Stephen Goose

Stephen Goose is the arms campaigns director of the Crisis, Conflict, and Arms Division at Human Rights Watch. From 2002 until April 2024, he served as the executive director of the former Arms Division at Human Rights Watch, playing an instrumental role in bringing about the 1997 treaty banning antipersonnel mines. Human Rights Watch co-founded the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), which received the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize. Steve served as ICBL chair from 1997 to 2024 and created the ICBL’s Landmine Monitor reporting initiative.

Steve was centrally involved in the adoption of the 1995 protocol banning blinding lasers, the 2003 protocol requiring clean-up of explosive remnants of war, the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions, and the 2022 Political Declaration on the Use of Explosive Weapons in Populated Areas. Steve and Human Rights Watch co-founded the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots in 2012. Before joining Human Rights Watch in 1993, Steve was a US congressional staffer and a researcher at the Center for Defense Information. He has a master’s degree in international relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a B.A. in history from Vanderbilt University.