Racheal Wanyana

Racheal Wanyana is a lawyer and gender expert with technical expertise across the fields of peacebuilding and conflict transformation, security sector reform, disarmament and non-proliferation, humanitarian action, and anti-corruption. Her work in relation to the themes of the Forum on Arms Trade primarily focuses on the legal and gender dimensions of (in)security. 

She has employed gender theories to examine: how gender may shape the legitimacy and legitimate uses of autonomous weapon systems; how gender norms shape and are shaped by armed conflicts; the gender dimensions of corruption in the defence and security sector, and the interlinkages between masculinities and militarisation.

Beyond her gender expertise, Wanyana has a strong legal policy acumen and technical knowledge relevant to multilateral arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation. She has undertaken independent solution-oriented policy research exploring: the contributions that the international humanitarian law (IHL) concept of military necessity-humanity-balance can make in providing a suitable normative backdrop for IHL compliant military uses of artificial intelligence; the potential of international criminal law to deter irresponsible (but legal) arms transfers on the basis of principles of accomplice liability; and the efficacy of international law in addressing the weaponisation of outer-space.  ​ 

Wanyana holds a Master of Laws Degree in European and International Law from the University of Athens, and is currently pursuing a PhD in law and security at NOVA University of Lisbon.