Policymakers, activists and scholars gathered on Tuesday, April 28^th for the Human Security Summit at the University of California Irvine, sponsored by the UCI Centre for Unconventional Security Affairs (CUSA).   The summit, which featured a keynote address by anti-landmine activist Heather Mills McCartney, focused on the lessons learned and future policies in relation to the international movement to ban landmines.

During the keynote address, CUSA presented Mills McCartney with their 2004 Human Security Award and formally announced the creation of the Heather Mills McCartney Fellowship in Human Security, designed to support UCI graduate students conducting research on pressing human security issues.  

“This topic is particularly salient given recent changes to the U.S. Landmine policy announced in March by the Bush Administration,” said Richard Matthew, associate professor of international and environmental politics and director of CUSA.   He added, “Heather's made a significant contribution. Her unrelenting and tireless work – counseling individuals victimized by landmines, meeting with world leaders and raising awareness over present and future policies and prevention – is something in which we can all take pride.” A United Nations Goodwill Ambassador and 1996 Nobel Peace Prize nominee, Heather Mills McCartney's keynote speech “Clearing A Path To A Safer World” will include personal footage of her experiences with landmine survivors.  

Renowned as an anti-landmine activist and a Patron of Adopt-A-Minefield, Mills McCartney has been involved with the landmine issue for more than a decade.   She has worn an artificial limb since 1993, and as a result, she became a strong advocate for the disabled.   In 1994 she started shipping disused artificial limbs and medical equipment to Croatia.   Since then her work has helped more then 366,000 people and through Adopt-A-Minefield Mills McCartney has been responsible for the clearance of nearly 8 million square meters of minefields.

According to Matthew, around the world, some 60 million landmines deny people access to the land they need to survive. Humanitarian efforts to rehabilitate landmine survivors, restore mined land and ban the use of landmines contribute to human security.

Matthew, whose research examines the root causes of political violence, is an editor of the book “Landmines and Human Security: International Politics and War's Hidden Legacy.”  His co-editors include Kenneth Rutherford, landmine survivor and co-founder of the Landmine Survivors Network, and Bryan McDonald, CUSA associate director, who will also be presenting at the summit. Prefaces to the book are written by Mills McCartney and Sir Paul McCartney, Her Majesty Queen Noor of Jordan, U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy and the Honorable Lloyd Axworthy, president of the University of Winnipeg and former Canadian Parliament member.

Proceeds of the event will support CUSA and the Heather Mills McCartney Fellowship in Human Security.   All attendees received a copy of the book “Landmines and Human Security: International Politics and War's Hidden Legacy.”