On 16 May, the Glasgow Centre for International Law and Security will host an invitation-only workshop on the Peace Treaty Initiative.

The Peace Treaty Initiative is a major new undertaking to facilitate the prospect of a purpose-built multilateral treaty designed to incentivise warring parties to choose the pathway of negotiation in order to help prevent armed conflicts and atrocities in the first place, and to end them once underway. The initiative builds on three years of legal research, expert interviews, and stakeholder convenings, culminating in an indicative text which is currently the object of an inclusive global consultation process with the support of the initiative’s Expert Advisory Group.

Taking place as part of the global consultation process, the workshop aims to promote reflective discussion on key questions of law and policy embedded in the indicative text of the proposed treaty. This will include areas where the proposed treaty can provide greater clarity about international law (for example, around critical questions inside peace talks such as conditional amnesties for atrocity crimes); help institutionalise and streamline implementation (including through a treaty-based advisory support unit; and state-level mechanisms to ensure national preparedness, education and training on negotiation); and introduce creative new norms and procedures (including a situation referral procedure; international privileges and immunities for mediators; a “presumption of conformity” with international law when peace deals meet certain minimal criteria; and a special provision allowing non-state armed groups to adopt negotiation and dialogue standards).

The workshop is jointly organised by Dr Asli Ozcelik Olcay (Glasgow Centre for International Law and Security), Professor Kimberley Trapp (UCL Faculty of Laws) and Mark Freeman (Institute for Integrated Transitions), in connection with the project “The Law of Protracted Conflict: Understanding Humanitarian-Peace-Development Divide” funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council. 

 

Participants

Aarif Abraham – Garden Court North Chambers

Andrea Varga – University of Glasgow

Asli Ozcelik Olcay – University of Glasgow

Catherine Turner – Durham University

Dino Kritsiotis – University of Nottingham

Duncan Pickard – Debevoise & Plimpton LLP

Giedre Jokubauskaite – University of Glasgow

Helen Duffy – Human Rights in Practice and University of Leiden 

Héloïse Guichardaz – University of Glasgow

Henry Lovat – University of Glasgow

Kimberley Trapp – University College London

Lawrence Hill-Cawthorne – University of Bristol

Mariana Casij Peña – Institute for Integrated Transitions

Mark Freeman – Institute for Integrated Transitions

Miles Jackson – University of Oxford

Nicola Palmer – King’s College London

Robert Dedman – King & Spalding LLP

Tom Hadden – Queen’s University Belfast

 

Selected articles and op-eds about the Peace Treaty Initiative

 Armed Groups and International Law (AGIL) Blog Symposium

  1. Introductory piece by Mark Freeman
  2. Response by Asli Ozcelik Olcay
  3. Response by Juana Acosta

Justiceifo.net Op-Ed Series

  1. Here is a way for international law to better help end conflicts by Hesham Youssef
  2. Negotiating amnesties, peace and justice: a new path by L. Mallinder and M. Freeman
  3. Getting back to what matters: victim voices and the making of international law by Paula Gaviria