“Peace through Constitutions” CGNK-APRED event in Geneva

The Center for Global Nonkilling and APRED, participative institute for the progress of peace are convening an international event at the United Nations in Geneva on November 20, 2015 focusing on “Peace through Constitutions”. Speakers include Marguerite Contat, former Co-President of the Constitutional Assembly, Geneva (2008-2012), Raphaël Porteilla, Professor of Political Science and co-editor of the book “Peace and Constitutions” (Paix et Constitutions, Dijon, 2015), David Fernández Puyana, Senior expert on human rights and peace and Christophe Barbey, Lawyer, peace researcher, coordinator at APRED and CGNK Main representative at the UN in Geneva. The event is included in the program of the 2015 Geneva Peace Week, organized by the Geneva Peacebuilding Platform.

Constitutions are locally universal. They express our ideals and are to a large extent binding. They are an excellent vector to promote effective peace. From setting peace high as a universal value to making violence prevention mechanism mandatory; from promoting peaceful settlement of disputes at all levels of society to the strict control over the use of force; from civic education to peaceful maintenance of public order; from granting rights to peace and security to promoting full use of democracy, peace and constitution are highly linked. Internationally, constitutions can also ban war or even the existence of an army and recall that friendly relations among nations are a universal principle.

The event will start at 2 p.m at Room XXIII. If you do not have a UN ground pass, please request an invitation from Apred (cb@apred.ch) in advance.