Timeline

Sustaining Peace

QUNO envisions a world where the transformative nature of human rights is integrated into efforts to sustain peace, making policies and practice more coherent, and peace more durable.
January 2024

Exploring Special Procedures to Enhance Conflict Prevention

‘‘Full compliance with human rights is the best antidote to the inequalities, unaddressed grievances and exclusion which are often at the root of instability and conflict,” said Volker Türk, the United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights. 

The Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO) shares this understanding of the inextricable link between human rights and peace. The protection and promotion of human rights is essential for achieving sustainable peace and in turn sustaining peace can help promote and protect human rights and create just and equitable societies. 

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November 2023

Connecting Geneva and New York for human rights approaches to conflict prevention

Florence Foster moderating a panel discussion during Geneva Peace Week meets New York

“In the current multidimensional crisis, the social contract between governments and their people and between groups in society is eroding. The transformational potential of human rights in their entirety – economic, social and cultural rights as well as civil and political rights – are part of a just and sustainable solution to such problems.”      

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October 2023

Sustaining peace needs intersectional approach at United Nations

Florence Foster from QUNO Geneva participates at Geneva Peace Week 2023 panel

Peacebuilding has been viewed mainly as post-conflict intervention at the United Nations (UN), but the Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO) believes peace work is needed throughout the conflict cycle.

QUNO takes a human rights-based approach to achieve sustaining peace. Focusing on human rights towards peacebuilding can further reduce the risk of violent conflict, end hostilities through inclusive processes and move towards reconciliation and just recovery. 

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September 2023

Arms industry tactics avoid human rights responsibility

The irresponsible role of the arms industry needs to be addressed as part of preventing violence and human rights violations committed with firearms globally.

This was part of the Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO) Peace & Disarmament programme’s recent response (also see attachment below) to an analysis of the arms industry by the United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights.

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April 2023

QUNO Geneva leads on human rights and conventional arms discussion for the Geneva Consultations on the New Agenda for Peace

QUNO Geneva, as a founding member of the Geneva Peacebuilding Platform (GPP), supported  consultations with relevant stakeholders in Geneva on the New Agenda for Peace Process (NA4P), which was organized in partnership with the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs on March 16th and 17th.

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March 2023

QUNO Geneva gives recommendations to enhance Special Procedures’ contributions to sustaining peace at the 52nd Session of the Human Rights Council

QUNO Geneva’s Peace and Disarmament programme delivered a statement under Item 5 of the Human Rights Council 52nd Session to welcome the report on the activities of Special Procedures (A/HRC/52/70).

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November 2022

Geneva Peace Week 2022 (part 3/3) - QUNO moderates High Level Panel on ‘Rights, Inequalities and Peace: navigating tensions, finding opportunities”

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development explicitly combines the promotion of peaceful, just, and inclusive societies in its Goal 16, which ‘seeks to promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels.’

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November 2022

Geneva Peace Week 2022 (part 2/3) - QUNO continues to spotlight human rights, social and economic justice, and political participation as foundational to sustainable peace

As one of the founding organizations of the Geneva Peace Platform (GPP), QUNO Geneva continues to play a role in the development of the week’s areas of focus, and on bringing attention to the relationship between human rights and sustainable peace.

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November 2022

Geneva Peace Week 2022 (part 1/3) - QUNO Geneva believes ‘Peace is Possible’ at the Opening Ceremony

The Geneva Peace Week 2022 took place from 31st October to 4th November 2022. It is a leading annual forum in the international peacebuilding calendar where Geneva-based organizations and their international partners come together to share knowledge and practices on a diverse range of topics relating to the promotion of peace across contexts and disciplines. This year’s overarching theme was ‘Peace is Possible’.

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November 2021

QUNO Geneva hosted the event ‘Sustaining Peace and Human Rights - Making it work at the country level through engaging UN Special Procedures’ at Geneva Peace Week 2021

On the second day of Geneva Peace Week, QUNO, Dag Hammarskjold Foundation, Interpeace, the Office of the High Commissioner for HUman Rights (OHCHR), and the UN Peacebuilding Support Office (PBSO) held an event on ‘Sustaining peace and human rights: Making it work at the country level through engaging UN Special Procedures’.

 

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November 2021

Lindsey Fielder Cook speaks from COP26 at the Opening Ceremony of Geneva Peace Week 2021

At the Opening Ceremony of Geneva Peace Week 2021, our Representative for Climate Change, Lindsey Fielder Cook was part of the speaker panel to discuss ways forward for environment, climate change and peace. 

Lindsey joined live from COP26 to implore the critical role of global, regional and local climate action to avoid catastrophic climate change, while emphasising that “climate change is symptomatic of a greater challenge of how to live sustainably and justly on earth.” 

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September 2021

QUNO Geneva presents its statement at the 48th Human Rights Council Session encouraging further exchange between the Peacebuilding Commission Chair and the Human Rights Council

QUNO Geneva addressed the Human Rights Council (HRC) under Item 3 regarding the follow-up to resolutions on the contribution of the HRC to the prevention of human rights violations (HRC 38/18 and HRC 45/31).

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March 2021

Sustaining Peace: A report on how human rights can help

As part of long-term work on integrating human rights and sustaining peace, QUNO has written a public report entitled ‘Sustaining Peace: How can human rights help? 2016 – 2020 retrospective.’ The report builds on learnings from a joint project with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), which focused on Operative Paragraph 11 of the 2016 Sustaining Peace resolutions.

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November 2020

Geneva Peace Week 2020

QUNO is proud to be one of the institutional partners behind the Geneva Peacebuilding Platform, the organisation that runs Geneva Peace Week – a leading international peacebuilding forum. This year’s Geneva Peace Week was delivered in a fully online format and featured three events co-organised by QUNO.

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June 2020

QUNO speaks at the resumed 43rd session of the Human Rights Council

QUNO was pleased to deliver a statement at the resumed 43rd session of the Human Rights Council on 15 June in Geneva, as part of the Item 5 General Debate on Human Rights Bodies and Mechanisms. The statement, delivered by Programme Assistant for Peace and Disarmament, Cara Priestley, welcomed the rapporteurs’ report on the contribution of the Human Rights Council to the prevention of human rights violations, pursuant to Resolution 38/18.

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March 2020

Enhancing prevention - leveraging the mandate of the Human Rights Council

Building on its long-term work on integrating human rights and sustaining peace, QUNO has been supporting work led by the three rapporteurs in charge of implementing resolution 38/18 on ‘the contribution of the Human Rights Council (HRC) to the prevention of human rights violations’.  In particular, QUNO has focused on how the HRC can more effectively work with all UN pillars to prevent those violations which, if left unaddressed, could lead to violent conflict.

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November 2019

Roundtable: Integrating Human Rights and Sustaining Peace

For Geneva Peace Week 2019, QUNO and Interpeace organised a self-reflective roundtable on Integrating Human Rights and Sustaining Peace. The roundtable brought together peacebuilders to share their reflections on how to creatively traverse the disciplinary, policy and practice divides between the human rights and peacebuilding fields.

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April 2019

QUNO speaks during the first Intersessional seminar on the contribution of the HRC to the prevention of human rights violations

In April, QUNO's Florence Foster was invited to speak during the first Intersessional seminar on the contribution of the Human Rights Council to the prevention of human rights violations (resolution 38/18). Florence noted that human rights violations are both the cause and effect of destructive conflict, and they therefore play a central role in early warning, prevention of destructive conflict, and in providing the basis for accountability through to rebuilding societies.

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