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Peace and development

SIPRI looks at the long-term causes of insecurity to understand how societies identify and navigate paths to sustainable peace.

Developing and sustaining peace requires an understanding of the root causes of conflict and insecurity. SIPRI looks at what fuels conflict and what drives long-term, positive change by analysing economic, social, political and environmental factors. We contribute to both research and dialogue in order to inform policy and practice to forge a path to peace. 

Our work in this field is broad, with topics ranging from corruption in the security sector, inclusive peacebuilding to climate change. Conflicts are rarely caused by one single factor; often several issues play a role to reinforce and exacerbate each other. Our analysis is also multidisciplinary and applies a variety of social sciences and methods. SIPRI’s research reflects the complexity of conflict drivers and the relationships between them, as well as how they differ across contexts.

A crucial part of SIPRI’s work on peace and development is the   Stockholm Forum on Peace and Development . Held every spring, the Stockholm Forum brings together senior researchers, policymakers and practitioners to discuss and address the most pressing peacebuilding issues.

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SIPRI looks at the effects of climate change on peace and security.

The Environment of Peace initiative looks at how to secure peace in a new era of risk.

SIPRI seeks to improve the understanding of the relationship between food, security, stability and peace. For this work, SIPRI has agreed a multi-year partnership with the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP).

SIPRI focuses on systems of governance, their effects on local populations, and their relationship to the emergence of armed conflict or sustainable peace in a given setting.

SIPRI focuses on the conditions necessary to resolve conflicts and the effects of positive peace in promoting sustainable development.

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Essay on Peace

500 words essay peace.

Peace is the path we take for bringing growth and prosperity to society. If we do not have peace and harmony, achieving political strength, economic stability and cultural growth will be impossible. Moreover, before we transmit the notion of peace to others, it is vital for us to possess peace within. It is not a certain individual’s responsibility to maintain peace but everyone’s duty. Thus, an essay on peace will throw some light on the same topic.

Importance of Peace

History has been proof of the thousands of war which have taken place in all periods at different levels between nations. Thus, we learned that peace played an important role in ending these wars or even preventing some of them.

In fact, if you take a look at all religious scriptures and ceremonies, you will realize that all of them teach peace. They mostly advocate eliminating war and maintaining harmony. In other words, all of them hold out a sacred commitment to peace.

It is after the thousands of destructive wars that humans realized the importance of peace. Earth needs peace in order to survive. This applies to every angle including wars, pollution , natural disasters and more.

When peace and harmony are maintained, things will continue to run smoothly without any delay. Moreover, it can be a saviour for many who do not wish to engage in any disrupting activities or more.

In other words, while war destroys and disrupts, peace builds and strengthens as well as restores. Moreover, peace is personal which helps us achieve security and tranquillity and avoid anxiety and chaos to make our lives better.

How to Maintain Peace

There are many ways in which we can maintain peace at different levels. To begin with humankind, it is essential to maintain equality, security and justice to maintain the political order of any nation.

Further, we must promote the advancement of technology and science which will ultimately benefit all of humankind and maintain the welfare of people. In addition, introducing a global economic system will help eliminate divergence, mistrust and regional imbalance.

It is also essential to encourage ethics that promote ecological prosperity and incorporate solutions to resolve the environmental crisis. This will in turn share success and fulfil the responsibility of individuals to end historical prejudices.

Similarly, we must also adopt a mental and spiritual ideology that embodies a helpful attitude to spread harmony. We must also recognize diversity and integration for expressing emotion to enhance our friendship with everyone from different cultures.

Finally, it must be everyone’s noble mission to promote peace by expressing its contribution to the long-lasting well-being factor of everyone’s lives. Thus, we must all try our level best to maintain peace and harmony.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Conclusion of the Essay on Peace

To sum it up, peace is essential to control the evils which damage our society. It is obvious that we will keep facing crises on many levels but we can manage them better with the help of peace. Moreover, peace is vital for humankind to survive and strive for a better future.

FAQ of Essay on Peace

Question 1: What is the importance of peace?

Answer 1: Peace is the way that helps us prevent inequity and violence. It is no less than a golden ticket to enter a new and bright future for mankind. Moreover, everyone plays an essential role in this so that everybody can get a more equal and peaceful world.

Question 2: What exactly is peace?

Answer 2: Peace is a concept of societal friendship and harmony in which there is no hostility and violence. In social terms, we use it commonly to refer to a lack of conflict, such as war. Thus, it is freedom from fear of violence between individuals or groups.

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December 2, 2021

Peace Is More Than War’s Absence, and New Research Explains How to Build It

A new project measures ways to promote positive social relations among groups

By Peter T. Coleman , Allegra Chen-Carrel & Vincent Hans Michael Stueber

PeopleImages/Getty Images

Today, the misery of war is all too striking in places such as Syria, Yemen, Tigray, Myanmar and Ukraine. It can come as a surprise to learn that there are scores of sustainably peaceful societies around the world, ranging from indigenous people in the Xingu River Basin in Brazil to countries in the European Union. Learning from these societies, and identifying key drivers of harmony, is a vital process that can help promote world peace.

Unfortunately, our current ability to find these peaceful mechanisms is woefully inadequate. The Global Peace Index (GPI) and its complement the Positive Peace Index (PPI) rank 163 nations annually and are currently the leading measures of peacefulness. The GPI, launched in 2007 by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), was designed to measure negative peace , or the absence of violence, destructive conflict, and war. But peace is more than not fighting. The PPI, launched in 2009, was supposed to recognize this and track positive peace , or the promotion of peacefulness through positive interactions like civility, cooperation and care.

Yet the PPI still has many serious drawbacks. To begin with, it continues to emphasize negative peace, despite its name. The components of the PPI were selected and are weighted based on existing national indicators that showed the “strongest correlation with the GPI,” suggesting they are in effect mostly an extension of the GPI. For example, the PPI currently includes measures of factors such as group grievances, dissemination of false information, hostility to foreigners, and bribes.

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The index also lacks an empirical understanding of positive peace. The PPI report claims that it focuses on “positive aspects that create the conditions for a society to flourish.” However, there is little indication of how these aspects were derived (other than their relationships with the GPI). For example, access to the internet is currently a heavily weighted indicator in the PPI. But peace existed long before the internet, so is the number of people who can go online really a valid measure of harmony?

The PPI has a strong probusiness bias, too. Its 2021 report posits that positive peace “is a cross-cutting facilitator of progress, making it easier for businesses to sell.” A prior analysis of the PPI found that almost half the indicators were directly related to the idea of a “Peace Industry,” with less of a focus on factors found to be central to positive peace such as gender inclusiveness, equity and harmony between identity groups.

A big problem is that the index is limited to a top-down, national-level approach. The PPI’s reliance on national-level metrics masks critical differences in community-level peacefulness within nations, and these provide a much more nuanced picture of societal peace . Aggregating peace data at the national level, such as focusing on overall levels of inequality rather than on disparities along specific group divides, can hide negative repercussions of the status quo for minority communities.

To fix these deficiencies, we and our colleagues have been developing an alternative approach under the umbrella of the Sustaining Peace Project . Our effort has various components , and these can provide a way to solve the problems in the current indices. Here are some of the elements:

Evidence-based factors that measure positive and negative peace. The peace project began with a comprehensive review of the empirical studies on peaceful societies, which resulted in identifying 72 variables associated with sustaining peace. Next, we conducted an analysis of ethnographic and case study data comparing “peace systems,” or clusters of societies that maintain peace with one another, with nonpeace systems. This allowed us to identify and measure a set of eight core drivers of peace. These include the prevalence of an overarching social identity among neighboring groups and societies; their interconnections such as through trade or intermarriage; the degree to which they are interdependent upon one another in terms of ecological, economic or security concerns; the extent to which their norms and core values support peace or war; the role that rituals, symbols and ceremonies play in either uniting or dividing societies; the degree to which superordinate institutions exist that span neighboring communities; whether intergroup mechanisms for conflict management and resolution exist; and the presence of political leadership for peace versus war.

A core theory of sustaining peace . We have also worked with a broad group of peace, conflict and sustainability scholars to conceptualize how these many variables operate as a complex system by mapping their relationships in a causal loop diagram and then mathematically modeling their core dynamics This has allowed us to gain a comprehensive understanding of how different constellations of factors can combine to affect the probabilities of sustaining peace.

Bottom-up and top-down assessments . Currently, the Sustaining Peace Project is applying techniques such as natural language processing and machine learning to study markers of peace and conflict speech in the news media. Our preliminary research suggests that linguistic features may be able to distinguish between more and less peaceful societies. These methods offer the potential for new metrics that can be used for more granular analyses than national surveys.

We have also been working with local researchers from peaceful societies to conduct interviews and focus groups to better understand the in situ dynamics they believe contribute to sustaining peace in their communities. For example in Mauritius , a highly multiethnic society that is today one of the most peaceful nations in Africa, we learned of the particular importance of factors like formally addressing legacies of slavery and indentured servitude, taboos against proselytizing outsiders about one’s religion, and conscious efforts by journalists to avoid divisive and inflammatory language in their reporting.

Today, global indices drive funding and program decisions that impact countless lives, making it critical to accurately measure what contributes to socially just, safe and thriving societies. These indices are widely reported in news outlets around the globe, and heads of state often reference them for their own purposes. For example, in 2017 , Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, though he and his country were mired in corruption allegations, referenced his country’s positive increase on the GPI by stating, “Receiving such high praise from an institute that once named this country the most violent in the world is extremely significant.” Although a 2019 report on funding for peace-related projects shows an encouraging shift towards supporting positive peace and building resilient societies, many of these projects are really more about preventing harm, such as grants for bolstering national security and enhancing the rule of law.

The Sustaining Peace Project, in contrast, includes metrics for both positive and negative peace, is enhanced by local community expertise, and is conceptually coherent and based on empirical findings. It encourages policy makers and researchers to refocus attention and resources on initiatives that actually promote harmony, social health and positive reciprocity between groups. It moves away from indices that rank entire countries and instead focuses on identifying factors that, through their interaction, bolster or reduce the likelihood of sustaining peace. It is a holistic perspective.  

Tracking peacefulness across the globe is a highly challenging endeavor. But there is great potential in cooperation between peaceful communities, researchers and policy makers to produce better methods and metrics. Measuring peace is simply too important to get only half-right. 

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Article Contents

1. introduction, 2. the gap between human rights and peacebuilding: evolution of the field, 3. the politics of international law and institutional practices, 4. methodology, 5. the human rights council’s integration of peacebuilding, 6. key takeaways and conclusion, acknowledgements, conflict of interest, cited interviews.

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Human Rights and Peacebuilding: Bridging the Gap

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Lina Hillert, Human Rights and Peacebuilding: Bridging the Gap, Journal of Human Rights Practice , Volume 16, Issue 1, February 2024, Pages 302–324, https://doi.org/10.1093/jhuman/huad037

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In view of academic and policy discussions about a persisting gap between human rights and peacebuilding in the UN system, this article examines how peacebuilding has been integrated into the work of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC). The analysis draws on interviews with UN Member State attachés and representatives of non-governmental organizations, as well as a range of HRC documents focusing on Myanmar between 2006 and 2021. The findings complement the existing academic literature with nuanced insights into the interaction between human rights and peacebuilding practitioners from a human rights, institutional perspective. The analysis reveals that the HRC is aware of the link between human rights and peacebuilding, implicitly supports peacebuilding and seeks to strengthen institutional cooperation through the prevention resolutions. However, despite efforts to increase engagement, explicit linkages and coordination with the UN’s peacebuilding institutions in New York remain rare. Institutional silos, concerns about sovereignty and mandate overlap, fears of politicization as well as a lack of political will and capacity constraints present obstacles to cooperation. This article points to the need for a better information flow and stronger interaction between human rights and peacebuilding actors in Geneva and New York to enhance mutual understanding. Improving synergies between human rights and peacebuilding institutions in Geneva and New York is key to bridging the overall gap between human rights and peacebuilding—both in policy and practice.

From the Human Rights up Front (HRuF) initiative to the sustainable development goals (SDGs) or the twin resolutions on sustaining peace, the last years have seen the adoption of numerous initiatives and programmes within the UN system that call for a stronger focus on the link between human rights and peacebuilding. Yet, while the need to promote cooperation 1 between the UN’s human rights and peacebuilding programmes has been repeatedly stressed, translating this cooperation into practice has proven challenging. According to former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the division of the UN’s work into silos hinders the effective exchange of expertise, information and viewpoints, and overall, the relationship between human rights and peacebuilding actors is frequently still characterized by mistrust and misunderstandings ( OHCHR 2017 ).

Given the persisting lack of interaction between human rights and peacebuilding actors within the UN system and the practical challenges of promoting closer cooperation, previous research has focused on studying how human rights could be better integrated into conflict resolution, peacekeeping and peacebuilding ( Babbitt and Lutz 2009 ; Fuentes Julio and Drumond 2018 ; Mertus and Helsing 2006 ). The literature primarily analyses the link between human rights and peacebuilding from the perspective of peacebuilding actors, emphasizing the benefits of the human rights community’s methods and concepts for peacebuilding organizations. This is in line with the UN’s broader approach which prioritizes how a human rights agenda may benefit peacebuilding programmes and missions on the ground. Interestingly, little attention has been devoted to examining how the UN’s human rights bodies integrate peacebuilding into their work and contribute to UN peacebuilding efforts. The understanding of human rights actors’ perceptions of peacebuilding in connection to human rights and knowledge about their ways of exchanging with peacebuilding actors is hence limited.

This article addresses this shortcoming by analysing to what extent and how peacebuilding has been integrated into the work of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC), and how different actors in the HRC think about peacebuilding and the UN’s peacebuilding institutions. This generates new systems knowledge on the dynamics within the UN human rights pillar with regard to peacebuilding. Drawing on conceptual elements from the literature on institutional practices, specifically the work of Martti Koskenniemi (1990 ; 2009 ) on the tension between law and politics, this study also provides more diverse insights into the interaction between peacebuilding and human rights practitioners in Geneva and New York 2 from a human rights, institutional perspective. The analysis thus moves the academic debate beyond its current unidirectional focus and addresses the lack of institutional viewpoints. At the same time, it aims to bring a new impulse to the scholarly literature on how synergies can be fostered, thereby supplying important transformation knowledge ( Adler et al. 2018 ). This is particularly relevant, as several studies highlight the need to further investigate how closer cooperation between human rights and peacebuilding can be promoted, for which a bidirectional understanding is crucial. Closer cooperation between human rights and peacebuilding does not only depend on peacebuilding organizations and their efforts to introduce a human rights agenda into their programming but also on human rights institutions’ awareness of how their work can enhance peacebuilding processes and benefit from a stronger connection to peacebuilding ( Parlevliet 2017 ).

Throughout the article, the concept of human rights is understood as referring to human rights defence and promotion activities carried out by actors working through the HRC, with a special focus on political recommendations or reports, as well as technical assistance or capacity-building efforts expressed through resolutions. Peacebuilding includes the various activities carried out or supported by the UN’s Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DPPA), the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the Peacebuilding Commission (PBC), the Peacebuilding Support Office (PBSO) and the Peacebuilding Fund (PBF). The article conceives of peacebuilding activities as efforts which ‘are necessary not only once conflict has broken out, but long beforehand through preventing conflict and addressing its root causes’ ( UN 2018 ).

Scholarly interest in the link between human rights, conflict and peace emerged in the early 2000s, with the first studies by Parlevliet (2002) and Lutz, Babbitt and Hannum (2003) focusing on the theoretical and practical divide between human rights and conflict resolution. The authors understand conflict resolution in a narrow way as being centred around mediation at different levels and highlight the tensions between both fields, often arising due to human rights organizations’ post-conflict focus on justice and accountability for serious rights violations. This often contrasts with the conflict resolvers’ desire to reconcile the needs, interests and concerns of various disputant parties in a constructive way. Beyond identifying areas of tension, both studies also stress the relevance of human rights for conflict prevention, generation and resolution, and explore possibilities for cooperation between practitioners ( Lutz, Babbitt, and Hannum 2003 ; Parlevliet 2002 ).

Following these early contributions, numerous conflict resolution and legal scholars further analysed the gap between both fields, focusing on how human rights perspectives can be integrated into conflict resolution. As highlighted by Mertus and Helsing (2006) and Parlevliet (2018) , human rights play a key role throughout the entire conflict cycle, since human rights violations can be symptoms, consequences, and causes of violent conflict. The promotion and protection of human rights is thus a critical tool for both conflict prevention and resolution ( Parlevliet 2018 ). Against this background, several studies have looked at the interaction of human rights and conflict resolution at different stages of the conflict cycle ( Babbitt and Lutz 2009 ; Fuentes Julio and Drumond 2018 ; Kirk 2009 ; O’Flaherty 2004 ) and in different countries, such as Colombia ( Borda and Gutiérrez 2018 ), Northern Ireland ( Sharoni 2018 ), Brazil ( De Campos Melo 2018 ) or Israel and Palestine ( Ibrahim and Kaufman 2018 ).

Parallel to growing interest in the link between human rights and conflict resolution, another strand of literature started examining the integration of human rights into peacekeeping, primarily in response to the growing proliferation of UN-led peace operations in the 1990s ( Howland 2006 ; Månsson 2001 ; 2006 ; Murphy and Månsson 2006 ). Authors showed that while UN documents stressed the need to include a human rights presence into peace operations, human rights were often viewed as potentially obstructing political negotiations and conflict resolution ( Månsson 2001 ). As such studies gained traction, other scholars gradually also started to examine the link between human rights and peacebuilding, with the latter being understood as encompassing activities along the entire conflict cycle ( Bell 2017 ; Mertus and Helsing 2006 ; Parlevliet 2017 ; Schirch 2006 ). Yet, while scholars focusing on peacebuilding generally claim to adopt a wider understanding of the term which goes beyond the post-conflict stage and conflict resolution activities, many studies still frequently examine peace negotiations or peace agreements and prioritize post-conflict developments ( Bell 2017 ; Schirch 2006 ).

Overall, studies on human rights and peacebuilding echo the observations made by authors writing about the gap between human rights and conflict resolution. As highlighted by Shonge (2017) , human rights and peacebuilding practitioners follow different approaches, with human rights organizations usually prioritizing ‘legalistic, law and litigation-focused, prescriptive and outcome-oriented strategies’ (ibid.: 448). In contrast, peacebuilding is process-oriented and focuses on reconciling conflict parties by encouraging dialogue. Peacebuilding organizations consider human rights as part of a ‘legislative framework for establishing strong and accountable state institutions, including security and rule of law institutions’ ( Shonge 2017 : 448) Moreover, tensions between human rights and peacebuilding practitioners frequently tend to revolve around human rights actors’ focus on justice and accountability ( Parlevliet 2017 ; Roht-Arriaza 2009 ; Schirch 2006 ; Simpson 2017 ).

Studies acknowledge that, in recent years, the human rights and peacebuilding fields have moved closer together due to a stronger emphasis on the link between peacebuilding and human rights in UN documents, and a wider understanding of human rights promotion and the facilitation of sustainable peace ( Kantowitz 2020 ; Parlevliet 2017 ). Nevertheless, authors also point to continuing challenges. Parlevliet (2017) , for example, stresses that cooperation between the two fields has not been easy, as human rights and peacebuilding activities often remain separate in the institutional structure of organizations. Along similar lines, Kantowitz (2020) identifies six current challenges to more cohesion which include (i) the operationalization of human rights which is often perceived as top-down, inflexible and prescriptive; (ii) tensions between discourse and practice at the international level versus the country level; (iii) field-specific challenges; (iv) a lack of ‘unified global leadership on the promotion of human rights and the prevention of armed conflict’; (v) uncoordinated work; and (vi) a focus on civil and political rights at the expense of economic, social and cultural rights ( Kantowitz 2020 : 4). To achieve better integration of human rights concerns into the work of conflict resolution or peacebuilding actors, many studies highlight the need to overcome the tension between justice and peace ( Baker and Obradovic-Wochnik 2016 ; Hannum 2006b ; Roht-Arriaza 2009 ; Schirch 2006 ; Simpson 2017 ), for instance through human rights and transitional justice provisions in peace agreements or truth and reconciliation commissions ( Bell 2017 ; Roht-Arriaza 2009 ; Simpson 2017 ). A different strand of the literature points to the potential of development cooperation and human security for bringing both fields closer together ( Armyr 2008 ; Cahill-Ripley 2016 ; Krause and Jütersonke 2005 ; Roesdahl and Varughese 2017 ).

While the academic literature generally advocates for closer cooperation between human rights and peacebuilding actors, scholars do not suggest that human rights and peacebuilding approaches should be merged. As explained by Parlevliet (2017) , the aim is not to turn human rights practitioners into peacebuilding actors or vice versa. However, greater interaction and understanding between the two fields is necessary as excessive specialization ‘carries risks that can jeopardize initiatives to improve rights protection or facilitate durable solutions to conflict’ ( Parlevliet 2017 : 351). Increasing awareness of how ‘insights and methods from one domain can enhance efforts in the other’ is essential to address today’s complex ‘rights- and conflict-related problems’ ( Parlevliet 2017 : 351).

Despite a multitude of studies having examined the inclusion of human rights into peacebuilding (or conflict resolution and peacekeeping) processes from different angles, few scholars have looked at the link between human rights and peacebuilding from the perspective of human rights actors. The rare articles adopting a human rights perspective are mainly reports on scattered grassroots-level work, such as a briefing note by Shonge (2017) discussing how human rights lawyers at the grassroots level in Zimbabwe have integrated peacebuilding approaches centred around dialogue into their human rights promotion efforts. Little attention has been devoted to investigating how human rights organizations integrate peacebuilding into their work and how they interact with actors in the peacebuilding field despite repeated calls by authors for closer cooperation and interaction ( Fuentes Julio and Drumond 2018 ; Kantowitz 2020 ; Lutz, Babbitt, and Hannum 2003 ; Parlevliet 2002 ; 2017 ). This is problematic, as increased cooperation not only requires a greater focus on human rights by peacebuilding actors, but also a deeper understanding among human rights practitioners of how their work relates to peacebuilding and can benefit from closer interaction ( Parlevliet 2017 ).

The gap in the literature on the inclusion of peacebuilding into the work of human rights bodies and institutions seems to be linked to an overall lack of studies that adopt institutional viewpoints. Although scholars acknowledge that institutional silos within the UN and other organizations are one main reason for a persisting gap ( Babbitt 2008 ; Kantowitz 2020 ; Parlevliet 2017 ), even analyses from the peacebuilding perspective mainly focus on peace agreements, peace processes and different actors on the ground without adopting an institutional lens. Some of the few exceptions are the works by Butcher and Hallward (2017) , Hannum (2006a) , Hoffmann and Hoffmann (2018) , Månsson (2006) and Summa and Herz (2018) . Whereas Hoffmann and Hoffmann, as well as Månsson and Summa and Herz, mainly focus on the integration of human rights into the peace and security tasks of the UN and selected regional organizations (that is the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the European Union and the African Union), Hannum also considers the perspective of human rights actors. Even though his study is concerned with improving the integration of human rights into peacebuilding, it examines the contribution of the OHCHR to the work of the UN’s Peacebuilding Architecture (PBA), focusing on cooperation and interaction between the OHCHR and the Department of Political Affairs (DPA) ( Hannum 2006a ). Butcher and Hallward (2017) equally seek to shift the focus towards human rights actors, looking at human rights NGOs and their understanding of peace. This article builds on the work by Hannum, Butcher and Hallward by examining the connection between peacebuilding and human rights from a broader human rights, institutional perspective that goes beyond the OHCHR or NGOs, conducting an in-depth analysis of how the HRC as a human rights institution understands the link between human rights and peacebuilding, and integrates peacebuilding into its work. By doing so, it aims to provide a more nuanced understanding of the HRC’s engagement with peacebuilding, examining recent developments, obstacles and opportunities for closer collaboration.

From the literature on human rights and peacebuilding it is evident that despite efforts to mainstream human rights throughout the UN system, deep silos between the human rights and peace and security pillars persist ( Hannum 2006a ; Kantowitz 2020 ; Parlevliet 2017 ). This article thus starts from the assumption that human rights and peacebuilding actors have different understandings of the role of their respective fields and related concepts (for example ‘human rights’, ‘accountability’, ‘prevention’, ‘justice’, ‘peace’ or ‘peacebuilding’). How institutions understand and interpret these terms and their role shapes their interaction with one another. An example of this is the so-called justice versus peace debate. Hayner (2018) and Simpson (2017) show that the tension between justice and peace has frequently been one of the main points of contention between human rights and peacebuilding actors. At its most extreme, in certain instances, different priorities, role conceptions and understandings seem to clash. According to the authors, this happens when human rights practitioners adopt a narrow understanding of justice centred around criminal accountability, while peace mediators seem to prioritize a negative understanding of peace, focusing on ending hostilities. With peacebuilding actors moving towards a more positive understanding of peace concerned not only with reaching a peace settlement but sustaining long-lasting peace, and human rights institutions expanding their role beyond ensuring accountability towards prevention, some of the tensions could be reduced and bring both fields closer together ( Bell 2013 ).

In line with these observations, this article is anchored in the literature on institutional practices, specifically elements of the work of Koskenniemi (2009) who describes how ‘patterns of fixed preference [and certain vocabularies and understandings] are formed and operate inside international institutions’ (ibid.: 9). Focusing on the legal profession, he shows that the vocabulary on human rights is quite open-ended which makes it easy for different actors to adopt their own flexible, malleable understanding of each term. Koskenniemi embeds his analysis of institutional practices within a larger debate on the politics of international law which informs the conceptual background of this article. According to Koskenniemi (1990) , our current world order is characterized by a tension between law and politics (or state sovereignty). Legal scholars frequently present the rule of law as being beyond the realm of politics, leading to human rights often being considered as non-ideological, existing beyond the political system ( Koskenniemi 1990 ). However, as Koskenniemi (1990) shows, ‘it is impossible to make substantive decisions within the law which would imply no political choice’ (ibid.: 31). All legal decisions occur in a specific social, political and cultural context and the social meaning of rights is determined by institutional politics. This means that human rights are not conditioning or limiting politics, but represent an outcome or effect of politics ( Koskenniemi 2011 ). As Koskenniemi (2011) argues, ‘rights do not exist as such – “fact-like” – outside the structures of political deliberation’ (ibid.: 160).

Building on Koskenniemi’s insights, this article assumes that the tension between law and politics and the desire to keep them separate also shape the relationship between human rights and peacebuilding institutions within the UN system. In his analysis of the OHCHR and the DPA, Hannum reveals that OHCHR staff were sometimes worried that closer interaction between the human rights and peace and security pillars might compromise the independent, principle-based role of human rights and give rise to a more political approach in which human rights become politicized or misused for political purposes ( Hannum 2006a ). Such worries suggest that the tension between law and politics influences human rights actors’ understanding of their own role, which then shapes their relationship with peacebuilding actors. At the same time, the tension between law and politics not only plays out between the different institutional actors in the peacebuilding and human rights domains, but also within the human rights field itself. The HRC, for instance, has frequently been characterized as extremely politicized, and state interests often seem to clash with pure human rights concerns ( Hannum 2006a ).

This article studies the integration of peacebuilding into human rights work by examining how actors in the HRC understand peacebuilding and relate to peacebuilding practitioners in New York and how peacebuilding is incorporated into the Council’s resolutions and reports. To carry out the research, this study relied predominantly on two types of qualitative primary data: semi-structured interviews and documents produced by the HRC and its mechanisms (including resolutions, decisions and Special Rapporteur reports).

Conducting semi-structured interviews with actors working through the HRC (Member State attachés, NGO representatives) provided a broader view of the Council’s activities and aimed to shed light on perceptions of the institutional link between human rights and peacebuilding, recent developments, challenges, and obstacles. The interviews helped to find out how these actors understand the integration of peacebuilding into their human rights work, and how they interact with the UN’s peacebuilding institutions. To select interviewees, this study relied on the snowball or chain referral sampling method ( Biernacki and Waldorf 1981 ). Given the political nature of the topic, all interviews were anonymized and not recorded. Direct quotes by the interviewees are cited anonymously throughout the text. In total, 13 interviews were conducted online between March and June 2021, including ten with Member State attachés, and three with NGO representatives.

Documents by the HRC were chosen to complement the interviews and move beyond broad thematic discourses, revealing to what extent the Council makes an explicit connection between peacebuilding processes and its work on human rights. Combining them with the interviews represents a means of data triangulation which increases the validity of the research conclusions ( Stake 2005 ). To make the analysis more tangible, the study focuses on documents related to a single country case—Myanmar. Taking a single country case instead of examining documents from different contexts allows for a more in-depth analysis, including a bigger selection of documents that spans several years. The selection of the country case was based on three criteria: (i) the country should figure prominently on the Council’s agenda due to its human rights situation and be a key focus of the UN’s peacebuilding efforts, having experienced or experiencing conflict; (ii) the country should have been on the HRC’s agenda for several years so that the analysis can take into account the potential evolution of the link between human rights and peacebuilding over time; and (iii) the Council should have established specific mechanisms and mandates relating to the human rights situation in the country concerned (for example a Special Rapporteur mandate, Commissions of Inquiry (CoIs), or Fact-Finding Missions (FFMs)), as these can provide more in-depth information regarding the HRC’s link to peacebuilding. Compared to other potential candidates, including Sri Lanka, South Sudan, and Burundi, Myanmar has figured on the Council’s agenda for the longest amount of time, with at least one resolution adopted each year, and is the only country which has its own Special Rapporteur. Myanmar is an interesting case, as it has not reached a post-conflict stage yet. Even though a nationwide ceasefire agreement was signed in 2015, the country’s peace process is stalling ( International Crisis Group 2020 ) and in recent years, the country has seen turbulent developments, including a military coup followed by outbreaks of violence ( UN News 2021 ).

Documents by the HRC on Myanmar include country resolutions and reports by the Special Rapporteur adopted by the Council under item four (‘human rights situations that require the Council’s attention’), reports and decisions adopted by the Council under item six (‘Universal Periodic Review’) and reports by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights or the OHCHR under item two (‘annual report of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Secretary-General’). For reasons of time and feasibility, only documents under items four and six were systematically collected for analysis. The analysis drew on other reports where appropriate. All documents were collected via the Universal Rights Group’s (URG) database ( URG n.d. ) and the Official Document System of the UN ( UN 2022 ), covering the period 2006–2021. In total, 46 documents were identified: 18 Special Procedures reports and 28 HRC resolutions.

Overall, the study followed a grounded theory-inspired approach, whereby the preliminary framework is not set in stone, but evolves iteratively with successive rounds of data collection and analysis ( Charmaz 2006 ). For the interview analysis, an open-coding approach was applied to the interview notes to identify recurrent themes which then represented the categories for analysis ( Bowen 2009 ; Charmaz 2006 ). By focused coding, involving a comparison of interview notes, the identified themes were explained and synthesized. The document analysis was carried out in a similar manner, adopting an open-coding approach to identify and formulate patterns and themes which were then compared and matched with the themes identified through the interview analysis. The interviews provided the structure for the analysis and were connected with the findings from the document analysis and other relevant sources.

5.1 Human rights and peacebuilding: theory versus reality

Since the publication of the UNDP Human Development Report in 1994, the UN’s discourse has placed a strong focus on highlighting the link between its human rights, development, and peace and security pillars, with subsequent Secretary-Generals taking action to create enhanced coordination between the three. In recent years, reform initiatives, such as the HRuF initiative established by Ban Ki-moon in 2013, or António Guterres’s prevention agenda launched in 2016, have specifically targeted forging a closer relationship between the UN’s human rights and peace and security pillars ( Limon and Montoya 2020 ).

Against this background, it comes as no surprise that regardless of their view on institutional cooperation and integration, all interviewed Member State attachés agreed that in principle, there is a strong connection between human rights and peacebuilding. As emphasized by one diplomat, ‘you cannot have sustainable peace unless you have respect for human rights’ ( Interview with a Member State attaché, 31 March 2021 ). In every conflict situation, human rights are violated and unless these human rights violations are addressed, society will be unable to achieve peace. Member State attachés also stressed that human rights concerns and violations are usually among the root causes of conflict, meaning that ‘if you want to prevent conflict from happening, ensuring respect for human rights is critical’ ( Interview with a Member State attaché, 20 April 2021 ). This perspective is reflected in several Council resolutions and Special Rapporteur reports on Myanmar, for instance report 28/72, which highlights that, ‘historically entrenched inequalities, land and natural resource rights issues, discrimination against minorities and widespread human rights abuses’ lie at the heart of the conflict and need to be addressed to move towards sustainable peace and prevent conflict from escalating ( HRC 2015 : 11).

Beyond agreeing that, in principle, there is a clear link between human rights and peacebuilding, Member State attachés also pointed to the UN Charter which clearly specifies the mutual interaction between the UN’s three pillars, and hence suggests a close relationship between human rights and peacebuilding. Yet, despite the Charter’s acknowledgement of the intrinsic linkages between human rights and peace and security, all interviewees agreed that in reality, there is a lot of disconnection between the two pillars, with little formal interaction taking place between the HRC and the UN’s peace and security institutions. While the peace and security pillar has made some efforts to integrate human rights into its work, for example by including human rights advisors in peace operations, from the perspective of the HRC there has been little linking or contact. As one interviewee highlighted, there is a ‘massive disconnect with Geneva being seen as the human rights hub of the UN, while all peacebuilding-, conflict- and security-related issues are addressed in New York’ ( Interview with an NGO representative, 21 April 2021 ).

According to the interviewees, although this siloed approach might have the advantage of allowing people to become experts in their fields, it ultimately prevents the UN from acting holistically and makes it difficult to see the UN as an integrated system. This can have serious consequences for the organization’s actions on the ground, as illustrated by the UN’s failure in Myanmar. Following an escalation of violence against the Rohingya minority and allegations of genocide in 2017 ( UN News 2017 ), an independent inquiry into the involvement of the UN in Myanmar between 2010 and 2018 evaluated the UN’s performance in Myanmar as a ‘systemic failure’ to protect human rights and prevent atrocities that repeated the organization’s flaws in Sri Lanka ( Rosenthal 2019 : 16). According to the investigator, the UN’s failure can be attributed to its ‘fragmentation in virtual silos’ which fuelled and further accentuated the effects of alternative or competing strategies by different UN actors involved in Myanmar ( Rosenthal 2019 : 13).

Due to the siloed approach of the UN, many attachés stated they were not familiar with the UN Security Council (UNSC) or the PBC and did not know how the HRC could contribute to their work. Most of them agreed that this is highly problematic, and that more dialogue and interaction between Geneva and New York would be beneficial. More briefings about peacebuilding and the work of the PBC could facilitate the HRC’s analysis of conflict situations and help the Council in providing recommendations and assistance for states to fulfil their human rights obligations. Only a few respondents questioned the extent to which receiving more information from the PBC could benefit the HRC, given its status as a General Assembly (GA) subsidiary body.

While many diplomats agreed that a better information flow from New York to Geneva is crucial, they acknowledged that for closer interaction between the human rights and peace and security pillars to translate into practice, there needs to be a two-way exchange of information. Some interviewees believed that New York has to take the lead, since it has more ability to exercise influence than Geneva. However, they also suggested that the HRC should transmit reports produced by the OHCHR and different Council mechanisms to the UNSC and the PBC to draw attention to serious human rights violations.

Despite their impression that the overall institutional link between the HRC and the PBC or the UNSC in New York is relatively weak, most interviewees mentioned ongoing efforts to improve information-sharing. They stressed that, especially among the OHCHR and the Council’s support staff, there is greater awareness of the link between human rights, peace and security and the need to connect the dots. The High Commissioner for Human Rights is increasingly participating in Arria-formula meetings 3 ahead of the UNSC, and recent Council resolutions, such as resolution 45/31, mandate the Chair of the PBC to brief the HRC. Moreover, the HRC is increasingly calling for sharing reports with UN institutions, such as the GA and other bodies. In light of human rights violations in Myanmar, for instance, the Council sought to advance a better flow of information from Geneva to New York by transmitting the reports of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar (IIFFM) to the GA ( HRC 2019 ). It also recommended that the GA transmit reports ‘to all relevant United Nations bodies’ ( HRC 2019 : 6), thereby implying the UN’s peace and security pillar.

These examples suggest that despite the continuing siloization of human rights and peacebuilding institutions, the HRC is taking steps towards closer interaction. As will be explained in the following section, such efforts are part of broader developments in the Council, notably a stronger focus on prevention.

5.2 Breaking the silos? The HRC’s prevention agenda

When discussing progress in terms of the interaction between the HRC and the UN’s peacebuilding institutions, most interviewees referred to the Council’s prevention agenda, specifically resolutions 38/18 (2018) and 45/31 (2020). According to the interviewees, the prevention resolutions 4 —and resolution 45/31 in particular—represent a significant step towards closer integration between human rights and peacebuilding in the UN system by operationalizing linkages between the HRC and the UN’s peacebuilding structures. Unlike earlier efforts led by groups of Member States (for example the Human Rights and Conflict Prevention Caucus), 5 the prevention resolutions ‘represent the first structured, institutionalized approach of the Council’ as a whole towards peacebuilding ( Interview with an NGO representative, 21 April 2021 ).

Many interviewees stressed that, if implemented, the Council would receive information sooner, allowing it to act earlier and more proactively, rather than reactively. One interviewee also highlighted that resolution 45/31 could help strengthen both primary (that is, building human rights resilience through technical assistance and capacity-building) and secondary (that is. identifying and acting upon early-warning indicators) prevention ( Interview with an NGO representative, 7 April 2021 ). In his view, if the HRC engages in both, it can ideally act and respond to situations before they escalate and qualify as concerns of the UNSC as they become threats to peace and security.

While most interviewees welcomed a stronger focus on prevention, they also stressed that resolution 45/31 gives no clear definition of prevention, limiting itself to guidelines and suggestions. One diplomat explained that as prevention strategies need to be context-specific, it would not make sense to prescribe what prevention should entail. Another interviewee added that having no detailed definition of prevention also made it easier for states to accept the concept ( Interview with an NGO representative, 7 April 2021 ).

Interestingly, when talking about prevention, many Member State attachés seemed to use the term interchangeably with the word ‘peacebuilding’. One interviewee explicitly stated that peacebuilding is called prevention in the Council ( Interview with a Member State attaché, 7 April 2021 ). While this may be because prevention has become a term that is currently ‘en vogue’ or more accepted among delegations, it might also suggest that Member State attachés have adopted a broader understanding of peacebuilding in line with the evolution of the concept in the UN system. Throughout the past three decades, the UN’s definition of peacebuilding has slowly moved away from a narrow post-conflict focus. As explained by current Secretary-General Guterres, ‘efforts to build and sustain peace are necessary not only once conflict has broken out, but long beforehand through preventing conflict and addressing its root causes’ ( UN 2018 ). In line with this broader conception of peacebuilding that spans the entire conflict cycle, Guterres has made prevention his top priority, linking it to the concept of ‘sustaining peace’, defined in the 2016 twin resolutions by the GA (A/RES/70/262) and the UNSC (S/RES/2282) on the review of the UN’s PBA as ‘a goal and process … aimed at preventing the outbreak, escalation, continuation and recurrence of conflict’ (UN General Assembly GA 2016 : 2). Many Member State attachés referred to the Secretary-General’s prevention agenda when mentioning the HRC’s resolutions on this issue, with some clearly stating that it is also shaping efforts in the HRC. Yet, when it comes to ‘sustaining peace’, most interviewees did not believe that the twin resolutions had a strong impact on the Council’s work, highlighting that there was little knowledge on details of the sustaining peace agenda among delegations in Geneva, which again illustrates the UN’s siloization.

In terms of the use of ‘prevention’ as a synonym for ‘peacebuilding’, even though many interviewees seemed to understand peacebuilding as prevention and sometimes even stated this explicitly, interestingly, they still mentioned both terms throughout the conversations. While this could have been to respond in line with the interview questions which referred to the term ‘peacebuilding’, it might also suggest that, consciously or subconsciously, they still perceived a slight difference. Potentially, they may have considered peacebuilding as broader than prevention, with prevention simply representing one component or objective of peacebuilding.

Despite varying understandings of peacebuilding and prevention, the prevention resolutions seem to represent the HRC’s main initiative to promote closer interaction between human rights and peacebuilding. This following sections thus shed light on their operationalization, examining the Council’s current consideration of prevention and peacebuilding, the roles of different HRC bodies and mechanisms, and the link between prevention and accountability.

5.2.1 Operationalizing the Council’s prevention mandate—the HRC’s current contribution to prevention

When addressing the implementation of the HRC’s prevention mandate, several interviewees recalled that prevention was at the core of the Council’s mandate as set out by paragraph 5f of GA resolution 60/251. While acknowledging that the prevention resolutions intend to enhance the HRC’s prevention work and create explicit synergies with the UN’s peace and security pillar, they claimed that the Council was already doing a lot when it comes to prevention or peacebuilding. In the words of one interviewee:

A lot of what is done in the HRC is already peacebuilding and prevention work. The problem is not that Geneva is doing too little in the peacebuilding field, but that this information is not carried to New York or into the field ( Interview with a Member State attaché, 7 April 2021 ).

Many HRC initiatives had a strong capacity-building and technical assistance element to them, contributing to prevention by improving respect for human rights. In addition, the Council was good at evidence gathering which was relevant from a broader peacebuilding perspective in the context of transitional justice and reconciliation. Through fact-finding missions such as in Myanmar, for instance, the HRC sought to contribute to peacebuilding by ensuring accountability and justice ( HRC 2017 ). Yet, as observed by another interviewee, the Council’s contribution to peacebuilding or prevention is often not labelled as such, given that many delegations argue that peace and security have no place in Geneva and therefore do not support explicit language ( Interview with a Member State attaché, 16 April 2021 ). The Council’s resolutions on Myanmar, for instance, rarely mentioned the terms peacebuilding, peace or prevention. In terms of prevention, it was only in resolution 46/21 in 2021 that the Council explicitly addressed its prevention mandate and called for increased primary and secondary prevention efforts involving the OHCHR ( HRC 2021 ). However, in previous resolutions, the HRC had continuously stressed the importance of issues central to peacebuilding (for example freedom of opinion and expression, democracy, accountability) and preventing further human rights violations. Sometimes, the Council even openly acknowledged the link between addressing these human rights issues and achieving peace ( HRC 2013 ).

Although several interviewees supported the perception that the Council is already implicitly contributing to peacebuilding or prevention, two Member State attachés did not think that peacebuilding has been properly integrated into the HRC’s work. They claimed that the HRC is not equipped to do peacebuilding and that it is up to UN country teams to translate human rights work into peacebuilding contributions on the ground. They also suggested that the vagueness of the term ‘peacebuilding’ and a lack of understanding might lead human rights attachés to overestimate the HRC’s contribution to peacebuilding or prevention.

Despite some Member State attachés’ claims that the Council is already exercising its prevention function, there was consensus among all interviewees that the Council could do a lot better. Many interviewees criticized the fact that the Council often only acts ‘when damage has already been done’, putting in place FFMs or CoIs ( Interview with a Member State attaché, 28 April 2021 ). Preventive elements are hence mainly introduced in (post-)conflict contexts. Myanmar is a case in point where the Council mainly reacted to gross human rights violations by establishing the IIFFMM and the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM), but failed to engage in any significant preventive action ( URG 2021a ). To fully realize its prevention mandate, it would be important for the HRC to step up its capacity-building and technical assistance to support states in building resilience. Currently, resolutions under item ten directed towards technical assistance and capacity-building only make up 27.3 per cent of the Council’s financial investments ( Limon and Montoya 2020 ). Moreover, according to one interviewee, the HRC should pick up warning signs in terms of human rights violations as early as possible so it can launch diplomatic efforts (such as preventive diplomacy or good offices) to stop countries from plunging into conflict ( Interview with an NGO representative, 7 April 2021 ).

While many interviewees supported the view that the Council should assist states in fulfilling their human rights obligations through capacity-building, technical assistance and engaging in dialogue in a collaborative manner, several diplomats emphasized that the HRC has a responsibility to call out human rights violations and explained that this is one of civil society’s expectations of the Council. Their comments suggest that finding the right balance between criticism and constructive engagement is crucial—and often very difficult. In Myanmar, for instance, the HRC and the OHCHR have been described as pursuing an outspoken advocacy approach which may have complicated their ability to engage with the government to prevent further human rights abuses ( Rosenthal 2019 ). However, the quiet diplomacy approach adopted by UNDP and other development actors has been criticized for prioritizing non-intrusive measures and constructive, private engagement with the Myanmar government to secure UN access to the detriment of human rights promotion ( Rosenthal 2019 ). It follows that if the HRC wanted to engage in preventive diplomacy, it would have to find the right balance between both approaches.

5.2.2 Improving the HRC’s prevention mandate—the role of the OHCHR, the High Commissioner and the Special Procedures

Several interviewees addressed the importance of the OHCHR, the High Commissioner and the Special Procedures to operationalize the Council’s prevention mandate. As highlighted by one diplomat, the OHCHR is ahead of the Council when it comes to prevention and has developed an ‘excellent early-warning system’ which is constantly getting better ( Interview with a Member State attaché, 20 April 2021 ). Given its presence on the ground, it is in an ideal position to collect information on the human rights situation in a given context. Another advantage of the OHCHR is that it can cooperate with other UN agencies and actors in the country—including those linked to the UN’s peacebuilding structures—to exchange and share information. According to the interviewees, the information collected by the OHCHR can then feed into its reports shared with the HRC, with the High Commissioner playing a crucial role in transmitting this information to the Council.

While the OHCHR’s early-warning mechanisms and its information-sharing with the Council and other UN bodies can still be enhanced, all interviewees agreed that the High Commissioner and her office are evidently ‘trying to connect the dots … to tackle issues that relate to the link between human rights and peacebuilding in a more holistic manner’ ( Interview with a Member State attaché, 21 April 2021 ). When it comes to operationalizing the prevention agenda, the real challenge is hence the Council as such and its capacity and willingness to act upon the High Commissioner’s information. According to the URG (2021a) , in Myanmar, for instance, the Council appears to have missed its opportunity to act upon information provided by the OHCHR by failing to ‘initiate a massive programme of “upstream” resilience-building human rights support’ following the transfer of power in 2016 (ibid.: 41).

Besides the High Commissioner and the OHCHR, several interviewees also pointed to the important role of the Council’s Special Procedures concerning prevention. According to one interviewee, due to their country visits and independent nature, Special Rapporteurs ‘have the chance to compile a much more comprehensive and accurate picture of the human rights situation in a country and how that links to peacebuilding, peacekeeping and conflict prevention’ ( Interview with an NGO representative, 21 April 2021 ). Their statements and reports carry weight, and Special Rapporteurs frequently comment on conflict situations, make references to peace accords or give recommendations linked to peace processes. In Myanmar, for example, in her report of March 2015, Special Rapporteur Yanghee Lee stressed the ‘importance of addressing human rights issues during the negotiation phase, including commitments and mechanisms for accountability, equality and non-discrimination after the ceasefire is achieved’ ( HRC 2015 : 11). By visiting Myanmar and talking with representatives of different communities, the Special Rapporteur also sought to ‘deepen her understanding of the root causes of the conflict, the history of Rakhine State and the fears and suffering of its people’ ( HRC 2015 : 11). In Myanmar and elsewhere, many Special Rapporteurs are thus already dealing with peacebuilding or prevention and are seeking to understand conflict dynamics through their work. However, as highlighted by Foster (2021) , peacebuilding and prevention ‘are not systematically integrated into their work, nor are they broadly understood and explicitly recognized’ (ibid.: 15). This results in a ‘missing layer of analysis regarding the implications of violations in the conflict trajectory of the countries or communities concerned’ ( Foster 2021 : 15).

While the Council’s Special Procedures can play an important role in prevention, their full contribution depends, again, on how the information they produce and share is used by the Council, as seen in the case of Myanmar. The reports by the Special Rapporteur contained a lot of early-warning information, with many of them addressing minority rights concerns as a flashpoint that could lead to crisis and conflict or highlighting democratic backsliding ( URG 2021a ). Yet, the Council does not seem to have taken on this early-warning information and did not feed it to other institutions promptly ( URG 2021b ). In many other cases, once the mandate of a Special Rapporteur expired, the Council also did not follow-up with their recommendations which simply ‘died and became irrelevant’ ( Interview with an NGO representative, 16 June 2021 ). Another limit to the Special Procedures’ work is that the extent to which they can exercise their mandate and collect information on the ground depends on states’ willingness to cooperate, given that the Special Procedures rely on invitations by states for their country visits. In Myanmar, for example, the Special Rapporteur was denied entry to the country from 2017 onwards.

5.2.3 Improving the Council’s prevention mandate: what role for accountability?

When discussing the Council’s prevention mandate with respondents, a recurrent topic was the relationship between prevention and accountability given the HRC’s strong focus on accountability through CoIs and other instruments. Almost all interviewees stressed that accountability was integral to peacebuilding processes, arguing that without achieving justice, 6 the underlying tensions would remain and were likely to cause instability in the future. This view is also reflected in the Council’s resolutions on Myanmar. Every single resolution since 2006 has stressed the importance of accountability and called on the government to end impunity for gross human rights violations by bringing perpetrators to justice. Moreover, on several occasions, the Council, as well as the Special Rapporteur, have explicitly stressed that accountability, truth and justice are the basis for national reconciliation and long-lasting peace ( HRC 2012a ; HRC 2012b ; HRC 2016 ; HRC 2018 ). Several Member State attachés also highlighted that efforts related to accountability were among the strongest developments in the Council, with many new mechanisms being created. In Myanmar, for example, in 2017 the Council established the IIFFMM ‘to establish the facts and circumstances of the alleged human rights violations by military and security forces’ ( HRC 2017 : 3). In 2019, the IIFFMM was replaced by the IIMM which collects evidence of the most serious international crimes and violations of international law to prepare files for criminal persecution.

Most interviewees acknowledged that accountability is a sensitive topic and that in many contexts, the Council faces challenges in ensuring accountability. Non-Member State interviewees, in particular, were highly critical of the Council’s track record in relation to accountability. Nevertheless, all interviewees generally emphasized the strength of the HRC in compiling information in collaboration with the OHCHR which can then be used for accountability purposes. As to accountability being a possible point of contention between the human rights and peace and security pillars, some interviewees stated that a strong focus on justice and accountability might indeed sometimes contradict the immediate requirements of successful peace processes. However, most respondents felt that the peace versus justice debate was exaggerated and saw no contradiction between peace and accountability when it comes to cooperation between the HRC and the UN’s peace and security pillars.

Interestingly, when asked about accountability and the relation between prevention and accountability, all interviewees agreed that accountability and prevention were not in opposition to each other. However, two different views concerning the relationship between both seemed to prevail. For some Member State attachés, accountability is ‘a huge part of prevention’ ( Interview with a Member State attaché, 28 April 2021 ). Accountability mechanisms could be used to prevent a conflict from escalating further and are hence not necessarily restricted to post-conflict situations. This understanding is reflected in the HRC’s resolutions on Myanmar and seems to be shared by current and previous Special Rapporteurs. In contrast, several other interviewees argued that accountability and prevention should be seen as two elements located at opposing ends of the spectrum. For them, accountability is mainly reactionary and considered a post-conflict activity since it is needed when a situation has already escalated. In turn, this means that their definition of prevention is restricted to the beginning of the conflict cycle. For them, the relationship between prevention and accountability entails improving the effectiveness of prevention so that accountability is no longer necessary. While this could be ideal, not least because prevention is much cheaper than accountability, many attachés recognized that achieving this would be difficult. This is both because of the inability to prevent all human rights violations from occurring, even if the Council fully embraced prevention, and the challenges linked to implementing the HRC’s prevention agenda.

5.2.4 Towards prevention and a stronger focus on peacebuilding: concerns and obstacles

While most interviewees seemed to welcome the Council’s prevention resolutions and efforts to create a closer relationship between peacebuilding and human rights, not all of them shared this overly positive view. This section looks into concerns around creating closer linkages between the UN’s human rights and peacebuilding institutions and highlights obstacles that hinder the implementation of the Council’s prevention agenda.

Various Member State attachés noted that several states—especially those part of the Like-Minded Group (LMG) 7 —have strong reservations about the prevention agenda linked to concerns about state sovereignty. One interviewee working for the delegation of a LMG state summarized these concerns, stating that in their view, bringing peacebuilding into discussions at the HRC and creating stronger linkages between Geneva and New York could be seen as a threat to state sovereignty. She emphasized that the HRC should not overstep the boundaries of state sovereignty, but should assist and support states in achieving better human rights protection. While in theory, sustainable peace requires respect for human rights, her country’s delegation believed that bodies and fora should have clear mandates without too much overlap ( Interview with a Member State attaché, 31 March 2021 ). Such concerns linked to state sovereignty and mandate overlap reveal that peacebuilding is frequently associated with interventions by the UNSC. Member States worried about state sovereignty think about the prevention agenda as an indirect tool for foreign intervention. They see prevention as closely associated with the responsibility to protect (R2P), and are afraid of Western intervention, as seen in the case of Libya. They fear that prevention would lead to stronger coordination between the HRC and the UNSC, with HRC resolutions giving rise to UNSC interventions ( URG 2021a ). Yet, as highlighted by one diplomat, this argument is confusing the role of the HRC. As a GA subsidiary body, the HRC cannot mandate interventions, and prevention as understood by the HRC only involves monitoring, diplomacy and dialogue. If the Council’s prevention activities fail, it should be up to the UNSC to act, but the HRC itself is not involved in questions surrounding R2P ( Interview with a Member State attaché, 16 April 2021 ). Instead of seeking to expand the HRC’s mandate, the prevention agenda simply seeks to apply the HRC’s existing prevention tools more effectively. According to some interviewees, concerns related to sovereignty and mandate overlap are thus a weak argument, mainly advanced to distract from other political motivations and conceal some countries’ fear of losing power and control. They contribute to maintaining the existing siloization between human rights and peacebuilding institutions.

Fears that a stronger interaction between the UN’s human rights and peace and security pillars could further politicize the already very politicized HRC 8 are also closely linked to concerns about sovereignty and mandate overlap. Reflecting the concerns of members of the LMG, one Member State attaché worried that bringing peacebuilding into discussions at the HRC and establishing stronger linkages with the PBC could create the impression that the Council is instrumentalized for political purposes. Other Member State attachés of delegations strongly supporting the Council’s prevention agenda also mentioned politicization as a potential risk, albeit for reasons different from those of the LMG states. One interviewee recalled that in 2018, the US had pushed for a stronger focus on human rights in the UNSC, acting as if the HRC was irrelevant which risked ‘fully politicizing human rights’ ( Interview with a Member State attaché, 26 April 2021 ). In her view, bringing any human rights issue to the agenda of the UNSC does not do human rights a favour and means that when a human rights issue really needs to be addressed, there will be no political will to act. If the UNSC addresses human rights, it should only do so in a context-specific manner to avoid discrediting human rights. Another interviewee also added that a general risk associated with stronger interaction between the UN’s human rights and peace and security pillars could be lower human rights standards. Closer cross-pillar cooperation might require adopting more politically balanced statements which could mean moving towards less pronounced rules and a more integrated approach ( Interview with a Member State attaché, 20 April 2021 ).

In terms of the prevention resolutions specifically, many interviewees outlined that one of the key obstacles concerning their operationalization is that prevention and its impacts are hard to measure. As highlighted by one diplomat and shown by recent studies, it would be much more cost-effective to invest in the prevention of human rights violations, rather than in post-conflict accountability mechanisms ( Limon and Montoya 2020 ). However, the main problem with prevention is that you ‘inevitably have to move into speculation’ ( Interview with a Member State attaché, 19 April 2021 ). It is hard to convince capitals to focus on situations that might not look dangerous at first sight and difficult to attribute the avoidance of human rights violations to preventive action by the Council, rather than other factors. Although most Member States are aware that in any context, there will be an interplay of factors that makes drawing causal links arduous, the difficulties linked to measuring prevention are a welcome counter-argument used by states who are already sceptical of the concept.

The difficulties associated with measuring prevention are closely connected to the political will of states. Member States of the LMG see prevention as a pretext for foreign intervention and violations of national sovereignty, which significantly hampers the implementation of the Council’s prevention agenda. Lacking political will is also coupled with current geopolitical developments which have further increased polarization and mistrust in the HRC. Several diplomats noted that recent Council sessions have shown that the atmosphere in the HRC has become much more hostile, with many states adopting an obstructionist attitude. This lowers the general ambition of the HRC and means that ‘positions and differences are so fundamental that there is no time to discuss solutions because one constantly has to negotiate about principles’ ( Interview with a Member State attaché, 16 April 2021 ). Given the missing political will and the tense political climate, most interviewees thus did not expect the Council to play a strong role in prevention over the short- or medium-term, hampering prospects for increased cooperation between human rights and peacebuilding actors.

Beyond the political will of states, many interviewees also mentioned capacity concerns—both personally and institutionally—as another hurdle. The human rights pillar’s capacities are limited, as it is chronically underfunded, receiving just 3.7 per cent of the UN’s regular budget ( OHCHR 2021 ). Voluntary contributions by Member States and other donors account for nearly two-thirds of the funding for the human rights pillar ( OHCHR 2021 ), meaning that a stronger focus on prevention or peacebuilding through enhanced OHCHR monitoring, reporting and information-sharing is limited. Beyond a shortage in terms of financial resources, many Member States also do not possess the manpower to engage in more prevention- and peacebuilding-related work. Smaller delegations often struggle to create closer connections to their counterparts in New York, simply because they do not have the necessary staff. Even Member States who have the linkages and capacity frequently do not make enough use of them. In addition, several interviewees also pointed to problems related to the UN system as a whole (for example the lack of coordination and efficiency) and the overall functioning of the HRC (for example hard opposition to new concepts or ideas and the slow pace of change).

A final obstacle is terminology. One diplomat stressed that, whenever she assisted meetings or events which sought to bring human rights attachés and peacebuilding actors together, she had the impression that they were not speaking the same language:

Some peacebuilding experts consider the rule of law as separate from human rights when in fact it is the same thing, so how can we walk the same talk if we don’t have the same parameters? ( Interview with a Member State attaché, 26 April 2021 ).

Her comment suggests that to create a stronger relationship between the UN’s human rights and peace and security pillars, it is crucial to improve mutual understanding.

The analysis has provided detailed insights into the relationship between human rights and peacebuilding from the perspective of the HRC, addressing numerous aspects, developments, opportunities and challenges. This chapter distils key takeaways from the analysis and offers final reflections.

In terms of the extent to which the HRC has linked peacebuilding to its human rights work, the analysis revealed that implicitly, a lot of the Council’s work is already connected to peacebuilding and can support peacebuilding efforts. Nevertheless, explicit linkages between human rights and peacebuilding through precise references in documents or interaction with the UN’s peacebuilding institutions are extremely limited. Human rights attachés in the Council have an incomplete understanding of the work of peacebuilding institutions in New York or on the ground. As shown by the analysis, this is because the UN’s human rights and its peace and security pillars operate in silos, each with their own terminology and little interaction.

These findings confirm earlier observations made in the literature on human rights and peacebuilding by authors such as Hannum (2006a) , Kantowitz (2020) and Parlevliet (2017) . They also reflect the power of institutional practices characterized by certain vocabulary and preferences, as emphasized by Koskenniemi (2009) , and stress the need to improve mutual understanding. A first step towards increasing mutual understanding would be more engagement and coordination at the individual Member State level where in many cases, delegations in Geneva and New York share few insights and limit interaction to a bare minimum. This shows that the silos are not restricted to the UN’s institutions, but extend to individual Member States’ work.

While the interaction between the HRC and the UN’s peace and security institutions remains limited, recent years have nonetheless seen efforts to increase engagement. As highlighted by the analysis, with the prevention resolutions 38/18 and 45/31, the Council has started to examine the link between human rights and peacebuilding, and particularly its interaction with the peace and security pillar. However, although the prevention resolutions represent an important step towards closer interaction and potential cooperation with the UN’s peacebuilding institutions, the analysis also exposed considerable confusion about the term ‘prevention’. The variety of definitions of prevention prevailing in the Council can again be connected to existing silos and limited interaction between the human rights and peace and security pillars. Although not problematic per se, these different understandings can shape the implementation of the Council’s prevention agenda—and by extension, the relationship between the UN’s human rights and peacebuilding institutions. A prevailing understanding of prevention as a pre-conflict activity, for instance, risks considering accountability and prevention as separate and disconnected, thereby ignoring synergies and the contribution of accountability to prevention and peacebuilding.

Even though the analysis indicates that the prevention agenda represents a crucial opportunity to increase interaction and coordination between the UN’s human rights and its peace and security pillars, it also illustrates that translating this agenda into practice appears difficult. Concerns about sovereignty and mandate overlaps linked to using prevention as a tool for intervention loom large. Similarly, several Member State attachés expressed fears about further politicizing the HRC and mentioned political will, capacity concerns and the UN’s overall modus operandi as key obstacles. Fears that creating closer linkages between the UN’s human rights and its peace and security pillars might further politicize the HRC and hinder the promotion of human rights by lowering human rights standards seem to be related to the tension between law and politics, as identified by Koskenniemi (1990) . They implicitly reflect the view that law and politics, and hence the work of human rights institutions and peacebuilding institutions (which are associated with political processes) are distinct and should be kept separate.

Yet, despite these concerns, many Member State attachés simultaneously admitted that the HRC is already extremely politicized, thereby indirectly contradicting their earlier points. Describing the HRC as a politicized institution implicitly acknowledges that law and politics cannot be kept separate. Since human rights are an outcome or effect of politics, the work of the UN’s human rights pillar cannot exist outside the realm of politics either, confirming Koskenniemi’s perspective. It follows that both the desire to separate law from politics (reflected in fears of politicization), and the inherent connection between law and politics (seen in the existing politicization of the Council and the influence of geopolitical concerns and ambitions), seem to complicate the implementation of the HRC’s prevention agenda.

The analysis also highlighted several perspectives on what the HRC’s prevention function could look like in practice. It showed that, according to most interviewees, both primary and secondary prevention should be of key importance to the Council. Several interviewees also referred to accountability mechanisms as a prevention tool. Although most agreed that advancing the prevention agenda would be difficult, they mainly mentioned challenges and obstacles related to the concept of prevention at large, rather than assessing the feasibility of its specific components (for example improving early-warning capacities, or involving the Council in preventive diplomacy).

When it comes to primary prevention, a stronger role for the HRC could be politically feasible, since technical assistance and capacity-building resolutions under item ten are generally seen as less controversial than country-specific resolutions under item four ( Jordaan 2014 ). Yet, increased technical assistance and capacity-building would require more funding for the OHCHR and the entire UN human rights pillar—a significant challenge given the current funding gap ( OHCHR 2021 ). Regarding early-warning and secondary prevention, the analysis emphasized that the OHCHR, but also the Council’s Special Procedures, have enhanced their early-warning capacity over the past years. To further improve the human rights pillar’s early-warning capacity and its contribution to peacebuilding, a better flow and uptake of information within the human rights pillar, but also between the human rights and the peace and security pillars—in both directions—would be key. However, it seems questionable whether the Council should use its early-warning information to engage in preventive diplomacy or good offices efforts, as suggested by some interviewees. Several UN actors, including the Secretary-General’s Special Envoys, already have a mandate for preventive diplomacy. Involving the Council in preventive diplomacy could feed into concerns by Member States of the LMG that the prevention agenda leads to an expansion of the Council’s mandate. It could also stoke fears that the Council’s human rights promotion efforts and the human rights pillar’s ability to call out gross human rights violations might be weakened. Ultimately, a more systematic flow of early-warning information collected by the human rights pillar to the peace and security pillar might be more relevant than the Council taking preventive action itself.

Finally, regarding accountability, the work of the Council and its potential contribution to prevention and peacebuilding should not be underestimated. Most of the Council’s budget is currently spent on investigative mechanisms to support accountability and transitional justice. As stressed by several interviewees and Council documents, accountability should be seen as an important tool for prevention and peacebuilding. Yet, debates on preventive action in the Council still mainly focus on the pre-conflict or pre-escalation phase. While this phase is important, reflections on how the Council can strengthen its preventive mandate should not omit the HRC’s accountability mechanisms and ways in which they can be leveraged for sustaining peace and avoiding the recurrence of violent conflict.

Through its in-depth study of the HRC’s view on peacebuilding and its interaction with the UN’s peacebuilding institutions, this article has complemented the existing academic literature which mainly focuses on the link between human rights and peacebuilding from a peacebuilding perspective. Prioritizing the peacebuilding angle has led to the impression that bridging the gap between human rights and peacebuilding requires efforts by the peacebuilding field to integrate human rights rather than joint efforts to enhance further cooperation and synergies. By putting the spotlight on the human rights angle, this study has corrected this impression, emphasizing that the human rights pillar’s work and views are no less relevant. In addition, it has addressed the shortage of institutional viewpoints in the academic debate. The analysis provides a nuanced understanding of how a human rights institution perceives peacebuilding and integrates it into its work, unpacking the existing siloization, examining recent developments, and assessing opportunities to bridge the gap between both fields.

From a practical perspective, this article points to the need for increased engagement between human rights and peacebuilding attachés in Member State delegations in Geneva and New York and a better flow of information and stronger interaction between the UN’s human rights and its peace and security pillars to enhance mutual understanding. It has also highlighted opportunities to advance the implementation of the HRC’s prevention resolutions which represent an important institutional initiative to bring human rights and peacebuilding closer together.

Future research could build on this article by studying additional countries on the HRC’s agenda and conducting further interviews with states from the LMG, as well as NGO representatives or the OHCHR Secretariat, to illustrate the full breadth of perspectives reflected in the Council. Moreover, it would be important to study how recommendations by the Council translate into concrete action by the OHCHR on the ground. Additional studies should also address some of the questions raised by the analysis, for instance concerning the link between prevention and accountability. Although this article has touched on the role of accountability in support of prevention, a closer look at the Council’s accountability work in different contexts could map out the opportunities and limits of using accountability to further the Council’s prevention agenda and to enhance cooperation between the UN’s human rights and peace and security pillars.

In general, it would be interesting to complement the findings of this article with an in-depth study of the UN’s peacebuilding institutions and their linkages to the HRC, since developing recommendations for future action requires the understanding of institutional realities in both fields. However, while institutional perspectives are important, discussions about increasing interaction and cooperation between the UN’s human rights and peace and security pillars should not lose sight of how policies and strategies adopted in Geneva and New York play out in the field. They should also recognize the differences between the practical work on the ground, and the sometimes abstract, idealistic goals at headquarters-level. Nevertheless, it seems clear that as long as institutional silos persist at headquarters-level, a lack of coordination and cooperation remains a risk on the ground. Improving synergies between human rights and peacebuilding institutions in Geneva and New York is key to bridging the overall gap between human rights and peacebuilding.

The author would like to thank Dr Oliver Jütersonke for his constant guidance, support and constructive feedback throughout the research and publishing process. Thanks also to Prof. Andrew Clapham for his helpful suggestions, as well as to all interviewees for sharing their thoughts and insights.

The author has no conflicts of interest to declare that are relevant to the content of this article.

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, or publication of this article.

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16 April 2021. Interview with a Member State attaché .

19 April 2021. Interview with a Member State attaché .

20 April 2021. Interview with a Member State attaché .

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28 April 2021. Interview with a Member State attaché .

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This article uses the term ‘cooperation’ rather than ‘collaboration’, given that collaboration would imply working towards a common vision or goal, giving up one’s own goals and priorities. Cooperation is usually understood as working with others to achieve a successful, shared but independent result or objective, which is part of a larger goal or vision ( Castañer and Oliveira 2020 ; Power 2016 ). Cooperation seems to be the better fit when referring to the UN system in which institutions have distinct mandates and matches the terminology used in the literature on the subject.

The terms ‘human rights/peacebuilding actors’ and ‘human rights/peacebuilding practitioners’ are used interchangeably. Human rights and peacebuilding actors or practitioners in Geneva and New York include professionals working in the two fields at an institutional/headquarters-level, such as Member State attachés, representatives of NGOs, or UN officials. If not accompanied by the addition ‘in Geneva/in New York’, the terms ‘human rights/peacebuilding actors’ and ‘human rights/peacebuilding practitioners’ refer to all professionals working on human rights or peacebuilding, both at headquarters-level and in the field.

Informal meetings convened by a member or members of the UNSC to exchange with individuals, organizations or institutions whose work is of relevance to the UNSC ( Security Council Report 2020 ).

When using the term ‘prevention resolutions’, this article refers to resolutions A/HRC/RES/38/18 and A/HRC/RES/45/31 (building on resolution 38/18). It should be noted, however, that in 2019, the HRC adopted another resolution on prevention—A/HRC/RES/46/6 on ‘the role of prevention in the promotion and protection of human rights’. This resolution belongs to a different set of resolutions to 38/18 and 45/31 and focuses on prevention in general, as well as the contribution of the Special Procedures to prevention in particular, rather than on the Council as a whole. It is thus not the main focus of this article.

The Human Rights and Conflict Prevention Caucus is a ‘cross-regional group of states committed to placing human rights at the heart of conflict prevention and peacebuilding’ ( Kantowitz 2020 : 6). Its co-chairs are Germany and Switzerland.

Most interviewees seemed to draw a direct line between accountability and justice. It should be noted, however, that the link between accountability and justice is complex and has been subject to considerable debate. It is beyond the scope of this article to examine this relationship in more detail.

A cross-regional group incorporating 52 states, led by Russia, China and Egypt.

The politicization of the HRC is apparent in ‘states advancing unrelated political objectives, groups shielding their allies from Council scrutiny, and politically-motivated attacks on some states that have obstructed similar action being taken on other, needed, situations’ ( Friedman and Houghton 2017 : 753).

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Essay on Importance of Peace

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500 Words Essay on Importance of Peace

Introduction, the role of peace in individual development.

Peace plays a crucial role in individual development. It provides the conducive environment necessary for individuals to grow, learn, and reach their full potential. In a peaceful environment, individuals can focus on their personal development, exploring their interests, and cultivating their skills without the constant threat of violence or chaos. Peace, therefore, ensures the mental and emotional well-being of individuals, which is crucial for their overall growth.

Peace and Economic Prosperity

Economic prosperity and peace are intrinsically linked. Peaceful societies provide the stability necessary for economic activities to thrive. Businesses can plan for the long-term, invest in new ventures, and expand their operations without the fear of sudden disruption. Furthermore, peace promotes trade and international cooperation, which are vital for economic growth. Without peace, economic development is stunted, leading to poverty and a lower quality of life.

Peace as a Catalyst for Social Progress

Peace and environmental sustainability.

The importance of peace extends to environmental sustainability. In times of conflict, environmental conservation often takes a back seat, leading to environmental degradation. Peace allows societies to focus on sustainable practices, preserving natural resources, and combating climate change. Thus, peace is essential for the survival of our planet.

In conclusion, peace is not just the absence of conflict, but a condition that nurtures the holistic development of individuals and societies. It is the backbone of economic prosperity, social progress, and environmental sustainability. The pursuit of peace, therefore, should be a priority for all, as it is the foundation upon which a prosperous and sustainable future can be built. The importance of peace, as highlighted, underscores the need for individuals, communities, and nations to work tirelessly towards its establishment and preservation.

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'Atoms for Peace and Development' Essay Competition

The IAEA’s essay competition for young adults around the world is based on the IAEA’s slogan – Atoms for Peace and Development. The competition is designed to commemorate the 70th anniversary of US President Dwight D Eisenhower’s ‘Atoms for Peace’ speech delivered on 8 December 1953 to the United Nations General Assembly in New York, which laid the foundation for the establishment of the IAEA in 1957. The winning essay will posit ways the IAEA and the international community can address today’s biggest challenges within the mission of “Atoms for Peace and Development”.

Who is eligible to participate?

Anyone between 18 and 24 years of age, as of 23 October 2023, is eligible.

The competition is free to enter, and contestants are limited to one entry. Here are the terms and conditions of the competition.

How can I enter the competition?

Essays can be submitted on this page from Tuesday, 20 September 2023. The deadline is 23:59 CET, Monday, 23 October 2023.

Essays must be original and a maximum of 4000 characters. Please read the terms and conditions for further requirements.

What are the judging criteria?

Essays will be judged on:

• Style and originality
• Impact of new ideas

What is the prize?

The winning essay will be announced on the anniversary of the speech on 8 December 2023. The winner of the competition will be invited to Vienna. 

Guidance for the Essay

Since 1957, the IAEA has played a central role in delivering the benefits of the atom to humanity, while helping to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.

Essay writers can familiarize themselves with the IAEA’s mission including the IAEA Mid-Term Strategy . The IAEA has published informative videos explaining the work of the Agency.

About the IAEA and its mission

• The objectives of the IAEA’s dual mission – to promote and control the Atom – are defined in Article II of the IAEA Statute.

“The Agency shall seek to accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic energy to peace, health and prosperity throughout the world. It shall ensure, so far as it is able, that assistance provided by it or at its request or under its supervision or control is not used in such a way as to further any military purpose.”

• Read here:  https://www.iaea.org/about/overview/history  

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This article was amended on 4 December, 2023.

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Peace for Prosperity and Sustainable Development

Your excellency, Mr.Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser, Your excellency, Dr.Hassan Ibrahim Al-Mohannadi, MR.Olav Kjorven, Ladies and gentlemen,

It is an honor and a great pleasure for me to take part in the annual meeting of the Focal Points of the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations, which addresses a topical theme on the international agenda, namely peace for prosperity and sustainable development. 

The United Nations in general and the Department of Economic and Social Affairs in particular follow with great interest the discussions of the Alliance of Civilizations from several perspectives.

First, my Department assists the UN General Assembly in its consideration of the dialogue among cultures, religions and civilizations and in promoting a culture of peace.  We are encouraged by the increase in initiatives at the regional and international level to ensure that diversity is not used to artificially divide peoples, but on the contrary, for the benefit and enrichment of all.  The launching of the International Decade for the Rapprochement of Cultures (2013-2022), as decided by UNESCO and endorsed by the UN General Assembly, also contributes to this objective, and your proceedings provide a most valuable contribution to these global efforts. 

Secondly, the nexus between peace and development has gained significant importance in the global debate, including in the context of the elaboration of the post 2015 development agenda. Our assessment of the Millennium Development Goals has shown that progress on the development front cannot be achieved if peace and stability are not ensured and sustained, and vice versa.  As the Secretary-General said in his report entitled “A life of dignity for all”, peace is an enabler of development, in as much as it is a key outcome of our global development efforts.

If the post-2015 sustainable development agenda is to be truly transformative, it needs to be inclusive, people-centred and connected to the realities of societies, including their cultural dimensions. To this end, the United Nations has carried out a wide consultation process to connect global efforts to the voice of the people and to learn from their experiences. This is also the spirit in which the Open Working Group established by the General Assembly to craft a set of Sustainable Development Goals has been working.

Notably, one of the sixteen focus areas outlined by the Open Working Group, centres on peaceful and non-violent societies, rule of law and capable institutions.  Building national and local capacities are critical for addressing drivers of conflict.  Home grown local institutions can create space for dialogue within and amongst communities, build social cohesion and address tensions and grievances.

They can also promote equality, which is increasingly recognized as a key component of peaceful societies.  The voices of the youth, women, migrants, indigenous communities and other disadvantaged or marginalized groups should be sought and heard.  In that context, I commend the UN Alliance of Civilizations for its proactive efforts to involve these groups in its work and provide space for promoting dialogue with and among them, and I encourage you to deepen these efforts.   

The issues that we seek to address through the post-2015  development agenda encompass challenges faced by communities across the globe. It will be an agenda for nations and peoples across cultures and religions, but it will need to find a resonance in local cultural contexts to be effective and to bring results. 

It also requires a global partnership for development that embodies this search for equality and harmony among nations and peoples, through increased and more efficient development assistance.  The spirit of dialogue, cooperation and shared responsibility, embodied by the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations, provides an inspiring example in that context.

Given the complementarity of our programmes of work, I trust that we can act together towards an effective development agenda that promotes peace and prosperity. Through common values, such as respect, equity, harmony, and concrete manifestations of solidarity, the future of civilizations is bright.  It depends on us all to ensure that it delivers the promises that we have made.

I wish you full success in your endeavors. 

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Peace as a pre-requisite for development

Jerry White was a 20-year-old college student when, on a camping trip in Israel, he stepped on a landmine and lost his left leg. A Massachusetts native, he spent the following year in Israel, learning not just how to walk again but also how to live as a survivor in society. Thirteen years later, he won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. But this was merely the beginning. Today, Jerry and his organization Survivor Corps are setting out on a more difficult journey: to build a world where there are no victims, only survivors.

Unlike Jerry, Neichute Doulo grew up in conflict-stricken Nagaland, a region in India comprising 17 different hill tribes. The area was never fully conquered by the British and its residents have carried that proud legacy into their battle against the state of India, one of the longest running secession movements in history. Convinced that Nagaland will not have a viable future (regardless of the outcome of the conflict) without indigenous small-scale industry, Neichute created Entrepreneurs Associates (EA) to foster a new generation of socially responsible business entrepreneurs that strengthen the Naga economy and allow youth the opportunity to actively contribute towards shaping a positive future.

Jerry and Neichute are classic social entrepreneurs, people who come up with new ideas to solve intractable social problems and work relentlessly to execute them in order to achieve lasting social impact; in this case, that of preparing society to overcome the effects of violent conflict. But why is building peaceful societies so critical for economic and social development?

No Development without Peace

Peace is a pre-requisite for development as a whole because it creates an enabling environment for the fundamentals of a society’s progress: human capital formation, infrastructure development, markets subject to the rule of law, and so on. In the absence of peace, education and health structures break down, systems to provide infrastructure disintegrate, and legal commerce is crippled. Critically, peace also frees up resources, both financial and human, that would otherwise be diverted to controlling (or creating) violence.

Intuitively, we’ve long known that peace and development go hand in hand – generally speaking, the more peaceful a society, the more prosperous and stable. But we’re only now starting to understand the economic costs of violent conflict. Over the last ten years, in about 60 countries, violence has significantly and directly reduced growth – in Brazil, 5% of GDP is lost due to violence and crime; in El Salvador it is 25%.  The economist Paul Collier has shown that, on average, annual GDP growth of a conflict-affected country is reduced by 2.3% as a result of the conflict.

Moreover, there is a strong relationship between business enterprise and peace. In a 2008 worldwide study conducted by the United Nations Global Compact, 80% of senior managers felt the size of their markets grew with increasing peacefulness and 79% felt costs decreased with improving peacefulness. Yet, only 13% were aware of the metrics and tools that shed light on the peacefulness of the markets in which they operated. Businesses can play a central role in peace building, since they have an interest not just in profitability but the longer term stability of the markets in which they operate. Recognizing this, Daniel Suárez Zúñiga is developing a series of steps that the private sector in Colombia can follow in order to build peace. These include identifying ways to make business practices more transparent, resolving internal conflicts more constructively, and directing their attention to communities in ways more cognizant of social justice.

The Urgency of Now

Increasingly, peacebuilding is not just an economic necessity but a fiercely urgent one. Climate change, food and water scarcity, and the global economic crisis are all projected to exacerbate violent conflict in the years ahead as resources become scarcer, political instability rises, and inter-group tensions flare. For instance, a National Intelligence Assessment, prepared for American policymakers in 2008, predicted that the impacts of changing climate would emerge as a significant source of political instability over the next few decades, with water shortages in particular likely to create or exacerbate international tensions. Just this past July,  there were community killings over water shortages in Bhopal, India when a family was falsely accused of stealing water from a pipe. Food shortages in Kenya and Nigeria are also of international concern, with Kenya especially on everyone’s watch list given its relatively recent tryst with election violence. Indeed, the US National Academy of Sciences published fresh research in November 2009 indicating that, across Africa, violent conflict is 50% more likely in unusually warm years and is often connected to depleting food supplies. As these forces make themselves felt with ever-pressing urgency, it is critical that we learn how to live and work together peacefully to overcome these challenges to our planet.

The Social Entrepreneur’s Response

When facing a society in conflict, social entrepreneurs respond very much like they would to other social problems. They identify the root of the problem and look for the levers and jujitsu points that they need to press in order to change the nature of the system. As Jerry White got involved in the global anti-landmine campaign, he realized that the most important voice of all was missing from the debate: that of landmine survivors, the vast majority of whom are civilians. Through this crucial (and deceptively simple) insight – that the most authentic and compelling voices against destructive weapons are the civilians who are maimed and left bereft by them – Jerry introduced a new player in the global battle to rid the world of weapons such as landmines and cluster bombs. At the same time, he transformed previously disempowered victims into a powerful movement of survivors. Survivor Corps currently runs healing and rehabilitation programs in 59 countries and has successfully organized global movements to change international norms and laws regarding the use of such weapons.

Far away from the negotiating tables of the UN, Neichute Doulo, the first ever college graduate from his village in Nagaland, understood that one of the biggest drivers of the Naga conflict was that young people had few options to channel their energies towards something productive – Indian security forces did not allow groups of youth to simply hang out. Furthermore, the local economy was being taken over by immigrant businesses from other parts of India, which exacerbated Nagaland’s unemployment problem and increased the frustration and resentment felt towards the Indian state. On the other hand, Naga culture had well-developed social institutions – churches and village councils – that could play key roles in mentoring and fostering youth activity but were prone to look at business and commerce with a jaundiced eye. Believing that socially responsible businesses were the key lever to unlocking many of these problems, Neichute’s organization began to recruit a corps of Naga business leaders to pool their resources and goodwill towards helping youth entrepreneurs get off the ground, all the while mobilizing churches and village elders to play mentorship and cheerleading roles.

Today, there are 80 Ashoka Fellows like Jerry, Neichute, and Daniel working to prevent violent conflict. From their innovations, patterns and principles are emerging, insights that can point us towards the best solutions for resolving conflict in our world. Like Jerry White, many social entrepreneurs understand that those most affected by violent conflict are often the best people to lead us away from it. Like Neichute Doulo, others approach conflict from another angle altogether: creating a mutually beneficial environment outside the conflict that indirectly provides incentives to all to refrain from violence. A soon-to-be-published paper by Ryszard Praszkier and Andrzej Nowak in Columbia University’s  Journal of Peace Psychology argues that this approach, which they call the employing of “positive attractors,” is often more successful than traditional negotiation and conflict resolution processes. In other words, peace becomes a collateral benefit, sneaking up on both parties before they know it.

There is still, of course, a place for traditional conflict resolution. Indeed, many social entrepreneurs are devising innovations in the manner in which conflicts are negotiated and resolved within or between societies. But if there’s one characteristic that distinguishes the social entrepreneur’s response from that of many leading political voices, it is that you don’t build peace by carving out your ideological territories. Rather, you engage the very people affected by the conflict, harnessing and redirecting energy towards a better alternative. It requires a shift in the way we often think about conflict, a shift that one social entrepreneur likens to “kissing a tiger.”

Only by being willing to “kiss the tiger” will we ultimately reverse the predicted escalation of global conflict, replacing it with an increasing number of peaceful societies well positioned for economic growth and social development and, by extension, social enterprise.

This article was originally posted on the Ashoka Peace blog. We are reposting here as the Ashoka Peace blog has now merged with Insight on Conflict.

Roshan Paul, originally from Bangalore, India, now works with Ashoka in its Washington, D.C. global office. A graduate of Davidson College and the Harvard Kennedy School, he is especially interested in how to enable social entrepreneurship in the hardest parts of the world

Sarah Jefferson works in Ashoka’s headquarters in Washington DC, helping to conduct the global search and selection of social entrepreneurs. She received her BA from Lehigh University and her LLM in International Human Rights and Criminal Law from The University of Edinburgh, prior to joining Ashoka.

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Essay on Peace and Development

Introduction:.

Peace and development are inextricably linked, forming the foundation for a harmonious and prosperous society. Peace enables nations to allocate resources toward sustainable development, while development fosters peace by addressing the root causes of conflict. This essay explores the intricate relationship between peace and development, highlighting their symbiotic nature and emphasizing their pivotal role in creating a prosperous future.

1. Peace as a Catalyst for Development:

Peace lays the groundwork for sustainable development by creating a conducive environment for progress. In times of peace, nations can divert resources from defense and conflict resolution towards vital sectors such as education, healthcare, and infrastructure. Countries with stable governance structures and robust legal frameworks attract investments, both domestic and foreign, leading to economic growth and poverty reduction. Additionally, peace fosters social cohesion, enabling individuals to actively participate in civic and economic activities, thus promoting inclusive development.

2. Development as a Pathway to Peace:

The development acts as a catalyst for peace by addressing the underlying causes of conflict. Economic disparities, social exclusion, and lack of opportunities often fuel grievances and tensions within societies. By addressing these root causes through inclusive development, nations can reduce inequality, promote social justice, and create avenues for meaningful participation. Furthermore, development initiatives that prioritize education, healthcare, and skill development enhance human capital, leading to increased social mobility and a reduced likelihood of engaging in conflict.

3. Peacebuilding Strategies for Sustainable Development:

To achieve sustainable development, nations must prioritize peacebuilding strategies that address the underlying causes of conflict. Conflict resolution mechanisms, such as mediation and negotiation, foster peaceful coexistence, enabling nations to focus on development goals. Inclusive governance, respect for human rights, and equitable resource allocation create an enabling environment for social progress. Investing in education and skill development programs equips individuals with the tools to contribute to their societies positively. Moreover, promoting gender equality and empowering marginalized groups fosters social cohesion and mitigates potential sources of conflict.

4. Development as a Prerequisite for Lasting Peace:

Development plays a crucial role in consolidating peace and preventing the recurrence of conflicts. Post-conflict reconstruction efforts must prioritize rebuilding infrastructure, revitalizing the economy, and providing basic services to affected communities. By addressing the grievances and meeting the needs of marginalized populations, nations can foster a sense of inclusivity and prevent the resurgence of conflict. Equally important is the promotion of transitional justice mechanisms, such as truth and reconciliation commissions, which address past injustices and promote healing and reconciliation within societies.

5. The Role of International Cooperation:

International cooperation is vital for promoting peace and development globally. Nations must work together to address transnational challenges, such as climate change, terrorism, and economic inequality. Collaboration on conflict prevention, peacekeeping operations, and humanitarian assistance can help stabilize volatile regions, facilitating development and paving the way for lasting peace. Additionally, development assistance, debt relief, and fair trade policies can promote inclusive growth in developing nations, bridging the gap between the global north and south.

Conclusion:

Peace and development are inseparable elements of a prosperous and harmonious society. Peace creates the necessary conditions for development by redirecting resources towards sustainable progress, while development addresses the underlying causes of conflict, laying the foundation for lasting peace. To create a better future, nations must prioritize peacebuilding strategies, invest in inclusive development, and promote international cooperation. By embracing the interplay between peace and development, we can build a world where all individuals can thrive, contributing to a more equitable and peaceful global community.

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Peace and Development research

Peace and development research aims to understand the causes, dynamics, and effects of war, conflict, and poverty, as well as the conditions for stable and sustainable peace and development. Peace and development research at the School of Global Studies has been pioneering, and until recently had few counterparts in the rest of the world.

Peace and development research aims to understand the causes, dynamics, and effects of war, conflict, and poverty, as well as the conditions for stable and sustainable peace and development. The subject is based on two interdisciplinary and problem-oriented research traditions that are too often separated:

• Peace and conflict research – which aims to understand the causes, dynamics, and effects of war and various types of conflicts, as well as the conditions for a stable peace, security, and reconstruction.
• Development research  – which aims to understand the causes, dynamics, and effects of poverty, resource use, power imbalances, inequality, injustice, exploitation, and vulnerability.

Peace and development research at the School of Global Studies is characterized by the two traditions being integrated and combined in pioneering ways that have become increasingly common around the world.

Peace and development research are pluralistic and eclectic in terms of disciplinary, theoretical, and methodological perspectives – with open boundaries to other subjects within the department as well as to related traditions and disciplines such as geography, sociology, international political economy, political science, and cultural studies. The unifying factor is an unbending and systematic concern for peace, security, and sustainable development.

In line with the department's global profile, the research covers most corners of the world, although there is a certain overweight of specialists in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. In addition to the empirical breadth, research is global in the sense that even specific problems and phenomena are often studied from a global perspective.

About 50 professors, associate professors, postdoctoral fellows, and doctoral students from over 15 countries make up the group. A postgraduate programme, with a seemingly ever-growing number of applicants from all over the world, makes peace and development research a successful “complete” research environment.

The research group is successful in obtaining funding for a significant number of research projects focusing on a number of essential issues and problems in peace and development research, such as violence, gender repression, peace and state-building interventions, and reconstruction, reconciliation, migration, foreign aid, global and regional governance, democracy and populism, resistance, disasters, famines, and the question of whether large infrastructure projects lead to peace and development.  

Researchers, teachers and doctoral students in Peace and Development research

• Erik Andersson , senior lecturer
• Joseph Trawicki Anderson , researcher
• Bizusew Ashagrie , associate researcher
• Avyanthi Azis , doctoral student
• Jan Bachmann , senior lecturer
• Sofija Barakate , doctoral student
• Joakim Berndtsson , senior lecturer
• Christina Boger , doctoral student
• Emanuelle Brandström Arellano , doctoral student
• Juanita Esguerra Rezk , doctoral student
• Flavia Fusco , doctoral student
• Christina Hansen , associate researcher
• Malin Hasselskog , senior lecturer
• Sofie Hellberg , senior lecturer
• Dustin Johnson , doctoral student
• Hortense Jongen , researcher
• Alexander Jung , associate researcher
• Bent Jörgensen , senior lecturer
• Anja Karlsson Franck , senior lecturer
• Johan Karlsson Schaffer , senior lecturer, Assistant Head of Department
• Bart Klem , senior lecturer
• Florian Kühn , senior lecturer
• Mona Lilja , professor
• Helena Lindholm , professor
• Andréas Litsegård , senior lecturer
• Bryan Mabee , senior lecturer
• Adriano Malache , doctoral student
• Benard Musembi Kilaka , associate researcher
• Kit Narey , doctoral student
• Pernilla Nordqvist , doctoral student
• Camilla Orjuela , professor
• Swati Parashar , professor
• Camille Parguel , doctoral student
• Isabell Schierenbeck , professor
• Berndt Michael Schulz , professor and Head of Department
• Kilian Spandler , researcher
• Maria Stern , professor
• Fredrik Söderbaum , professor
• Jens Sörensen , senior lecturer
• Fisseha Fantahun Tefera , doctoral student
• Sara Van Der Hoeven , doctoral student
• Aly Verjee , doctoral student
• Paul Vrieze , doctoral student
• Arne Wackenhut , senior lecturer
• Philip Wade , doctoral student
• Linda Åhäll , senior lecturer
• Joakim Öjendal , professor

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Completed research projects

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• Political engineering? The co-production of infrastructure, political order and… (External link)
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• Social sustainability and water infrastructure and the making of the South Afri… (External link)
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Follow the trend of the times and promote peace and development in the world

Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers a speech at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations in Moscow, capital of Russia, March 23, 2013. [Photo by Ding lin/Xinhua]

Follow the Trend of the Times and Promote Peace and Development in the World

Speech by H.E. Xi Jinping

President of the People's Republic of China

At Moscow State Institute of International Relations

23 March 2013

Dear Mr. Anatoly Vasilyevich Torkunov, Rector of Moscow State Institute of International Relations

The Honorable Olga Golodets, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation,

Dear faculty members and students,

I am very pleased to come to the beautiful Moscow State Institute of International Relations today and meet so many faculty members and students here.

Moscow State Institute of International Relations is a prestigious school of world-renown, boasting an outstanding faculty and distinguished alumna. I wish to express my warm congratulations on the remarkable achievements you have made in the various fields.

Russia is a friendly neighbor of China. My current visit to Russia is the first leg of my first overseas trip since becoming China's president. It is also my second visit to your beautiful and richly endowed country in three years. Yesterday, I had fruitful talks with President Putin and together we attended the launch of the "Tourism Year of China" in Russia.

The month of March marks the return of spring, a season of sowing and great renewal. As a popular Chinese saying goes, he who hopes for a good year starts planning and working in spring. China and Russia, having seized the wonderful season to plough and hoe not only for our bilateral relations but also for peace and development in the world, will surely reap a bumper harvest to the benefit of our two peoples and those of other countries around the globe.

The Institute of International Relations, as an institution of higher learning specialized in the study of international issues, surely pays a close attention to international landscape and can appreciate even more keenly the enormous changes the world has gone through over the past decades. Indeed, We live in a time of kaleidoscopic changes that make the world constantly different.

It is a world where peace, development, cooperation and mutual benefit have become the trend of the times. The old colonial system has since disintegrated, confrontation between blocs as during the Cold War has long gone. No country or group of countries can dominate world affairs single-handedly.

It is a world where emerging markets and developing countries in their large numbers have embarked on the track of fast development. Billions of people are moving towards modernization with quickened pace. Multiple growth engines have emerged in regions across the world. And the international balance of power continues to evolve in a direction favorable for peace and development in the world.

It is a world where countries are linked with and dependent on one another at a level never seen before. Mankind, by living in the same global village within the same time and space where history and reality meet, have increasingly emerged as a community of common destiny in which every one has in himself a little bit of others.

And it is a world where mankind are beset with numerous difficulties and challenges. They range from continued underlying impact of the international financial crisis, an apparent upsurge of all kinds of protectionism, incessant regional hotspots, rising hegemonism, power politics, and neo-interventionism, to interlaced traditional and non-conventional security threats, such as arms race, terrorism and cyber-security. Upholding world peace and promoting common development remain a long and uphill battle.

We hope that the world becomes a better place. We have every reason to believe that it will. At the same time, we are soberly aware that while the future is bright, the path leading to it can be tortuous. Chernyshevsky once wrote, "The path of history is not paved like Nevsky Prospekt; it runs across fields, either dusty or muddy, and cuts across swamps or forest thickets." Yet as shown by humanity's progress, history always moves forward along its own laws despite twists and turns and no force could hold back its rolling wheels.

The tide of the world is surging forward. Those who submit to it will prosper and those who resist it will perish. Keeping up with the times, one can not live in the 21st century while thinking the old fashion, lingering in the age of colonial expansion or with a zero-sum mentality of the Cold War.

In the face of the profoundly changed international landscape and the objective need for the world to rally closely together like passengers in the same boat, all countries should join hands in building a new type of international relations featuring cooperation and mutual benefit, and all peoples should work together to safeguard world peace and promote common development.

We stand for the sharing of dignity by all countries and peoples in the world. All countries, irrespective of size, strength and wealth, are equal. The right of the people to independently choose their development paths should be respected, interference in the internal affairs of other countries opposed and international fairness and justice maintained. Only the wearer of the shoes knows if they fit or not. Only the people can best tell if the development path they have chosen for their country suits or not.

We stand for the sharing of the fruits of development by all countries and peoples in the world. Every country, while pursuing its own development, should actively facilitate the common development of all countries. There can not be an enduring development in the world when some countries are getting richer and richer while others languishing in prolonged poverty and backwardness. Only when all countries achieve common development can there be better development in the world. Such practices as beggaring-thy-neighbor, shifting crisis on others and feathering one's nest at the expense of others are both immoral and unsustainable.

We stand for the sharing of security by all countries and peoples in the world. Countries should make concerted efforts to properly address the issues and challenges in their face. As challenges often take on global dimensions, it is all the more necessary for countries to take on them cooperatively, turning pressure into motivation and crises into opportunities. Confronted with complex threats to international security, fighting alone or fighting with a blind faith in the use of force will not get one anywhere. The only right solution lies in cooperative security, collective security and common security.

As the trends of world multipolarity and economic globalization deepen and those of upholding cultural diversity and applying information technology in social life continue to make progress, mankind have never been better blessed for taking strides towards peace and development. And win-win cooperation provides the only practical way to achieve such a goal.

The destiny of the world must be left in the hands of the people of all countries. Matters that fall within the sovereign rights of a country should be managed only by the government and people of that country. And affairs of the world should be addressed by the governments and peoples of all countries through consultation. Herein lies the democratic principle in the handling of international affairs which should be universally observed by the international community.

Last November, the Communist Party of China held its 18th National Congress. According to the blueprint it mapped out for the country's development in the next period, China will double its 2010 GDP and per capita income for both urban and rural residents by 2020, complete the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects when the Party celebrates its centenary, and turn itself into a modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced and harmonious when New China marks its centennary. At the same time, we are soberly aware that as a large developing country with over 1.3 billion people, China will encounter still greater and tougher challenges on the road to progress, which calls for sustained and strenuous efforts on our part if the goals as identified are to be reached.

The great renewal of the Chinese nation has been the grandest dream of the Chinese people since the coming of modern times. We call it the Chinese dream, with prosperity for the country, renewal of the nation and happiness for the people as its fundamental elements. The Chinese have always been a peace-loving nation. But they were subjected to a century of untold sufferings as a result of repeated foreign aggression and domestic turmoil. They know too well the value of peace, and the necessity to build the country and improve the people's livelihood in a peaceful environment. China is unswervingly committed to the path of peaceful development, dedicating itself to an open, cooperative and win-win development, while calling on all countries to follow the path of peaceful development. China always pursues a defense policy that is defensive in nature, not engaging in arms race nor posing a military threat to any country. By growing stronger through development, China will bring about more opportunities, instead of threats, to the world. The Chinese dream which we cherish deeply will not only serve the Chinese people but benefit the people throughout the world.

It is heartening to see that as each other's largest neighbor, China and Russia enjoy a high complementarity in development strategy. Russia has set the goal of reaching or approaching the level of developed countries by 2020 in terms of per capita GDP and is accelerating its advance in material development. We sincerely wish you success in achieving your goals as soon as possible. A strong and prosperous Russia is in the interests of China and fully conducive to peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific and the world at large.

The relationship between China and Russia is one of the most important bilateral relationships in the world. It is also the best relationship between major countries. A strong and high performance relationship like this not only serves the interests of our two countries but also provides an important safeguard for maintaining international strategic balance as well as peace and stability in the world. With our persistent efforts over the past 20 years and more, we have established a comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination, a relationship that fully accommodates each other's interests and concerns and delivers tangible benefits to the two peoples. We have resolved the boundary issues left from history once and for all and signed the Treaty of Good-neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation Between the People's Republic of China and the Russian Federation, thus laying a solid foundation for the long-term growth of China-Russia relations.

At present, both China and Russia are at a crucial stage of national renewal, as their relations have entered a new period characterized by mutual provision of vital development opportunities and mutual serving as primary cooperation partners. To ensure continued growth of China-Russia relations under the new conditions, we need to work still harder in the following areas:

First, stay firmly committed to building a forward-looking relationship. That China and Russia should live in everlasting amity and never be enemies is the shared aspiration of the two peoples. We need to stand high and look far, working on our bilateral relations with a holistic approach. President Putin once said, "Russia needs a prosperous and stable China, and China needs a strong and successful Russia as well." I could not agree more. By achieving common development, we will give ever broader space to our comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination and provide positive energy to the international order and global systems in their movement toward greater fairness and rationality. China and Russia will forever be good neighbors, good friends and good partners, taking concrete actions to firmly support each other on respective core interests, on respective development and renewal, on following the development paths suited to respective national conditions and on doing a good job with respective affairs and endeavors.

Second, stay firmly committeed to cultivating a cooperative and mutually-beneficial relationship. China and Russia differ in realities and national conditions. By engaging in close cooperation and drawing on each other's strengths to make up for respective shortcomings, we can show to the world that one plus one can be greater than two. Last year, our two way trade reached US$88.2 billion and there were 3.3 million visits exchanged between our peoples. These figures give full expression to the enormous potential and broad prospects of China-Russia relations. Bilateral cooperation in energy has deepened steadily. The China-Russia oil and gas pipelines have since replaced the "Ten Thousand Li Tea Route" of the 17th century as the new "arteries of the century" connecting the two countries. Right now, we are looking actively to bridge the development strategies of our respective countries and regions in an effort to create still more converging interests and growth areas in bilateral cooperation. We will expand the scope of bilateral cooperation from the energy and resources sector to investment, infrastructure, hi-tech, finance and other areas and from commodity trade to joint R&D and joint production so as to elevate the result-oriented cooperation between the two countries.

Third, stay firmly committed to cementing the friendship between the two peoples. Amity between the peoples holds the key to relations between countries. It is the people's deep friendship that drives state-to-state relations forward. Here, I want to share a couple of stories about the mutual support and mutual help between our peoples. During the Anti-Japanese war, Captain Gregory Kurishenko of the Soviet Union came to China and fought side by side with the Chinese people. He once said emotionally, "I am feeling the Chinese people's sufferings as if I am feeling the sufferings of my own motherland." He died heroically on the Chinese soil. The Chinese people never forget their hero. An ordinary Chinese mother and her son have kept vigil at his tomb for more than half a century. In 2004, China invited some of the children traumatized in the Beslan school hostage incident to China for rehabilitation treatment. The children received meticulous care. Alan, the head doctor from the Russian side, said to the Chinese side, "Your doctors have given our children such great help and they will always remember you." When China's Wenchuan was hit by a devastating earthquake in 2008, Russia raced against time to extend a helping hand and invited the children from disaster areas to Russia's Far East for rehabilitation. Three years ago, I saw with my own eyes at the Ocean Children Center in Vladivostok the loving care Russian teachers showered on our children. As we Chinese often say, love knows no borders. The Chinese children have learned for themselves love, friendship and kindness of the Russian people. There are a lot more touching stories like these and together they keep the tree of our friendship nourished, strong and evergreen.

As countries both with time-honored history and splendid cultures, cultural and people-to-people exchanges between us play an irreplaceable role in advancing the friendship between the two peoples. Ancient Chinese philosophers such as Confucius and Laozi are well known in Russia while the Russian culture left a deep mark on the older generations of Chinese revolutionaries. Even people of my age have read many Russian classic masterpieces. In my youth, I read works of such Russian literary giants as Pushkin, Lermontov, Turgenev, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy and Chekhov and savoured the powerful charm of Russian literature. It is no wonder that cultural exchanges between China and Russia enjoy a fertile ground.

The youths are the future of a country and the future of the world. They also hold in their hands the future of China-Russia friendship. During this visit of mine, President Putin and I jointly announced that China and Russia would host the Year of Youth Friendship and Exchange in 2014 and 2015 respectively. On the Chinese side, we will invite a delegation of Russian university students, including students of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, to China. I see in you some of the best and brightest of the young generation in Russia. I hope that more and more young people from both countries would take over the baton of China-Russia friendship by actively involving themselves in the cause of friendship.

As a Russian proverb goes, "Big ships sail far." We also have lines of ancient poem which read, "A time will come to ride the wind and cleave the waves, I'll set my cloudlike sail to cross the sea which raves." I am convinced that with the joint efforts of the governments and peoples of our two countries, China-Russia relations will continue to press ahead, overcoming difficulties, bringing more benefits to the two peoples and making even greater contribution to peace and development in the world.

Center for Peace and Development Studies

CPDS serves as a center for advanced research and an information exchange on PEACE, DIPLOMACY, and DEVELOPMENT. The Center offers objective, critical and non-partisan perspectives in four main areas: Global Governance, Human Security, Political Violence and Terrorism, and Peace and Security.

CPDS seeks to develop research and expertise on issues involving human security, counter-terrorism , governance and peace and security, offer seminars and training, organize workshops, facilitate visits by international scholars for exchange of information and knowledge. Researchers worldwide are welcome to share their knowledge and expertise with CPDS. The center offers to take research queries and provide answers from a panel of international experts in the related fields.

CPDS invites scholarly contributions toward the advancement of analysis and understanding its focal areas in its soon to be launched refereed e-journal Peace and Development Review.