Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation

Welcome to the website of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation.  Launched in 1963, the Foundation was established to carry forward Russell's work for peace, human rights and social justice.  Forty years later, it continues to do so.

Here, you will also find information about our journal, The Spokesman, and links to our publications website Spokesman Books.

The Iraq Inquiry

Questions for Jack Straw

Red Cross: No One Listening?

Reports of the International Committee of the Red Cross on breaches of the Geneva Conventions are normally confidential, being addressed to the authorities which may come under criticism. This was the case when the International Committee of the Red Cross presented its twenty-four page report on serial breaches of the Conventions on the part of coalition forces in Iraq.

On the 26th February 2004, the representatives of the ICRC met with Ambassador Paul Bremer, the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, and the legal adviser of the United Kingdom Special Representative in Iraq, Sir Jeremy Greenstock. They presented a report detailing allegations of abuse of prisoners, dating back to April 2003, shortly after the launch of the allied invasion. It spells out the articles of the Geneva Convention which have been broken, and the actions which the coalition Governments would need to take in order to come back into compliance with the Conventions ... (CONT.)

Regime Changers Anonymous             

Edited by Ken Coates Regime Changers Anonymous Cover

The Spokesman 107

Editorial

‘The Security Service was officially launched in 1909 with a staff of two, who were supposed to defend the realm against Germany. Later they made a painless adjustment and began to defend it against Russia. As the two engaged ever larger numbers of accomplices it became clear that the realm which they defended consisted of ever smaller tracts of establishment England, setting its bounds somewhat short of the area occupied by the masses of the British common people …

 … What can be done to clip the wings of all these spooks?  Well, first of all, as far as the junior members of the team are concerned, substantial cuts can be made in their budgets.  What precisely is all this intrigue for?  How is it to be justified?  It should surely be possible to control the expenditures of this kind of service in such a way as to reduce them to a minimum.

            Then we shall be told that we need an intelligence service to apprehend terrorists.  There are, unfortunately, numerous problems which the anti-terrorist services closely share with the warriors against subversion ...  At the very least, there is a case for a close enquiry into this aspect of intelligence work.  To learn the lessons of the wave of student arrests in Lancashire early in 2009 might be to discover some arguments for stringent budgetary controls.

            But, disturbing though the activities of junior officials may be, the huge and overriding question which hangs over our political system, is how to get the spooks off the Downing Street sofas and to put politics in command.’

Ken Coates

This new issue of The Spokesman can be bought from our sister website Spokesman Books. 

Iraq Inquiry Digest

"This is a project to monitor and comment on the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq war. Its aim is both to inform and to provide a dynamic forum for comment and analysis as the Inquiry progresses. It seeks to provide a balance of views and opinion. Its objective is to be constructive and to provide reasoned and well argued comment. "

For further information please visit the Iraq Inquiry Digest's website.

Russell Tribunal on Palestine

On 4 March 2009, the Russell Tribunal on Palestine was launched at a press conference in Brussels chaired by Stéphane Hessel, Ambassador of France. The initiators of the Tribunal, Ken Coates, Chairman of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, Leila Shahid, General Delegate of Palestine to the European Union, Belgium and Luxembourg, and Nurit Peled, winner of the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, discussed why they called its creation.

Speaking for the Tribunal’s Organising Committee, the former Belgian Senator Pierre Galand explained how it will work. Amongst more than a hundred international personalities who have given their support to the Tribunal, Ken Loach, Paul Laverty, Raji Surani, Jean Ziegler, François Rigaux, Jean Salmon and François Maspero were present in Brussels to give encouragement to this project.

In the tradition of the Russell Tribunal on War Crimes in Vietnam, the Russell Tribunal on Palestine is a citizens’ initiative which aims to reaffirm the primacy of international law as the basis for solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and at raising awareness of the responsibility of the international community in the continuing denial of the rights of the Palestinian people.