In our second episode, we discuss with Francesca Giovannini, the Executive Director of the Project on Managing the Atom at the Harvard Kennedy School, how likely is the use of nuclear weapons by Russia in Ukraine.

Our Guest Bio
Francesca Giovannini is the Executive Director of the Project on Managing the Atom at the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science & International Affairs. In addition, she is a non-residential fellow at the Centre for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. Ms. Giovannini served as Strategy and Policy Officer to the Executive Secretary of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), based in Vienna. In that capacity, she oversaw a series of policy initiatives to promote CTBT ratification as a confidence-building mechanism in regional and bilateral nuclear negotiations, elevate the profile of CTBT in academic circles and promote the recruitment of female scientists from the Global South. Prior to her international appointment, Ms. Giovannini served for five years at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Boston as Director of the Research Program on Global Security and International Affairs. Working to leverage academic knowledge to inform better policies, she led and promoted countless academic research on issues such as bilateral and multilateral arms control frameworks, regional nuclear proliferation dynamics, and nuclear security and insider threats. She was also an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, where she designed and taught Master Degree courses on global nuclear policies and strategies.  With a Doctorate from the University of Oxford, UK and two Masters from the University of California, Berkeley, Ms. Giovannini began her career working for international organizations and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Related Resources 

A hurting stalemate? The risks of nuclear weapon use in the Ukraine crisis (Francesca Giovannini), Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 27 February 2022. 

The Timing of Peace Initiatives: Hurting Stalemates and Ripe Moments (William Zartman), The Global Review of Ethnopolitics, 1 (1) September 2001, pp. 8-18

Text of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs, 1 July 1968 

Memorandum of Security Assurances in connection with the Republic of Belarus Accession to the NPT. Budapest, 5 December 1994, United Nations Treaty Collection, Volume 2866, I-50069 

Constitution of the Republic of Belarus, with alterations and amendments adopted on 24 November 1996 and 17 October 2004. 

Russian nuclear weapons, 2022 (Hans M. Kristensen and Matt Korda), Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 25 February 2022 

Let’s curb loose talk of using lower-yield nuclear weapons (Joe Cirincione), Responsible Statecraft, 23 March 2022 

The nuclear taboo: The United States and the normative basis of nuclear non-use (Nina Tannenwald), International organization, 53 (3), 1999