Insights, Perspective and Resources
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"Coordinating Transitional Justice"
Jeffrey Seul, the Peace Appeal's co-chair, recently published an article in the January 2019 edition of the Negotiation Journal (published by the Harvard Law School) on the challenges to coordinating transitional justice in countries in conflict. The article addresses the real and perceived tensions between human rights and conflict resolution professionals as they seek to "avoid or end the wars that breed human rights violations and the human rights violations that breed wars. The full article is available online from Wiley and Sons here. |
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"Negotiating Across Worldviews"
The Peace Appeal's Co-Chair, Jeff Seul's explores how our "worldview" influences our ability to interact and negotiate with others in "Negotiating Across Worldviews" in the ABA's Dispute Resolution Mgazine from Fall of 2018. Seul defines worldviews as, "the mental models we hold, more and less consciously, about how the natural and social worlds cohere, what makes them cohere, what is valued and what is not, and even what we can know and how we know it." The entire article may be found online here. |
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"Nonformal Dialogues in National Peacemaking: Complementary Approaches"
The United State Institute of Peace published a report by Derek Brown, the Peace Appeal's co-director, entitled "Nonformal Dialogues in National Peacemaking: Complementary Approaches." The report draws extensively on the experiences of national stakeholders in both nonformal and formal national dialogue processes who participated in two international conferences on national dialogues in April 2014 and November 2015 hosted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland. See report. |
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Interventions in Conflict
This collected volume presents reflections from prominent international peacemakers in the Middle East, including Jimmy Charter, Lakhdar Brahimi, Jan Eliasson, Alvaro de Soto, and others. It provides unique insights and lessons learned about diplomacy and international peace mediation practice based on real life experience. The personal stories offer a critical analysis of successful and unsuccessful peace processes, as well as the chances and limits of solving the most intractable conflicts in the region and other parts of the world. Click here for the book "I have traveled with many of the inspiring authors in this book on the difficult roads of peace. Their stories and lives is what makes peace a reality. Our peace efforts is a daily search for hope and mending the brokenness in our world."
Archbishop Desmond Tutu |
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Across the Lines of Conflict
Through a comparative analysis of six case studies, this volume illustrates key conflict-resolution techniques for peacebuilding. Outside parties learn how to facilitate cooperation by engaging local leaders in intensive, interactive workshops. These opposing leaders reside in small, ethnically divided countries, including Burundi, Cyprus, Estonia, Guyana, Sri Lanka, and Tajikistan, that have experienced communal conflicts in recent years. Click here for the book |
Shirley Moulder
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Reconciliation Workshop Report
Report by Shirley Moulder, Vice-chairperson of the Peace Appeal Foundation, to Helsinki Conference on Reconciliation as a part of a National Dialogue Process on 18 November 2015. The report deals with how one can create an environment that ensures that reconciliation is a fundamental building block of National Dialogue processes. The conventional wisdom is that reconciliation in this deeper sensewhich some call socioemotional reconciliation can't occur until after dialogue and negotiations creating new political structures have been concluded.These people argue that this deeper form of reconciliation only can occur after there is a measure of trust among the parties - the sort of trust that can develop through successful political dialogue. Read More.. |
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Background Paper for the Third Conference on National Dialogues
April 5-6, 2017 "Self-Mediation" Structures and Procedures of National Dialogues Managing Complexity, Breaking Deadlocks, and Building Consensus" Perhaps the most outstanding characteristic of National Dialogues, as seen from a planning and facilitation perspective, is its bewildering complexity. In Burma the Panglong conference that met for the first time in January 2016 consisted of 900 representatives from the government and army; ethnic minorities and 18 armed groups; and more than 90 democratic parties/groups. In Yemen, the National Dialogue Conference had 565 representatives, representing political parties and movements, ethnic representatives, women and youth, 50% to represent the South and 30% women. Read more... |
Background Materials on Reconciliation in National Dialogue Processes
In conflict resolution and peacebuilding circles, reconciliation is a notion commonly associated with transitional justice; with mechanisms like Truth and Reconciliation Commissions that are implemented after a civil war has ended, or after mass atrocities have been committed, and a nation is attempting to mend social relations within a new, post-conflict political framework. While it is something of a truism to say that parties are building relationships as they negotiate, most of us working in the conflict resolution and peacebuilding fields likely imagine something deeper when we talk of reconciliation, and we generally assume reconciliation in this deeper sense is something parties cannot be expected to achieve as a new political framework is being developed. Read more.. |
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Online Resources
The PEACE & DIALOGUE PLATFORM is a collaborative on-line space and shared knowledge resource for peace and dialogue processes and structures. It offers a dynamic platform for joint knowledge creation, and a structured space to share experiences and capture unfolding processes. In preparation for the launch of the upcoming Peace and Dialogue Platform, a Facebook page has been launched.
The Peace and Dialogue Blog discusses and reflects on visualized key data on peace and dialogue processes worldwide and on global trends.
"Building Peace - A Forum for Peace and Security in the 21rst Century" is a new online journal launched by the Alliance for Peacebuilding.
Center for International Development and Conflict Management at the University of Maryland maintained "Web Sources for Current Conflict Transformation and Conflict Transformation Information."
"Transitional Justice Research Clinic in the Arab World" - an online research tool following transitional justice issues across the MENA region with timelines, access to important documents and regular updates.
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Articles and Interviews
Evolving Common Spaces: Building common understanding and develop consensus through knowledge-based dialogues, the creation of shared knowledge, and the evolving of permanent safe spaces -- A presentation by Hannes Siebert at the Rotary Peace Fellowship 10 year anniversary in Thailand, 2015
Over the past 15 years we’ve witnessed the emergence of several unique Track 1.5 initiatives following long periods of civil wars, governance system failures, political instability, or during intractable conflicts. They served as “safe spaces ” for confidential dialogues or as support mechanisms and safety nets for formal and constitutional change processes. 
The Peace Appeal Foundation's co-founder, Hannes Siebert, speaking at the Issam Fares Institute of Public Policy at American University of Beirut, as part of their Distinguished Peacemakers Lecture series. The talk entitled "Beyond Mediation: Promoting Change and Resolving Conflict through Authentic National Dialogue" explores the broad trends in how conflicts have been resolved since the end of World War II, and proposes that more emphasis must be given to processes that involve locally driven dialogue and negotiations, relying less on external mediation.
Peace Architecture?
by Derek Brown Architecture, n. …4. Orderly arrangement of parts; structure: To speak of “peace architecture” in the context of peace and conflict transformation efforts in entrenched conflicts runs the severe risk of sounding presumptuous, even oxy-moronic. In the decades since the end of World War II, what could seem more chaotic, and less orderly, than the history of peace efforts to end the spate of wars that our planet has suffered? read more... Peacemaker Interview: In a recent conversation, Hannes Siebert, co-founder and Senior Technical Adviser for the Peace Appeal Foundation spoke with fellow South African and Peace Appeal Foundation board member, Shirley Moulder on peacemaking and recent developments in the Middle East and Burma. These interviews are part of an ongoing research initiative into the role of peace and dialogue structures in peace processes internationally. read more...
"The Power of Forgiveness" - a reflection on the life and legacy of Nelson Mandela by PAF Board members Shirley Moulder and Derek Brown from the Daily Progress, 12/7/2013.
"Beyond Diplomacy" - a new article by PAF Executive Director Derek Brown appears in the Stanford Social Innovation Review Winter 2014 issue.
"Could This Year’s Nobel Peace Prize be a Step Towards Eradicating Chemical Weapons?" - reflections on the 2013 Nobel Prize.
"National Peace and Dialogue Structures, Strengthening the Immune System from Within Instead of Prescribing Antibiotics" - by Hannes Siebert, in the Berghof Handbook 2013, published by the Berghof Foundation, Berlin.
Shortchanging Our Security by Derek Brown, Melanie Greenberg and Milburn Line in The Hill's Congress Blog. "Next week Congress may well downsize the portion of the US budget that is the least costly and most effective way of ensuring our security both at home and abroad. Against the advice of our nation's top military and civilian leadership, the US Senate appears ready to once again cut our meager foreign aid budget, including the State Department and the non-partisan United States Institute for Peace..."
Why Talking Peace Is Essential and Why It Is Threatened by Gov. Bill Richardson, Melanie Greenberg and Derek Brown, an article in the journal Insight on Conflict discussing the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize and how peace negotiations are threatened by current regulatory restrictions on talking with groups proscribed under global anti-terrorism regulations.
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Media and Publications
Pyidaungsu Institute - Facilitation Tools
The Pyidaungsu Institute for Peace and Dialogue (PI) in Burma has an important role in developing shared knowledge and the tools for facilitation, such as the single text document on NCA (Nationwide Ceasefire) or on the FPD (Framework for Political Dialogue). http://en.pyidaungsuinstitute.org/ 
The Myanmar Peace Process and Supporting Common Spaces
In Burma, 7 Common Spaces have evolved in its various ethnic estates since 2013. They serve as informal dialogue spaces to engage the various levels of society in the peace process, provide support to regional dialogues and negotiations, and will support the upcoming formal National Dialogue. 
Change Process Anatomy Infographic
This info-graphic captures some of the dialogue and mediation mechanisms in the anatomy of an overall change process. It is a diagram to facilitate discussion on developing open frameworks for shared understanding of complex and evolving processes. It is not simply a linear continuum, but rather a complex, multi-layered and -dimensional process in which the different stages, presented below, can recur or take place simultaneously. 
National Dialogue and Peace Building
2014 and 2015 have brought greater attention to the emerging role of national dialogues as transitional mechanisms for countries in conflict to chart their political futures. The first large scale international conference on "National Dialogues and Mediation Processes" was hosted by the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs from March 30 - April 2 in 2014. Read more.. 
Andries Odendaal's "A Crucial Link: Local Peace Committees and National Peacebuilding" (USIP Press), 2013) undertakes a comparative study of local peace committees in places as diverse as South Africa, Northern Ireland, and Nepal (where he assisted the NTTP process), and asks where and if the committees have contributed to their goal of contributing to national level peacebuilding.
Peace Appeal Foundation's Advisory Board Member Donna Hicks' Dignity: The Essential Role It Plays in Resolving Conflict (Yale University Press, 2011), with a foreward by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, captures an essential element in human interactions that has been little studied. From the synopsis: "The desire for dignity is universal and powerful. It is a motivating forcebehind all human interaction—in families, in communities, in the business world, and in relationships at the international level. When dignity is violated, the response is likely to involve aggression, even violence, hatred, and vengeance."
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