2. Description

HWPL, an international peace NGO, proclaimed the Declaration of World Peace (25 May 2013) based on the awareness of the dangers of mounting global conflicts to encourage active engagement and participation of not only nations but civil society in establishing peace and ensuring that it takes root. The declaration embodies three main proposals: First, the international community should implement international law for peace; second, forge a global peace network of youth; and third, everyone should take part in establishing peace.

To practice the proposals of the declaration, HWPL proclaimed the Declaration of Peace and Cessation of War (DPCW) in 2016 and has been carrying out the LP Project, which is a peace movement led by civil society to have the DPCW-based resolution adopted at the UN General Assembly. An affiliate of HWPL, the International Peace Youth Group (IPYG), has been promoting a variety of peace projects in partnership with over 1,000 youth organizations spread in 119 countries while HWPL has been running projects on peace education, interfaith dialogues, and peace media together with international organizations, governments, and civil society.

As a means to promote sustainable peace, HWPL has been striving to institutionalize peace. This includes reaffirming the key principles of international law for peace, promoting an evolution of international law to befit the more complicated aspects of the conflicts exhibited in modern days, and ensuring that peace takes root as a social structure and culture via institutions such as values, customs, norms, rules, and laws. To accomplish the goal of ensuring the settlement of institutional peace, HWPL will focus on the following for the next decade: having the DPCW-based resolution adopted at the UN General Assembly, implementing peace education via government and official organizations, holding regular meetings to promote interfaith dialogues that increase understanding about each other and resolve conflicts, establishing working groups composed of youth leaders for peace per area, and building the network for media to contribute to peace.

Meanwhile, the joint statement commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Declaration of World Peace will explicitly state that peace is the only direction we should head into for humanity to move forward amid the situation where conflicts within and among nations grow, and urge members of the global community to participate in the international endeavors to help institutional peace settle down and be deeply rooted.

Since the outbreak of the pandemic, peace walks were held online to observe each nation’s COVID-19 guidelines, but they will be held offline this year. In the upcoming 25 May, the peace walks shouting “Legislate Peace” will be seen in key cities across the globe.