Alain Rouy has been elected Vice President of IPB in October 2022 and is a former board member (2019-2022).
Peace activist, representative of french Appel des Cent against nuclear weapons and currently national secretary of Mouvement de la Paix, executive secretary of International Association of Educators for Peace and IAEP-delegate at UNESCO, co-chair French Teachers for Peace (Enseignants pour la Paix).
The World Peace Congress organised by the International Peace Bureau (IPB) and the International Catalan Institute for Peace (ICIP) ended this Sunday in Barcelona after three days of conferences, workshops, and cultural events.
Under the title “(Re)imagine the world. Action for peace and justice”, more than 2,500 people took part in this hybrid congress, with activities in Barcelona. The events took place in the Centre of Contemporary Culture (CCCB) and the Blanquerna – Universitat Ramon Llull, and broadcast on the Internet.
1,000 people attended to the congress in person, while 1,500 attended online. Participants came from 126 countries. In Barcelona, activists from 75 countries including South Korea, the United States, Afghanistan, India and Mongolia, were also able to listen to the speeches covering issues such as nuclear disarmament, climate justice, racism and the rights of indigenous peoples.
As IPB Executive Director, Reiner Braun, explains, this is the biggest international peace event of this year. “The congress was a great success. We got a great support from the city of Barcelona and the president of the government of Catalonia. From my point of view, it was the right congress in this difficult political time and in the right place because we got a big support from the city. The IPB will definitely continue working on the way of more engagement for peace after the congress”.
Jordi Calvo, IPB Vice-President and member of the local committee, affirms: “At the congress we have seen that the peace movement is not alone. The large participation of feminist, anti-racist and global justice movements in the conferences and seminars shows that pacifism is more alive than ever, but that it needs to adapt to new narratives and generations. After this congress, the Catalan, Spanish, European and global peace movement is stronger”
The congress started on Friday 15 October with an event attended by the President of the Generalitat Pere Aragonés and the Mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau. The opening session was attended by prominent names such as British politician Jeremy Corbyn and ICAN Executive Director Beatrice Fihn. The open plenary can be accessed here.
Sean MacBride Award
Each year, IPB gives the Sean MacBride Peace Prize to an individual or organisation that has done outstanding work for peace, disarmament and/or human rights. This year the award was awarded to Black Lives Matter for the movement’s dedication and work to create a world where the lives of black people can thrive.
On the second day of the World Peace Congress in Barcelona, Rev Karlene Griffiths Sekou, community minister, academic and activist, and director of Healing Justice and International Organizing received the award on behalf of the social movement.
“Our movement is not a moment in time, it is a constant reminder to eradicate white supremacy, change racist policies and overthrow oppressive systems”.
“We thank the International Peace Bureau for their recognition and thank the community leaders, local activists and ancestors, who fuel the relentless will of our movement and inspire us to re-imagine a world for our children and for future black generations,” she added.
Photos from the congress:
You can access the photos of the congress via this link.
Press Release and final declarations:
You can find all the press releases and the final declarations here.
The IPB was founded in 1891-92, as a result of consultations at the Universal Peace Congresses, large gatherings held annually to bring together the national peace societies that had gradually developed, mainly in Europe and North America, from the end of the Napoleonic Wars onwards.
Continue reading “Over a century of Peace-Making”
IPB lost a strong and courageous fighter for peace – Goran Bubalo died on June 9th 2020. After a brief but serious illness, our friend in peace died. IPB is deeply saddened by this loss.
Goran Bubalo was an activist deeply committed to peace every single day of his life. He was the chair of the Bosnian Network for Building Peace, an active member of IPB. With his great help, we managed to arrange the international Sarajevo Peace Event in 2014. We were in contact with him until last month.
We will never forget him! Goran, we will continue working intensively for peace without you, but in your spirit.
A-Young Moon has been re-elected as IPB council member in October 2022.
She is the founder and representative of PEACEMOMO, a non-profit, education specialist organization since 2012. PEACEMOMO translates the language of peace activism into the public education curriculum in order to flatten peace activism to be the default for all. PEACMOMO highlights creating non-teaching, mutually dialogical relations in learning sites and runs regular ToT (training of trainers) programmes to foster transformative peace educators. Continue reading “A-Young Moon – Council Member”
Sara Medi Jones has been re-elected as IPB council member in October 2022.
She has worked for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) for the past seven years as a campaigner.During this time she has organised numerous demonstrations, including the UK’s largest anti-nuclear protest in a generation in 2016. She has also been involved with several of London’s anti-Trump marches and events. Sara is responsible for CND’s briefings and reports and regularly writes articles on anti-nuclear issues. She has represented CND at numerous high-level events, including UN conferences. Continue reading “Sara Medi Jones – Council Member”
Chloé Meulewaeter has been re-elected as IPB council member in October 2022. She is a collaborator of the Centre Delàs of Peace Studies and a PhD student in Peace Culture (UGR, Spain). Continue reading “Chloé Meulewaeter – Council Member”
Yurii Sheliazhenko has been elected as IPB council member in October 2022.
Yurii is the Executive Secretary of the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement, board member at the European Bureau for Conscientious Objection, and at the World BEYOND War. Furthermore, he was lecturer and research associate at the Faculty of Law, KROK University in Kyiv, Ukraine, where he defended his PhD dissertation in law in December 2021. He also obtained master’s degree in law in 2016 as well as a master’s degree in Mediation and Conflict Management in 2021. Yurii authored tens of scholarly articles, taught courses in constitutional and human rights, comparative and international law, legal theory and history. Also, he is public intellectual, blogger, and human rights defender.
Ann Wright has been elected as IPB council member in October 2022.
Ann is a retired US Army Colonel and a US diplomat who resigned in 2003 in opposition to the US war on Iraq. As a US diplomat she had served in US Embassies in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Afghanistan and Mongolia. Since her resignation, she has been working with many organizations that work for peace in our world including Veterans For Peace, CODEPINK: Women for Peace, Peace Action, No to NATO and the International Peace Bureau. She writes extensively and speaks at events around the world. Furtheromre, Ann has co-authored the book “Dissent: Voices of Conscience.”
Continue reading “Ann Wright – Council Member”
On April 25, 2020, in the midst of the Covid-19 crisis, over one thousand activists across the peace, climate, and social movements gathered online to take part in the first ever virtual World Conference: Abolish Nuclear Weapons | Resist and Reverse Climate Change | For Social and Economic Justice. Continue reading “Report: Online World Conference 2020”
