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what had gone very important feature of ani-
wrong in the mals that live in society.
discussions
about nuclear If we understood about fairness,
disarmament perhaps we could deal with
and nuclear things like security and weapons
arms control better. We could understand that
is that the if one country develops nuclear
human side of weapons, another country wants
the problem them as well. We all know from
has
been
our own behaviour that if some-
neglected. So body has something, we want it
the understan- too. If we are denied it, we may
way into real situations just ding of why be prepared to do all sorts of
because there aren't enough you are doing something, which things to obtain it. We can get
bodies like ours taking what they is so fundamental to get these very angry about it, even if the
know and trying to find a way to things right, has gone. We have thing itself is not actually very
make it fit with what needs to be become so caught up in the histo- good. It is just being denied
done. ry of negotiations, the technical something that somebody else
details, the rules and procedures - has which makes us angry. We
Q Are you working closely - all those superficial things -- see that with our own children
with other research institu- instead of focusing on what we and with other societies, and then
tes all over the world? were actually trying to do, which we pretend that we are not like
is to prevent war, to get rid of that too.
Yes, we are, depending on the weapons of mass destruction
research projects. We work a lot because of the impact they have This project has brought together
in partnerships and we are entire- on people. If we can focus on this type of thinking and we have
ly funded by voluntary contribu- that, maybe we can cut through adopted a multi-disciplinary and
tions. So if there are any benefac- some of the politics and the non- multi-facetted approach to thin-
tors out there ... We do fundrai- sense we have to deal with the king about how we do our busi-
sing to carry out projects and to whole time. ness. One idea that we have been
pay the staffs salaries. trying to get through to people is
What we have done is that we that the way we work together is
Q: How does it work? Do have brought in some very inter- often as important as what we are
governments fund you? esting people to help us think it trying to do. For example, when
through -- an economist, a game you work in a very large group, it
We put together projects propo- theorists, a mathematician, a can be hard to keep all those peo-
sals the whole time. There are physicist, a psychologist, a pri- ple in one's head -- the relations-
some governments that give us matologist. hips between people. Quite often
some core money which is fabu- they are split up into smaller
lous ... because it permits us to A primatologist is a specialist on groups. People work better in
pay the salaries of the general primates such as chimpanzees smaller groups. So, that would
staff, editorial staff, etc., -- we do Sometimes when you see your be one thing to look at -- why we
a lot of publications. The project behaviour translated into another work better in smaller groups
I mentioned earlier is co-funded group of animals, you see it for and how to manage a place like
by the Governments of Sweden what it is. We have Frans de the UN where we have 192
and the Netherlands. Waal, who is a leading Dutch pri- Member States, each with seve-
matologist. He told us about how ral delegates on the delegation.
We have another big project cal- conflicts are resolved in chim- How to manage these relations-
panzee society. What can happen
Disarmament
led hips in a way so that trust comes
as
Humanitarian Action that has is that two males have a fight. to the fore, rather than trust brea-
been running for years. The Later, they would go and sit in an king down. What we see the
area -- not looking at each other, whole time in these big conferen-
whole idea is to rethink the way
both of them rather grumpy. ces is that trust breaks down
we do disarmament from a
humanitarian perspective, in Along comes an older female, quite often unless somebody is
other words the impact of wea- and she would take one of them deliberately managing it in a way
pons on people. When the gently and leads him to the other that builds trust. So we brought
Disarmament Conference is dis- so that they could make up. We in a psychologist to work with us
cussing the finer points of all know how that works! When and experts working on the eco-
nuclear weapons, nobody is tal- our primatologist illustrates other nomics of trust, for example.
king about what these weapons aspects of behaviour, we can also
actually do to people. We came start to understand about some of Q: What is your role in com-
the very fundamental issues of parison with the Confer-
to the conclusion that part of
fairness, which seems to be a
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