“We appeal as human beings to human beings: Remember your humanity, and forget the rest”.

With these moving words, Albert Einstein – born in Ulm – Bertrand Russell, and nine other distinguished scientists and intellectuals addressed humanity on July 9, 1955. The famous resolution, later known as the Russell-Einstein Manifesto, has lost none of its relevance 65 years later: Weapons of mass destruction and warfare continue to threaten humankind. Yet the crises we face today have multiplied exponentially in number, intensity, complexity, and impact. Infectious diseases, hunger and poverty, inequality, the resurgence of nationalism, and – overshadowing all of these – the threat of climate change, define our time more than ever before.

The urgency with which the Manifesto appeals to human conscience and universal values resonates even more strongly today. The challenges may be greater than ever, but our collective knowledge and capacity for global action have also grown over the past 65 years. With the voice of science, the youth taking to the streets for their future, the global call for human rights, and our human creativity, we are now called upon more than ever to move forward with determination. This also means rethinking and replacing the habits, doctrines, and strategies that have brought us to this point – so that we may forge new paths.

Since 1955, the Russell-Einstein Manifesto has inspired many institutions to work for a better shared future. It also led directly to the founding of the Pugwash Movement, whose contribution to the 65th anniversary can be read here. We, too, from Einstein’s birthplace Ulm, wish to take this anniversary as an opportunity to recall and reaffirm this profoundly relevant appeal.

Russell-Einstein Manifesto

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