatised, from the military to the prison system. The result is a shadowy corporate world in which violence is facilitated, accountability is diminished and human rights violations and impunity abounds. The growing alarm over the security situation in Cabo Delgado (Mozambique), where more than half a million people have been displaced by...

Jordi Calvo

01/06/2021

No business without enemies: War and the arms trade

The arms trade is one of the world’s most successful corporate enterprises. Not only has it created an economic system that grows regardless, it has normalised war and security responses to every social crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed how ineffective the armed forces are in dealing with a global crisis. They divert resources and distort our response. The pandemic...

06/04/2021

To our friend, colleague, mentor and beloved Arcadi Oliveres

Centre Delàs d’Estudis per la Pau Arcadi Oliveres has dedicated his life to building a world free and emancipated from any kind of violence, devoting the maximum of his efforts to the promotion of human rights, social justice, aid for people development and construction of peace. In addition to these four major areas, Arcadi, economist by education, notably specialized in...

06/05/2020

Will the EU fight for peace or prepare for war? It can’t have it both ways

The EU bears a huge responsibility for what the future will look like, and has a key choice to make: work for sustainable peace by seriously tackling the root causes of conflicts, or continue the path to militarism and prepare for war, writes Laëtitia Sédou. Laëtitia Sédou is the EU project officer at the European Network Against Arms Trade (ENAAT)....

Jordi Calvo

09/04/2019

What security, whose security? Military security is not neutral

Jordi Calvo (International Peace Bureau Vice President,  Global Campaign on Military Spending Coordinator, Centre Delàs for Peace Studies Coordinator and researcher) - April 5th 2019 This article is extracted from his presentation at the AEPF’s International Conference on Universal Protection and Labour in Kathmandu (Nepal) on April 5, 2019. There is no doubt that we are facing a new, wide and deep process...

Teresa de Fortuny, Xavier Bohigas

23/01/2019

European public money for the military industry

The European Union is working to approve a multimillionaire funding plan, which has the military industry as its main beneficiary. Jean-Claude Junker, president of the European Commission, during his address on the state of the Union on November 14th 2016, announced the EU’s intention to promote and fund the military research. Nonetheless, the Commission was already working on it. In...

Pere Brunet

15/11/2018

Armed robots, autonomous weapons and ethical issues

Pere Brunet - Article published after the “Future Wars” Conference, CND, London - 10th November 2018 Business of war and the arms trade are highly profitable for the military industry and financial entities. Also, the strategy of the global ruling elite is based on a militarized national security that ends up favouring its businesses and benefits its large corporations while boosting...

Jordi Calvo

16/10/2018

Less military spending for more security. Global Campaign on Military Spending

Jordi Calvo Rufanges - Intervention in Peace and Security cluster of AEPF Ghent 2018                                    Centre Delàs - International Peace Bureau Military spending in the world We have reached a new maximum on military budgets in the world. SIPRI estimates that global military spending was...

Jordi Calvo

07/05/2018

Stop military expenditure to stop war

Jordi Calvo - Asia-Europe People's Forum - 29 d'abril del 2018 The military lobbies develop much of their activity in the field of military budgets and discourse. This is  because this cycle is in the hands of states and is dependent on budgets approbation for military spending base in identified needs for defence and security. The Ministries of Defense, which...

24/10/2016

Civil society movements call for inmediate action to stop the syrian war

October 19, 2016. The mass slaughter and war crimes we witness today in Syria merit the highest level of citizen engagement: they demand a worldwide commitment to achieving a ceasefire and opening a process to reach a political solution. The matter could not be more urgent. In the wake of discussions at its Berlin congress (early October), IPB proposes the following...

Eduardo Salvador

30/07/2016

Neuroeducation and war video games

Schoolboys play Cowboys and Indians in Weslaco, Texas, 1942. Arthur Rothstein / Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA/OWI Collection, [LC-USF33- 003619-M3] “There is only one way to stem the wave of violence: to recover our sensibility for everything that is alive.” Erich Fromm In less than two decades, new technologies and the internet have revolutionised the habits and customs of our...

01/06/2016

Desalojar al enemigo

Dos noticias sobre desalojos llenan las noticias de los últimos días. Se desalojan personas por orden judicial o política. Pero se desaloja como verbo transitivo, es decir, el que significa sacar una persona del lugar donde estaba alojada, como lo define la Enciclopedia Catalana, que, curiosamente, utiliza como ejemplo uno que no podía venir más al caso: "Desalojar el enemigo de...

21/04/2016

Statement on the occasion of the 2016 Global Day of Action on Military Spending

"If we want to give peace a real chance, we have to give it a real budget" In 2015 global military spending was 1500 billion euro. This is a disproportionate amount of money, which could be far better spent to ensure security for people. 'The world is over- armed and peace is underfunded’, stated UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in...

19/04/2016

Let’s convert military spending into Peace policies

Sign the petition here! LET'S CONVERT MILITARY SPENDING INTO PEACE POLICIES The Spanish military spending in 2015, according to SIPRI's annual report on global military spending has reached 12,852 billion €, representing 1.3% of Spanish GDP. The Centre Delàs  for Peace Studies, whose incorporate other elements, considers that the budget stands at more than 17.5 billion euros.In the context of...

15/04/2016

New Data visualization of Spanish arms exports to conflicts

Centre Delàs present in this section the figures on Spanish arms exports presented by countries from 1995 to the present, according to data provided by the Ministry of Commerce in its report "Estadísticas españolas de exportación de material de defensa, de otro material y de productos y tecnologías de doble uso". Data visualization features if selected countries are in situation...

16/02/2016

European Parliament Joint Motion for a Resolution on the humanitarian situation in Yemen (2016/2515(RSP))

Centre Delàs/ENAAT and others statement To the Conference of Presidents of the European Parliament, To Members of the European Parliament, The undersigned organisations welcome the positive stand taken by the European Parliament on the humanitarian situation in Yemen, and in particular its Joint Motion for a Resolution (JMR) (1) and the related amendment (2) scheduled for plenary vote on 25...

05/02/2016

Press release: EU Foreign Ministers must take serious action against Saudi Arabia in view of the alarming situation in Yemen, according to ENAAT members

Barcelona, 5th February 2016 Ten peace organisations from the European Network Against Arms Trade (ENAAT), including Centre Delàs for Peace Studies, call on the EU ministers to suspend arms sells and consider an arms embargo against Saudi Arabia. As it has been widely reported, the war in Yemen is having an extremely severe impact on civilians and on vital infrastructure including...

08/07/2015

IPB statement – NPT Review Conference 2015

The fact that the NPT Review coincides with the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is both disturbing and inspiring. Disturbing because it reminds us how little progress has been made over these decades in bringing to an end the era of terror weapons. Inspiring since both events will see large mobilizations of citizens determined to...

11/05/2015

The Campaign for Objection to Military Spending Begins!

For more than a year the Delás Centre and the SIOF (Information services for Fiscal Objection) have launched the campaign for objection to military spending. If you don’t want to contribute to your tax money towards military spending, join the campaign! The State budget is financed with both direct and indirect taxes that all citizens pay. There is not much leeway...

Pere Ortega

08/05/2015

Is a Nation without an army possible in the 21st Century?

Armies were first conceived to provide security to states and to defend from potential external attacks. This approach has pushed states to arms themselves with powerful armed forces to deter attacks from other states. The universal character of this argument has been generalized by fear that has lead to a vicious cycle with seemingly no limits: The current arms race....

13/04/2015

Global Day of Action on Military Spending.

The world’s military spending reaches 1.8 billion dollars In Spain, for the first time since the crisis started in 2008, there has been an increase in the military budget Coinciding with the Global Day of Action on Military Spending, today, SIPRI published their annual military spending report in 2014, in which confirms the world’s military spending and in real terms...

25/03/2015

What about military spending in Spain?

The Center Delàs participates one more year as the promoter in the Spanish State for the Global Campaign on military spending, GCOMS, who is the organizer. A sneak peek to April 13, the Global Day of Action, we have prepared an infographic about the reality of Spanish military spending, Report 25: Inertia, waste and fraud in military expenditure. Spanish defense budget analysis...

24/03/2015

The campaign to demilitarize education rejects the presence of the Armed Forces in the Salón de la Educación of Barcelona.

Entities, unions and NGOs remember the values of solidarity, respect and equality, which are not consistent in the army’s characteristics Barcelona, March 20, 2015 – The Campaign Demilitarize Education. Weapons don’t educate, weapons kill, has been present for the fifth year in a row, in the Salón de la Educación of Barcelona, to protest their rejection to presence of the of...

11/03/2015

Who does Spain sell weapons to?

Infographic of the Spanish Arms Exports 2013 in basis of the Report 24: Spanish Arms Exports 2004-2013. Does the government promote illegal arms exports? By Tica Font, Eduardo Melero and Camino Simarro The Centre Delàs publishes a new report on the Spanish arms exports, which analyzes the exports in 2013, through a historical perspective of the last decade. The report ask...

27/11/2014

Stop Explosive Investments 2014 Day of action

Today 27th of November we celebrate the Stop Explosive Investments day of action. This year it concurs with the global launch of the 2014 update on the annual report on “Global funding on cluster bombs: a shared responsibility” elaborated by the PAX Foundation. Financial institutions who invest on stocks or bonds from companies who produce cluster bombs have their place...

Teresa de Fortuny, Xavier Bohigas

20/03/2014

The incidence of human error in the handling of nuclear weapons

Just one month ago, a news item appeared in the New York Times. The news went unnoticed in our country although the article was also published in Público, the Spanish on-line newspaper, on 9th March 2014.The New York Times piece reported that the US Defence Secretary, Chuck Hagel, had ordered a review of the military nuclear sector in the wake...

Tica Font

04/02/2014

Who looks after the interests of the manufacturers of cluster bombs?

For years the International civil society has been leading a campaign of disarmament, first carried out a campaign to ban anti-personnel mines in particular and subsequently a campaign to ban cluster munitions. Both campaigns achieved an international treaty banning the use, manufacture, storage and sale, while also agrees to destroy the mines and cluster munitions stored or sown. The campaign...

03/01/2014

Join the Peace! Collaborate with the Centre Delàs

It’s the Centre Delàs 15th anniversary, thanks to the support of many people like you. If you have not yet done so, you can now collaborate with the Centre Delàs; there are many ways to do so!

20/12/2013

In favour of a treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons

The Centre Delàs, as a part of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN, in English), has developed the following document analysis as a contribution to the campaign. In favour of a treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons Index 1. Current situation2. Why do we need a treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons?3. The UN’s initiatives4. Views of the states regarding a...

Pere Ortega

15/04/2013

The Crisis and the Inevitability of Cuts in Military Spending.

Article published in the GDAMS Newsletter Arithmetic is an exact science, but each of us work out our budget based on our criteria and interests. That also happens with the budgets of military spending – different people may do the accounts very differently. To take one example, the prestigious Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) uses a set of criteria...

15/04/2013

World military spending falls, but China, Russia’s spending rises, says SIPRI

(Stockholm, 15 April 2013) World military expenditure totalled $1.75 trillion in 2012, a fall of 0.5 per cent in real terms since 2011, according to figures released today by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Centre d'Estudis per la Pau  JM Delàs colaborates with SIPRI The fall—the first since 1998—was driven by major spending cuts in the USA and Western...

30/01/2013

EU arms embargo on Syria should not be amended, say peace groups

Groups organised in the European Network Against Arms Trade (ENAAT) strongly oppose any moves to amend the current EU arms embargo on Syria as proposed by the United Kingdom. A proposal to do so, to enable military equipment to be sent to anti-Assad groups, will most likely be presented to the Council of the European Union by the UK on...

11/01/2013

EU report: up the export of armaments, but Monti Government plays with the figures

Article from Giorgio Beretta (Rete Italiana per il Disarmo), analyzing 2011 european arms exports and peculiarities of the italian case. New and fresh business for the European Union military industry: year 2011 saw an increase by 18.3% in orders to EU countries for exports of military systems that have reached 37.5 billion euros. Particularly strong the exports to Middle East...

10/01/2013

Large increase in EU arms exports revealed – but annual report is untransparent, incomplete and unpublicised

The “Fourteenth Annual Report on Exports Control of Military Technology and Equipment” reveals that in 2011 European Union (EU) countries licensed arms exports valued at 37.5 billion euro – an increase of almost one fifth on 2010. The largest and fastest growing markets for weapons were in the Middle East and Asia, including countries embroiled in the uprisings of 2011,...

23/11/2012

Fake Corporate Social Responsibility against the financing of arms

Article publish at War Profiteers’ News Embodied by Milton Friedman and Friedrich A. Hayek, the Neo-liberal position proclaims that businesses fulfill the role of producing goods in order to maximise profits, their only commitment to society being to comply with the law, which mainly means the payment of taxes. The goal of the business is to give the maximum return...

11/07/2011

Military embargo on Israel

As a response to Palestinian civil society’s call, we, groups of the European Network Against Arms Trade, ask the European Parliament and European countries a military embargo to Israel. 1) Cease forthwith any provision to Israel of arms and related materiel of all types, including the sale or transfer of weapons and ammunitions, military vehicles and equipment, para-military police equipment,...

18/01/2004

¿Negocio de las armas en el estado español?

La situación de la industria y el comercio de las armas en España en el período 1990-1997 Publicado en la revista Pueblos, Madrid, 1999.  Gemma Xarles i Jubany, C3A – Campaña Contra el Comercio de Armas (enero de 1999)En las causas de las guerras se mezclan razones políticas y económicas, pero si hay algo que los alimenta, es el hecho...