information about the plenary sessions and the plenary speakers

Download the plenary sessions as a pdf file.

Plenary I Human security and the legitimisation of peacebuilding

Pieter De Somer Aula 15 July, 11-12:30

Chair: Pat Morgan (University of California)

Without serious efforts made towards sustainable peace building, the chance of successful sustainable development is jeopardized. The best indicator of successful development and peace building is human security, uniting state and individual security issues into a broad concept of positive peace. What would it take to develop better synergies or integrative approaches between development and peace building? The speakers will discuss their ideas about the links between these activities and perceptions as well as the integrative approaches to achieve coordination and coherence.

	Anuradha Chenoy (India) Professor, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
	Andrew Mack (Canada) Director, Human Security Centre, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver
	Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh (Iran-France) Director, Program for Peace and Human Security, Centre d’etudes et Recherches Internationales, Sciences Po, Paris

Plenary II African peacebuilding: a radical analysis

Pieter De Somer Aula 15 July, 14:00-15:30

Chair: Maxi Schoeman (University of Pretoria)

Africa is frequently depicted as the most unstable and underdeveloped region in the world. Despite overall global progress in the direction of human security, Africa is proving a significant exception to this trend of overall good news. African peace researchers and practitioners will be invited to discuss the frustrations, hopes and peace building potential of the region. Does the outside world further the needs and interests of the African people?

	Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah (Mauritania) Special Representative of the UN Secretary General in Somalia
	Klaus Rudischhauser (Germany) Director General of Development and Relations with African, Caribbean and Pacific States of the European Commission

Special thanks to The European Commission.

Plenary III Civil and uncivil society: conditions for supporting conflict and peacebuilding

Pieter De Somer Aula 16 July, 9:00-10:30

Chair: John Darby (University of Notre Dame)

Peacebuilding practice and research has traditionally assumed that civil society has a constructive role to play in peacebuilding. However, we are not sure whether this assumption holds. There has been little empirical analysis of civil society’s role in the context of armed conflict, and even less regarding its potential, limitations and critical factors. This plenary will take up these questions. To open the discussion, the keynote speaker Dr. Leonard Kapungu will share his experience on the ground, followed by a presentation of preliminary results from the international project “Civil Society and Peacebuilding” by Thania Paffenholz. These results show that civil society has contributed constructively to peacebuilding in many countries, although it often plays a limited role. The panel members will therefore discuss enabling and disabling conditions for civil society to fulfill a constructive role in peacebuilding.

	Roberto Belloni (Italy) Lecturer in International Politics, Queens University Belfast
	Sabine Kurtenbach (Germany) Principal Researcher, Institute for Development and Peace at the University of Duisburg-Essen
	Thania Paffenholz (Germany) Lecturer, The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva

Plenary IV Religions dealing with their own violent extremisms

Pieter De Somer Aula 16 July, 14:00-15:30

Chair: Jacques Haers (KULeuven)

How does one truly commit to the building of sustainable peace while, at the same time, remaining loyal to one’s own religious convictions, even when these run the risk of turning violent? As in the case of political parties relating to their armed wings, this represents a complex challenge involving multiple loyalties. The potential for both violence and peace-building in religions already constitute a sizeable research field. Less explored is how religious peace-building actors, caught up in complex networks of loyalties, address the possible violent extremist tendencies in their own religions. Studying the good practices of dealing with religious violent extremisms which threaten the development that sustainable peace demands, becomes crucial in peace research. In this plenary session the presentation of some field experiences and research will be followed by a panel of experts from various religions, which will open up the space for discussion amongst the participants.

	Lamiss Azab (Egypt) Maître de conférences, French University of Egypt
	Joseph Bock (U.S.) Director of External Relations, Joan B. Kroc Insitute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame
	Marc Gopin (U.S.) James H. Laue Professor of Religion, Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution and Director of the Center on Religion, Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution, Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University, Virginia
	James Wuye (Nigeria) Pastor, Assemblies of God; Co-Director, Interfaith Mediation Center of the Muslim-Christian Dialogue Forum

Peace Pulpit Globalization and environmental challenges: security in the 21st century

St-Michielskerk, Naamsestraat 57 - 16 July, 20:00-21:30

The end of the cold war, globalization and global environmental change have triggered a global reconceptualization of security. New security concepts emerged that shifted the referent object from the state to the human being (human security) focusing on environmental challenges (environmental security), on gender issues (gender security) as well as on energy, food, health and water security. The six speakers from five continents will address the religious, philosophical and ethical dimensions of the thinking on security in eastern, western and southern cultures.

	Hans Günter Brauch (Germany) Consultant for the German Federal Ministry on the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, the German Environment Agency, the European Commission, the World Bank
	Dr. Jacob Emmanuel Mabe (Cameroon) since 2004 associate professor for philosophy at the Technical University Berlin and visiting scholar at the French centre of the free University Berlin
	Naresh Dadhich (India) Professor of Political Science at the University of Rajasthan, Jaipur, since October 2006 he is Vice Chancellor of Vardhaman Mahaveer Open University at Kota (Rajasthan).
	Frederik Arends (Germany), teacher of Latin and ancient Greek; Ph.D. from Leiden University (1988); member of the International Plato Society; publishes on ancient Greek political philosophy.
	Ursula Oswald Spring (Mexico) Professor, National University, Mexico; UNU-EHS chair on social vulnerability

Special thanks to St-Michielskerk in Leuven.

Plenary V Nonviolence in action: a global trend?

Pieter De Somer Aula 18 July, 9:00-10:30

Chair: Ralph Summy (University of Queensland)

There is a growing awareness that there are not only limits to growth, but also to the use violence to manage conflicts. More attention is being paid to policies and methods to transform conflicts in non-violent ways. The EU is depicted as a positive role model. For example, in Georgia and Ukraine non-violent strategies were recently used to change political regimes. Peace researchers and practitioners discuss how non-violent policies can be made more attractive and effective to deal with conflicts. To these ends, violence and non-violence will be broadly defined as well as an assessment of the use of non-violent policies.

	Ivan Marović (Serbia) Activist, International Centre on Nonviolent Conflict; co-founder, Otpor (‘resistance’)
	Jason McLeod (Australia) Activist, researcher and educator, Change Agency; doctoral student, Australian Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Queensland
	Stephen Zunes (U.S.) Professor of Politics and International Studies, University of San Francisco; Chair, program in Middle Eastern Studies

Special thanks to The Plowshares Collaboration

Plenary VI Rejuvenating conflict prevention: confronting the challenges of youth and conflict

Pieter De Somer Aula 18 July, 9:00-10:30

Chair: Leena Parmar (University of Rajasthan)

The plight of children and young people are often sidelined, if not neglected in the discourse on peace and conflict. The sector is usually portrayed as passive participant (or vulnerable victim of conflict) and does not really paint an accurate picture of where young people really stand in times of conflict: while a good number are passive recipients of the situation, an equal number are also active participants – either as combatants or as peace advocates. This plenary session will help to broaden the understanding and appreciation about youth – who they are, where they are, and how they contribute in situations of peace and conflict.

	Annette Giertsen (Norway) Senior Advisor, Save the Children Norway
	Jason Hart (UK) Senior Research Officer, Department of International Development, University of Oxford

Special thanks to Jennifer Santiago Oreta (Ateneo de Manila University)

Plenary VII The Middle East in danger of peace

Pieter De Somer Aula 18 July, 14:00-15:30

Chair: Jake Lynch (University of Sydney)

The policies of the USA and her allies have contributed to the instability and radicalization in the Middle East. A group of peace researchers will be asked to assess the possibility of cooperation within the region and of improvement of relations with the Western World.

	Mahdi F. Abdul Hadi (Israel-Palestine) Chairman, Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs, Jerusalem
	Saad Eddin Ibrahim (Egypt-U.S.) Professor of Political Sociology, American University in Cairo

Special thanks to Bichara Khader (Louvain-la-Neuve)

Celebrating the Founders of Peace Research

Pieter De Somer Aula 18 July, 18:00

Chair: Linda Johnston (Kennesaw State University)

Many scholars have contributed to the growth of the peace research field. We are gathered at this plenary to honor the work of three of them. These people have done excellent scholarly work, were instrumental in the founding and growth of strong academic programs, and were willing to give of their time and talents to develop the next generation of scholars in the field. The scholars we are honoring today framed the field and then encouraged the younger scholars to expand upon their work. The scholars here today will discuss their research in the field.

	Chadwick Alger (U.S.) Mershon Professor of Political Science and Public Policy Emeritus
	Elise Boulding (U.S.) (In abstention) Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Dartmouth College and Former Secretary General of the International Peace Research Association
	Herbert Kelman (U.S.) Richard Clarke Cabot Professor of Social Ethics, Emeritus, Harvard University; former Director of the Program on International Conflict Analysis and Resolution, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University

Closing banquet

Jubileumzaal, Naamsestraat 22 – 18 July, at approximately 19:30
Master of Ceremonies: Kevin Clements (University of Queensland)

Musical Contribution by Osama Abdurasol & Ensemble. Osama Abdurasol is a musician, composer and producer of Iraqi origin. He plays the guitar in his ensemble.

Plenary VIII Agenda-setting for peace research in the changing world

Pieter De Somer Aula 19 July, 11:00-12:30

Chair: Kevin Clements

	Luc Reychler (Belgium) Professor of International Relations, Institute for International and European Policy, University of Leuven; Director, Centre for Peace Research and Strategic Studies; Secretary General, International Peace Research Association
	Andres Serbin (Uruguay) Director, Centro de Estudios Globales y Regionales (CEGRE) Buenos Aires, Argentina, and President of Regional Coordination for Economic and Social Research (CRIES)