academy fellows, such as John Scales Avery. Nuclear weapons have been a central concern based on the prominent role of some of the founding members of WAAS — J. Robert Oppenheimer, Joseph Rotblat, Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell. Much of the technical work was taken up by Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs — a parallel organization to WAAS in which several scientists were founding members of both organizations. This included Rotblat, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize together with Pugwash in 1995, “for their efforts to diminish the part played by nuclear arms in international politics and, in the longer run, to eliminate such arms.” Following the end of the Cold War, WAAS promoted initiatives that supported the complete abolition of nuclear weapons under the leadership of Harlan Cleveland (WAAS President 1990-98). Cleveland had previously served as US Assistant Secretary of State for International Relations during the Cuban Missile Crisis under President Kennedy and the UN Ambassador to NATO during the Johnson Administration. In October 1994, the report of the International Commission on Peace and Food entitled "Uncommon Opportunities: Agenda for Peace & Equitable Development" called for the complete abolition of nuclear weapons and was first released by Cleveland at the Academy’s General Assembly at Minneapolis. His call was then adopted by multiple agencies that helped spread the idea: James Gustave Speth, Administrator of UNDP in New York, and Federico Mayor Zaragoza, Director-General of UNESCO in Paris, before the official presentation to Boutros Boutros-Ghali, UN Secretary-General in New York in December 1994. This was followed by a collaboration with the International Commission on Peace and Food on another conference in Delhi (2004), a NATO-funded workshop in Zagreb (2005) a meeting in Washington DC (2006) co-chaired by former US Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, a meeting at the UN in New York in association with the Global Security Institute (2007), a special session on nuclear abolition at the World Futures Conference, Toronto (2006) and participation in an international conference convened by the Government of India and organized by WAAS trustee Jasjit Singh (June 2008). Research by WAAS has examined the legal implications of nuclear weapons within the context of the global rule of law, its impact on national sovereignty, nuclear threats to global security and nuclear abolition, actions to enhance global security, disarmament Initiatives, evaluations around universal nuclear disarmament, and control of the international arms trade. Human Security In