What is the format of the ICPCS 2027?

The conference is designed as an in-person event, fostering direct interaction among participants.

International Conference on Peace and Conflict Studies (ICPCS) 2027

Name: International Conference on Peace and Conflict Studies (ICPCS) 2027
Start: 2027-03-15T00:00:00Z
End: 2027-03-16T00:00:00Z
Location: London

Mar 15–16, 2027London, United KingdomIn-person

Registration open

The International Conference on Peace and Conflict Studies (ICPCS) 2027 convenes in London, GBR, to foster interdisciplinary dialogue on critical issues surrounding global peace and conflict. This event serves as a platform for academics, researchers, and practitioners to present new findings, exchange ideas, and discuss the latest trends and challenges in the field. The conference aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of the dynamics of conflict and the pathways to sustainable peace.

Committees & topics

Topics
Peace and Conflict Studies: Evolution of the Field · Peace, Justice, and Multiculturalism · Indigenous-Settler Relations and Reconciliation · Gender Issues in Peace and Security · Feminist Perspectives on Peace and Justice · Climate Change Implications for Peace and Security · Natural Resource Extraction and Management · Interfaith Relations and Religious Coexistence

Why it matters

Understanding the complexities of peace and conflict is paramount in an increasingly interconnected world. The ICPCS 2027 provides a vital forum for exploring diverse perspectives on conflict resolution, peacebuilding, and the underlying causes of instability. By bringing together experts from various disciplines, the conference facilitates the development of innovative approaches to address contemporary global challenges.

The discussions at ICPCS are particularly relevant for policymakers and international organizations seeking evidence-based strategies for intervention and prevention. The insights generated from this conference can inform diplomatic efforts, humanitarian aid, and long-term development initiatives aimed at fostering peaceful societies. The exchange of research and practical experiences helps to refine existing frameworks and identify emerging areas of concern in peace and conflict studies.

How to prepare

Delegates preparing for the ICPCS 2027 should focus on developing a robust understanding of current geopolitical landscapes and the theoretical underpinnings of peace and conflict studies. Reviewing recent literature on conflict resolution, post-conflict reconstruction, and the role of international actors will be beneficial. Consider how your research or professional experience aligns with the conference's interdisciplinary nature, preparing to engage with diverse viewpoints.

For those presenting, it is crucial to articulate how your work contributes to practical solutions or theoretical advancements in the field. Emphasize the implications of your findings for policy or practice, and be prepared to discuss the broader context of your research. Engaging with lessons such as "Dynamic Analysis" and "Engagement Strategies" can provide valuable frameworks for understanding and presenting complex issues related to peace and conflict.

Country perspectives

Where the most-relevant 4 countries stand on the core issues in play. Click through for the full country profile.

United Kingdom

A key host nation for international academic discourse on peace and conflict.

Role in topic

The GBR, as the host country for the conference in London, provides a significant intellectual hub for global discussions on peace and conflict. Its academic institutions and think tanks are often at the forefront of research in this field, contributing to both theoretical advancements and practical peacebuilding initiatives. The GBR's historical role in international diplomacy and its engagement in various global conflicts and peace processes offer a rich context for the conference's themes.

United States

A major global actor with significant influence on peace and conflict dynamics.

Role in topic

The USA plays a substantial role in global peace and conflict studies due to its extensive involvement in international security, diplomacy, and humanitarian efforts. Researchers and policymakers from the USA often contribute significantly to discussions on conflict prevention, resolution, and post-conflict stabilization, bringing perspectives shaped by its global reach and diverse engagements. Its academic institutions are also major contributors to peace research.

Norway

A prominent advocate and practitioner of peace mediation and conflict resolution.

Role in topic

NOR is widely recognized for its active role in international peace mediation and conflict resolution efforts. Its consistent commitment to diplomacy and its contributions to peace processes globally make its perspective highly relevant to the conference. Norwegian scholars and practitioners often bring valuable insights into the practical application of peace theories and the challenges of mediating complex conflicts.

Switzerland

A neutral state with a strong tradition in humanitarian aid and peacebuilding.

Role in topic

CHE's long-standing tradition of neutrality and its significant contributions to humanitarian aid and international law position it as a crucial voice in peace and conflict studies. Swiss organizations and academics often focus on the protection of civilians, international humanitarian law, and the role of neutral actors in facilitating dialogue and peace processes. Its expertise in these areas offers a unique and valuable perspective.

Topics & background

The background behind each topic and the actors that shape it.

Peace and Conflict Studies: Evolution of the Field

Peace and conflict studies emerged as a distinct academic discipline after the Second World War, building on the work of scholars such as Johan Galtung, who founded the Peace Research Institute Oslo in 1959, and Kenneth Boulding, who helped establish the Journal of Conflict Resolution in 1957. The field developed in response to the destructiveness of total war and the looming threat of nuclear annihilation, seeking to understand not only the absence of direct violence (negative peace) but also the structural and cultural conditions required for sustainable coexistence (positive peace). Cold War rivalries, decolonization, and proxy conflicts in the Global South shaped early research agendas. Since the 1990s, the discipline has broadened well beyond interstate war. Civil wars, ethnic conflict, terrorism, and the responsibility to protect doctrine pushed scholars to engage with intrastate violence and humanitarian intervention, while the UN's 1992 Agenda for Peace formalized concepts of peacemaking, peacekeeping, and peacebuilding. Critical and feminist scholars have since challenged state-centric framings, foregrounding questions of structural inequality, race, and gender. Today, the field grapples with hybrid warfare, cyber conflict, climate-driven instability, and the erosion of the liberal international order. Debates persist between problem-solving approaches that work within existing institutions and critical approaches that interrogate the foundations of those institutions, even as practitioners seek workable tools for mediation, reconciliation, and post-conflict reconstruction.

Key players

Peace, Justice, and Multiculturalism

The relationship between peace, justice, and multiculturalism has been a central concern of political theory and international practice since decolonization and the postwar migration waves transformed the demographic makeup of states. The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights articulated equal dignity across cultures, but its implementation has been uneven. Multicultural policy frameworks rose to prominence in Canada (1971), Australia (1973), and parts of Western Europe, attempting to balance group recognition with individual rights. At the same time, transitional justice mechanisms — from South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission to the ICTY and ICTR — sought to confront past atrocities as a precondition for durable peace. The core dispute centers on how plural societies can achieve both peace (the absence of intercommunal violence and structural exclusion) and justice (redress for historic wrongs and equitable participation). Critics argue that multiculturalism can entrench separate communities or ignore intra-group inequalities, while defenders contend that recognition of cultural difference is essential to inclusive citizenship. Backlash politics across Europe and North America since the 2000s, intensified after 9/11 and the 2015 refugee influx, has placed multicultural settlements under strain. Contemporary debates focus on integration policy, hate speech regulation, restorative justice, and the rights of religious and linguistic minorities. Rising populism, demographic change, and contested histories of empire and slavery — including reparations debates — keep the question of how to reconcile difference with shared political community at the forefront of global politics.

Key players

Indigenous-Settler Relations and Reconciliation

Indigenous-settler relations were shaped by centuries of European colonial expansion that displaced, dispossessed, and often sought to assimilate or eliminate indigenous peoples across the Americas, Oceania, northern Eurasia, and parts of Africa and Asia. Treaty regimes — such as those negotiated in North America, the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi in New Zealand, and Crown protectorate arrangements — were repeatedly violated or interpreted in ways that stripped indigenous nations of land and sovereignty. Residential and boarding school systems in Canada, the United States, and Australia inflicted long-lasting trauma now recognized by national inquiries as cultural genocide or comparable harms. The 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) crystallized international norms around self-determination, free prior and informed consent, and the protection of lands, languages, and cultures. Truth commissions in Canada (2008–2015) and reconciliation processes in Australia, New Zealand, and the Nordic Sápmi region have produced both apologies and contested implementation. Disputes persist over land restitution, resource development, jurisdiction, and constitutional recognition — illustrated by the 2023 Australian Voice referendum and ongoing pipeline and mining conflicts in North America. Today, the central tensions involve translating UNDRIP commitments into binding domestic law, securing meaningful consent over extractive projects, addressing missing and murdered indigenous women, and revitalizing languages and governance institutions. Climate change has added urgency, as indigenous territories overlap with much of the world's remaining biodiversity and contested critical mineral deposits.

Key players

Gender Issues in Peace and Security

Gender entered the international peace and security agenda formally with the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 in 2000, which recognized the disproportionate impact of armed conflict on women and called for their full participation in peace processes. Nine subsequent resolutions form the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda, addressing conflict-related sexual violence, protection, and meaningful inclusion. The Beijing Platform for Action (1995) and CEDAW (1979) had earlier established the broader normative framework for gender equality, while the Rome Statute (1998) codified sexual and gender-based crimes as war crimes and crimes against humanity. Implementation has been uneven. Despite over 100 National Action Plans on WPS, women remain underrepresented in formal peace negotiations — accounting for a small minority of mediators and signatories in major processes — and conflict-related sexual violence continues to be documented in settings from Tigray to Ukraine to the eastern DRC. LGBTQ+ rights have entered the agenda more recently and remain highly contested, with sharp divisions among member states over recognition and protection. Backlash against gender norms has emerged in multiple regions, complicating multilateral consensus. Current debates concern funding shortfalls for gender-responsive peacebuilding, the role of men and boys, accountability for sexual violence, the gendered dimensions of climate insecurity and forced displacement, and how to defend hard-won normative gains amid rising opposition in the UN system.

Key players

Feminist Perspectives on Peace and Justice

Feminist approaches to peace and justice trace their roots to the 1915 International Congress of Women at The Hague, which gave rise to the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, and to anti-colonial and anti-nuclear movements throughout the twentieth century. Scholars such as Cynthia Enloe, J. Ann Tickner, and Christine Sylvester reshaped international relations by asking how gender structures war, militarism, and the global political economy. Feminist legal theorists similarly transformed international law, securing recognition of rape as a war crime and shaping the jurisprudence of the ICTY, ICTR, and ICC. The core dispute within feminist peace and justice work concerns whether to pursue change through engagement with existing security institutions or to challenge their foundations. Liberal feminist strands emphasize representation and inclusion within militaries, peace processes, and courts. Critical, postcolonial, and intersectional feminists argue that militarism, racial hierarchy, and capitalism themselves produce insecurity, and that decolonial and abolitionist frames are needed. Sweden's adoption — and subsequent abandonment — of an explicitly feminist foreign policy, followed by Canada, Mexico, Germany, and others, illustrates both the mainstreaming and the political fragility of these approaches. Today, feminist peace and justice scholarship engages climate justice, care economies, digital harms, transitional justice, and the rights of LGBTQ+ and gender-nonconforming people in conflict. It also confronts a global backlash against gender equality articulated by an increasingly organized coalition of conservative states and movements.

Key players

Climate Change Implications for Peace and Security

Climate change has moved from a peripheral environmental concern to a central preoccupation of peace and security policy over the past two decades. The IPCC, established in 1988, has documented with increasing confidence that warming intensifies droughts, floods, and sea-level rise, while research on the Sahel, the Horn of Africa, and South Asia has linked climatic stress to displacement, livelihood collapse, and, under certain conditions, the risk of conflict. The UN Security Council first formally debated climate and security in 2007, and in 2021 a resolution making climate a standing security concern was vetoed, illustrating persistent divisions. The core dispute is twofold. First, states disagree on whether climate change should be treated as a security issue at all, with some arguing that securitization diverts attention from mitigation and adaptation finance, and others maintaining that the Security Council must address compounded risks. Second, the question of responsibility — historic emissions, loss and damage, and climate finance — pits major emitters against vulnerable developing states. The 2022 COP27 agreement to establish a Loss and Damage Fund marked a breakthrough, but capitalization and governance remain unresolved. Current challenges include climate-induced displacement (with no binding international legal status for climate migrants), water disputes in transboundary basins, militarization of the Arctic as ice retreats, and the implications of the energy transition for petrostate stability and critical mineral supply chains.

Key players

Natural Resource Extraction and Management

Conflicts and governance challenges over natural resources have shaped international politics since the colonial era, when European powers organized global production of rubber, minerals, and hydrocarbons through coercive labor and territorial control. The post-1945 wave of decolonization gave rise to the principle of permanent sovereignty over natural resources, affirmed by UN General Assembly Resolution 1803 in 1962, and to producer cartels such as OPEC. Yet the 'resource curse' literature, developed from the 1990s, documents how mineral and hydrocarbon wealth has often correlated with authoritarianism, corruption, and civil war, from Angola and Sierra Leone to Iraq. The contemporary dispute spans several fronts. Transparency and anti-corruption mechanisms such as the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (2003) and the Kimberley Process (2003) have had mixed success. Indigenous and local communities increasingly invoke free prior and informed consent under UNDRIP to contest extractive projects. The energy transition has triggered a rush for critical minerals — lithium, cobalt, nickel, rare earths — concentrated in a small number of jurisdictions, with the DRC supplying most of the world's cobalt and Chile and Australia dominating lithium. Deep-sea mining, debated at the International Seabed Authority, opens a new frontier. Key current questions involve revenue distribution, environmental and human rights due diligence in supply chains, the geopolitics of critical mineral dependencies, the role of state-owned enterprises, and how to manage stranded fossil-fuel assets as decarbonization proceeds.

Key players

Interfaith Relations and Religious Coexistence

Interfaith relations have been a recurring driver of both conflict and cooperation throughout modern history, from the wars of religion in early modern Europe to contemporary sectarian violence in the Middle East and South Asia. The post-1945 international order, grounded in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, enshrined freedom of religion or belief in Article 18, later elaborated in the ICCPR and the 1981 Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief. The Second Vatican Council's Nostra Aetate (1965) opened formal Catholic engagement with other faiths, and ecumenical and interfaith bodies proliferated thereafter. The core disputes today are multiple. Persecution of religious minorities — Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, Uyghurs in Xinjiang, Christians in parts of the Middle East and Sahel, Yazidis under ISIS, and Hindus, Christians, and Muslims in various South Asian flashpoints — has drawn condemnation but uneven international response. Blasphemy and apostasy laws remain in force in dozens of states, while in others, rising secular nationalism or religious-nationalist movements have constrained minority practice. The 2019 Document on Human Fraternity signed by Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, and the Abraham Accords of 2020, represent prominent if contested diplomatic initiatives. Current debates focus on protecting holy sites, countering online religious incitement, ensuring humanitarian access in conflicts with sectarian dimensions, and balancing freedom of expression with protection from discrimination, all amid the entanglement of religion with geopolitics from Jerusalem to Ayodhya to Mecca.

Key players