Interim Executive Director
Mr Alyn Ware is a peace educator and international peace and disarmament campaigner. Originally from New Zealand he has lived in the United States and Switzerland, and now resides in the Czech Republic.
Mr Ware is Co-founder and Global Coordinator of Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament (USA), Peace and Disarmament Programs Director for the World Future Council (Germany), Director of the Basel Peace Office (Switzerland) and International Representative for Aotearoa Lawyers for Peace (New Zealand affiliate of the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms). He previously served as Executive Director of the Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear Policy (USA) and Founder/Director of the Mobile Peace Van Schools Outreach Programme (New Zealand).
Mr Ware has co-founded a number of other peace education initiatives including Our Planet in Every Classroom, the Cool Schools Peer Mediation Program, the UN Decade for a Culture of Peace Schools Outreach Program and the Global Campaign for Peace Education. He was a member of the Department of Education advisory group that developed the New Zealand Guidelines for integrating peace studies into the national school curriculum.
Mr Ware was one of the leaders of the successful campaigns to prohibit nuclear weapons from New Zealand in the 1980s and to achieve a ruling from the International Court of Justice on the illegality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons in 1996.
He has co-founded a number of other international peace projects and networks including Abolition 2000, Middle Powers Initiative, Move the Nuclear Weapons Money, UNFOLD ZERO and NoFirstUse Global. He was also drafting coordinator for the Model Nuclear Weapons Convention (1997) and the revised Model Nuclear Weapons Convention (2007), which two successive UN Secretary-Generals circulated to UN member states to serve as a guide for nuclear disarmament negotiations.
He has won several peace awards including the Right Livelihood Award / Alternative Nobel Peace Prize (Sweden), Alliance for Nuclear Accountability Award (USA), Nelson Mandela Nuclear-Free Future Award (India), World Peace Award (World Federalist Movement, Canada), Loxley Award (Quaker Peace and Service, New Zealand), United Nations International Year for Peace Award (NZ), Tom Perry Peace Award (Physicians for Global Survival/IPPNW, Canada), University of Waikato Distinguished Alumni Award (NZ) and Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Award (NZ). He has been nominated a number of times for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Mr Ware is an active member of numerous other peace and disarmament organizations, including Peace and Sports, an organization of sports champions for peace. He was a member of the Peace and Sports New York marathon team in 2011, which was led by Paula Radcliffe, women’s world record holder for the marathon, and Tegla Loroupe, the first African woman to win the NY marathon.