MAW was founded in 2001, inspired by ‘Time to Abolish War’, an international gathering of over 10,000 held in The Hague, sponsored by more than 50 British peace organisations under the auspices of the ‘Hague Appeal for Peace’ with Archbishop Tutu and Professor Joseph Rotblat, the scientist who refused to work on the design of the atomic bomb in 1944.
We are independent, without funding from or obligation to governments, corporations or political parties; our work is supported by the donations of ordinary people of all generations. We are free to confront those responsible for the unwarranted use of direct or proxy aggression and military expenditure.
We believe that ‘security’ for the people should be understood in holistic terms of human and planetary wellbeing. We work to persuade government and organisations to diversify from arms manufacture and military spending towards peaceful technologies and to building the resilience of the poorest peoples and communities to adapt to climate change, avoiding the vicious circle in which war causes climate change and vice versa.
We seek to achieve this by peaceful direct action, political engagement, research, education, the provision of information and by continuous challenge to those in power.
Our founder president was Professor Sir Joseph Rotblat FRS, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and our founder chair was Bruce Kent.