David Cortright is an American scholar and peace activist. He is a Vietnam veteran who is currently Professor Emeritus and special adviser for policy studies at the Keough School of Global Affairs and Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame, and the author, co-author, editor or co-editor of 22 books. Cortright has a long history of public advocacy for disarmament and the prevention of war.
Biography
Cortright is a 1968 graduate of the University of Notre Dame. In 1970 he received his M.A. from New York University, and completed his doctoral studies in 1975 at the Union Institute in residence at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C.[1]
As a soldier during the Vietnam War, Cortright joined with fellow soldiers to speak out against the war as part of the GI peace movement.[2] He was 1 of 1,365 servicemen who signed an antiwar ad in the New York Times published on November 9, 1969 (see image below).[3]
In 1977, Cortright was named the executive director of The Committee for a SANE Nuclear Policy (SANE), which under his direction became the largest disarmament organization in the U.S. Cortright initiated the 1987 merger of SANE and the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign and served for a time as co-director of the merged organization.[4] In 2002 Cortright helped to found the Win Without War coalition in opposition to the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
In 2014 he joined with Tom Hayden and others from the anti-Vietnam War movement to demand that the Department of Defense change a "rose-colored portrayal" of the Vietnam War on the government agency's website.[5] Following the 2016 Colombian peace agreement referendum, he served as Director of the Kroc Institute's Peace Accords Matrix to support implementation of the 300-page agreement.[6]
Work
Cortright is a Professor Emeritus of the Practice at the KROC Institute for International Peace Studies and the University of Notre Dame. His areas of expertise include nonviolent social change, nuclear disarmament, use of multilateral sanctions and incentives as tools of international peacemaking. He is the author or co-editor of 22 books. He has written widely on nonviolent social change, nuclear disarmament, and the use of multilateral sanctions and incentives as tools of international diplomacy. He has provided research services to several foreign ministries, including those of Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, Japan, Germany, Denmark, and The Netherlands, and has advised agencies of the United Nations, the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, the International Peace Academy, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.[7]
Books
He is the author or co-editor of 22 books:
A Peaceful Superpower: Lessons from the World’s Largest Antiwar Movement (New York: New Village Press, 2023);[8] shorter booklet A Peaceful Superpower: The Movement against War in Iraq (Goshen, Ind.: Fourth Freedom Forum, 2004).
Truth Seekers: Voices of Peace and Nonviolence (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2020); published in an early edition as Buscadors de la Veritat: Veus per la pau i la noviolència (Barcelona: International Catalan Intitute for Peace, 2017)
Governance for Peace: How Inclusive, Participatory and Accountable Institutions Promote Peace and Prosperity, co-authored with Conor Seyle and Kristin Wall (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017)[9]
Civil Society, Peace and Power, co-edited with Melanie Greenberg and Laurel Stone (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishing, 2016).
Drones and the Future of Armed Conflict, co-edited with Rachel Fairhurst and Kristen Wall (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2015).
Ending Obama’s War: Responsible Military Withdrawal from Afghanistan (Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2011).
Gandhi and Beyond: Nonviolence for A New Political Age, 2nd ed. (Boulder, Colo.: Paradigm Publishers, 2009); first edition Gandhi and Beyond (Paradigm, 2006).
Peace: A History of Movements and Ideas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).
Uniting Against Terror: Cooperative Nonmilitary Responses to the Global Terrorist Threat, co-edited with George A. Lopez (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 2007).
Sanctions and the Search for Security: Challenges to UN Action, with George A. Lopez (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2002).
Smart Sanctions: Targeting Economic Statecraft, co-edited with George A. Lopez (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002).
The Sanctions Decade: Assessing UN Strategies in the 1990s, with George A. Lopez (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2000).[7]
Pakistan and the Bomb: Public Opinion and Nuclear Options, co-edited with Samina Ahmed (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1998 and Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1999).
The Price of Peace: Incentives and International Conflict Prevention, editor (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997), commissioned by The Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict.
Political Gain and Civilian Pain: Humanitarian Impacts of Economic Sanctions, co-edited with Thomas G. Weiss, George A. Lopez, and Larry Minear (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997).
India and the Bomb: Public Opinion and Nuclear Options, co-edited with Amitabh Mattoo (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1996).
Economic Sanctions: Panacea or Peacebuilding in a Post–Cold War World? co-edited with George A. Lopez (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1995).
Peace Works: The Citizen's Role in Ending the Cold War (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1993).
Left Face: Soldier Unions and Resistance Movements in Modern Armies, with Max Watts (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1991).
