Proceedings

XVII INTERNATIONAL AMALDI CONFERENCE OF ACADEMIES OF SCIENCES AND OF NATIONAL SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES ON SCIENTIFIC PROBLEMS OF GLOBAL SECURITY (DESY, Hamburg, 14-16 March 2008) Summary The XVII International Amaldi Conference took place on the campus of the German Electron Synchrotron (DESY) in Hamburg under the auspices of the Hamburg Academy of Sciences and at the joint invitation of the president of the Union of German Academies of Sciences and of the Chair of the Amaldi Conferences at the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei in Rome, Prof. Edoardo Vesentini. Organisational support was given by the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg, the Center for Science and Peace Research of the University of Hamburg, and by DESY. Sponsors were the Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft, die Stiftung Friedensforschung and the Alfred Toepfer Stiftung. Sixty scientists and scholars from 15 countries (Canada, China, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Iran, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea (South), Norway, Poland, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States) attended the three-day conference. In honour of Prof. Wolfgang K. H. Panofsky, co-founder of the Amaldi Conferences who passed away on September 24, 2007, the conference was opened by a newly established “Panofsky Lecture” delivered by his old friend and long-standing associate in arms control and government advising activities, Richard L. Garwin. The topics on the agenda were: 1. Nuclear Policies of the Nuclear Weapon States, 2. Safe Fuel Supply for Civilian Nuclear Power Stations and the Risk of Nuclear Proliferation. The Future of Non-Proliferation, 3. The Risk of Nuclear Terrorism, 4. New Military Technologies such as Directed Energy Weapons. Also discussed were • problems of offering independent scientific advice in questions of security policy, • the role of the nuclear option in regional conflicts, • methods of detection of clandestine nuclear activities, • options for the future of nuclear energy and nuclear weapons. Apart from the presentation of papers there was a panel discussion on these topics. A special feature of the conference was the participation of young scientists who served as rapporteurs on the results of the individual sessions, thereby having the opportunity to give an assessment of the problems and the suggested solutions from the point of view of the younger generation. This novelty was widely acclaimed, was recommended for perpetuation in future Amaldi Conferences and is hoped to contribute to a permanent regeneration of the Amaldi Conferences