Written by Colin Archer, IPB Secretary-General (retired)
This article is based on a chapter contributed to the 3rd edition of Nuclear Weapons and International Law, ed. Geoffrey Darnton, 2020, and on a chapter contributed to the volume (Nov. 2020) edited by the Global Campaign on Military Spending, entitled Military Spending and Global Security: Humanitarian and Environmental Perspectives.
The IPB was founded in 1891. Details of its work in the decades prior to 1990 can be found:
- in these two detailed chapters (NB. full texts available on request from the IPB Secretariat);
- in some of the works in the bibliography below; and
- elsewhere on the IPB website.
The end of the Cold War ushered in a particularly complex decade. Loss of peace movement momentum due to the end of East-West confrontations and the immediate nuclear threat was accompanied by a diversification of focus. Human rights, social development, gender, environment and other causes all absorbed activist energies and favoured new coalitions and political formations. These issues were highlighted by a remarkable series of major UN Summits, culminating in the Millennium Declaration and ultimately the Sustainable Development Goals (2015).
Continue reading “A short history of the International Peace Bureau: 1990 – 2017”