26 April 2021
170 Civil Society Organizations from 33 different countries demand that governments around the world drastically reduce their military expenditures, which reached almost 2 trillion $ in 2020, a 2.6% increase over the previous year.
2021 Activities
Webinar Report: Roadmap to End Nuclear Sharing
The first webinar on the “Roadmap to end nuclear sharing” on March 29, 2021, was a real success, with 87 people from all over Europe, and some from other continents, taking part. Our aim was to develop interactive connections and a common strategy for European peace and disarmament activists to approach governments.
If you were unable to attend, you can now watch the video here on the IPB´s YouTube Channel.
To learn more about Nuke Free Europe´s network appeal and call for actions visit: www.nukefreeeurope.eu
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Invitation: Nuke Free Europe Open Meeting
Discussing Actions & Activities in 2021 for a Nuclear Weapons Free Europe
April 27th, 2021 06:00 PM CEST
To learn more about the networks appeal and call for actions visit: www.nukefreeeurope.eu
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Seán MacBride Peace Prize Ceremony 2020/21
On March, 17th 2021, the Séan MacBride Peace Prize has formally been awarded to Terumi Tanaka, Convenor of the Promotion Committee of the 2020 award-recipient ‘International Signature Campaign in Support of the Appeal of the Hibakusha’. During this first online award ceremony featuring a warm welcome from IPB Co-President Lisa Clark and Rieko Asato from the IPB Board/Gensuikyo, moderation by IPB Ex. Director Reiner Braun and an expressive and extremely timely Laudation by IPB CO-President Philip Jennings, Terumi Tanaka and the Signature Campaign’s Leader Mitsuhiro Hayashi vividly illustrated the central importance the struggle against nuclear weapons still occupies in our world today – for the Hibakusha, for the Japanese people and for every world citizen.
Find out more about the Ceremony here.
Report: IPB at ‘Cooperation for Peace’ Annual Conference
On Friday, 26th and Saturday, 27th of February 2021, the IPB supported the German initiative Kooperation für den Frieden (Coopeation for Peace), in collaboration with Welt ohne Waffen (World without Weapons) Weimar and the Rosa-Luxemburg Foundation, hosting their Annual Conference ‘Für ein Europa, das Frieden wagt’ (‘For a Europe daring Peace’).
Cooperation for Peace encompasses and association of more than 50 initiatives and organizations of the German peace movement. Founded in 2003, they strive for the development of peaceful methods and strategies for conflict prevention and resolution, denouncing politics of violence and coercion.
Albeit held in a fully virtual format acknowledging the exceptional circumstances we are currently living and working under, the conference featured everything a great gathering of passionate peace activists ought to display: Opening music, moving speeches, passionate panelists, skilled exposés, intriguing discussions, and of course as much socializing as can possibly be cramped into the tight but rigorously rich schedule.
Dr. Klaus Dörre from Jena University impressively demonstrated in eight theses the connection between peace, climate change and the Sustainable Development Goals. The subsequent panel discussion with, among others, IPB-Board member Alain Rouy (Mouvement de la Paix, France) and Yuri Sheliazhenko (War Resisters International. Ukraine) sketched out intriguing perspectives and proposals regarding Europe’s ongoing militarization.
Saturday morning, again moderated by Torsten Schleip (Friedenszentrum Leipzig e.V.) and IPB Executive Director Reiner Braun, started with the very holistic European security assessment from a Russian perspective by Vladislav Belov, European Institute Moscow. Straight forward, Ralf Becker (Coordinator initiative ‘Sicherheit neu denken’/’Rethinking Security’) explained the five pillars of a European civil security concept based on the sustainable development of EU-neighbor states and an economic and security partnership with Europe.
Imagining a ‘European Peace Project’ could have been the headline of the following session featuring Alain on the French security ideology and practice-paradox, Yuri on peace with and within the European Union, Willy van Ooyen (Bundesausschuss Friedensratschlag) on collective security and Dr. Christine Schweitzer (Bund für Soziale Verteidigung) calling for a diverse, inclusive ‘peace from below’. Five different breakout sessions on topics from disarmament to social movements and trans-border cooperation, new humanitarian politics in Europe and feminist perspectives allowed for dynamic conversations and interactive sharing of knowledge and experiences.
Closing with remarks from Reiner, Renate Wanie (Kooperation für den Frieden/Werkstatt für Gewaltfreie Aktion) and Jens-Peter Steffen (Co-Speaker Cooperation for Peace) two days of intense exchange drew to a close. Despite minor technical hick-ups, the overly positive feedback from the no less than 100 participants reassured us of the importance that peace work carries now when physical distance easily amplifies mental and ideological disconnect, motivating us to keep the ball rolling and stay engaged even when this means spending more time in front of a screen than we would all wish to.
Many thanks to all the speakers, organizers, moderators and participants who made this event such a great experience and huge success! See you (hopefully) next year, live and in colour!
You can find the conference’s full programme here. Learn more about ‘Kooperation für den Frieden’ and the conference here.
Speeches from US-China Round Table
On 18 February 2021, in preparation for the Second IPB World Peace Congress in Barcelona this fall, IPB held a roundtable discussion on US-China Relations, featuring Dr. Joseph Gerson of the US and Prof. Wang Danning of China, with commentators from across Asia. Below are the texts of the two speeches as well as the biographies of the speakers.
Celebrating the Entry Into Force of the TPNW
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On Friday, January 22nd, 2021, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) officially entered into force, roughly three years after its adoption by the UN Conference tasked with negotiating a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons. For the IPB, this day is a landmark win in the struggle to rid the world of the existential threat posed by nuclear weapons. Thanks to the efforts of numerous civil society organizations, experts, and peace advocates around the globe, and the tremendous coordination efforts of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), the world has just gotten one step closer to a nuke-free future.
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World Social Forum 2021 Peace Day
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Programme 24th January 2021: Thematic Space “Peace and War”: geopolitics, militarization, refugees, migration
prepared by Leo Gabriel, Kristine Karch, Reiner Braun, and Eskil Grav
Download the complete Peace Day programme here..
Registration links will be published soon on the webpages of WSF (www.wsf2021.net), IPB (ipb.org) and No to NATO (no to NATO.org). Links to the livestream and participation will be published shortly before the event on the IPB and No to NATO webpages.
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