The Monterey Institute of International Studies and its James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) were pleased to learn recently that the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) has awarded a grant of $118,900 to support a research project on “Nuclear Norms in Global Governance” to be co-led by Professor Avner Cohen of the Institute’s Nonproliferation and Terrorism Studies program faculty and Professor Maria Rost Rublee, a senior lecturer at the Australian National University.
The project will examine the role of norms in global interactions and suggest a framework for employing them to help both understand and shape international policies related to nuclear nonproliferation and nuclear energy. The two-year project is expected to culminate in the publication of a book of scholarly articles on the topic co-edited by Professor Cohen and Professor Rublee, as well as a series of briefings for policy-makers in Washington, D.C; Vienna, Austria, and Canberra, Australia.
Also a senior fellow and education program director with CNS, Professor Cohen is best known for his work on nonproliferation issues in the Middle East, and more specifically Israel’s nuclear policy, about which he has written two highly regarded books (Israel and the Bomb in 1998 and The Worst Kept Secret: Israel’s Bargain with the Bomb in 2010). Professor Cohen twice won the research and writing award of the MacArthur Foundation and was also twice a senior fellow at the USIP.
“My project co-director Maria Rublee and I are tremendously grateful to the U.S. Institute of Peace for supporting this important project,” commented Professor Cohen. “Our hope is that our work will ultimately offer new avenues for dialogue and research-based strategies for enhancing the international nonproliferation regime.”