War and peace: graduate’s focus on nuclear-free world

New Zealand’s nuclear-free stance was one of the drawcards for University of Auckland PhD graduate Carolina Panico, originally from Brazil, whose thesis focuses on the historic 2017 UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).

Late prime minister David Lange’s famous Oxford Union speech, in which he wryly noted the smell of uranium on an opposing debater’s breath, put a line in the sand in terms of New Zealand’s position on nuclear weapons.

In June 1987, Aotearoa officially declared itself nuclear-free and passed the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament and Arms Control Act.

“I was aware of New Zealand's position on the nuclear issue,” says Carolina, “and I knew about the country’s refusal to allow the USS Buchanan to dock in 1985 and Lange's speech at Oxford.

“New Zealand also led the TPNW negotiations in New York, alongside others, so I was interested in connecting with people here and learning more about your disarmament activism.”

Carolina completed her undergraduate degree in physical education  at the University of São Paulo.

“I love all sorts of sports, particularly swimming, which I still do regularly, martial arts – I’m a brown belt in karate – some Brazilian capoeira, and football, which I played in Brazil but also on an exchange programme to the US, where I got my first taste of studying abroad.”

She spent a year at a small liberal arts college in South Dakota.

“It was a really cool experience because no one goes to South Dakota! I got the chance to experience the life of an American university and play college football, as well as improving my English.”

However after finishing her bachelors back in São Paulo, she didn’t end up working in physical education and wondered what to do next.

“I was really lost, but then my mum said, ‘Why don’t you do further studies? Experience something new and maybe you’ll find your way.”

And that’s how she found herself applying to do a masters in politics and international relations, an area she’d always been interested in, at the University of Queensland in Brisbane.

“I took a course on arms control and disarmament and had amazing, passionate teachers. Like them, I try and get my students to love the subject as much as I do when I teach on politics courses here at Auckland.”

After graduating, Carolina was lured to New Zealand to do her doctorate, and specifically the University of Auckland, which had the advantage of a leading figure in the area of disarmament law, Associate Professor Treasa Dunworth (Auckland Law School), and also Dr Tom Gregory in the Faculty of Arts, whose work on the role of emotions in influencing military policies and actions she knew and admired.

“Tom became my main supervisor and Treasa my secondary, and both have become mentors and friends. It’s a four-year process so you’re always asking for their help and advice; I’m so grateful for everything they’ve done for me.”

Starting the PhD just before Covid made it “quite a ride,” she says.

“It was a challenge living just with my partner because we were doubly isolated during the lockdowns, being in a foreign country with no family or friends, so I used the time to do my research.”

Carolina, who is graduating with a doctorate in Politics and International Relations from the Faculty of Arts, wrote her entire thesis (86,000 words) in eight months to get it finished by the deadline.

“I really wanted to get into academia so I knew I needed to get published and to establish networks or doing the thesis didn’t make sense. And once I’d done that, I thought, ‘My God, I actually have a chance!’"

The subject of her thesis, the 2017 UN treaty, which entered into force in January 2021, aims to completely prohibit nuclear weapons and encourage their elimination.

It includes a comprehensive set of prohibitions on participating in any nuclear weapon activities, including undertakings not to develop, test, produce, acquire, possess, stockpile, use or threaten to use them.

There are currently 93 signatories, which notably don’t include the nine nuclear-armed states, including the biggest players, the US (5,244 nuclear warheads), Russia (5,889), France (around 290), the UK (about 225) and China (about 500).

“What was interesting to me about this treaty is that it happened despite a lot of opposition from the nuclear weapon states, who have huge power as UN Security Council members,” says Carolina.

“So while you could wonder what the point of it is if those big players haven’t signed it, there is also something interesting happening here in global politics if really powerful countries, with huge military capability, are not able to stop it.”

She believes the treaty’s very existence has changed the conversation away from ‘defence and deterrence’ to the weapons’ terrible humanitarian cost.

“Of course, the treaty won’t abolish nuclear weapons overnight, but I think its continued existence will stigmatise them over time and the focus on their inhumanity will hopefully create more momentum to disarm.”

Straight after graduation, Carolina is headed to the University of Glasgow to take up a two-year postdoctoral position as part of a project called Atomic Anxiety, focused on how arms control and nuclear disarmament can reduce the risk of nuclear war.

Meanwhile, she and her partner Yuri have some celebrating to do at the University’s Spring Graduation ceremony at the Town Hall on Thursday 5 September, after four tough but rewarding years.