Just back from a megaconference, Building a Future on Peace and Justice, cosponsored by the governments of Finland, Germany, and Jordan, the International Center on Transitional Justice, and Crisis Management Initiative. Standing in the same courtroom (above) where the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg once tried vanquished Nazis for war crimes, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier opened the event by stating that it was there that Germany began its "return to the community of respected nations."
Conference highlights:
► The insistence on the presence of women at every peace parley, by Elisabeth Rehn (below), who's served as Sweden's 1st woman Minister of Defence and as Special Representative of the U.N. Secretary-Gener
al in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Rehn cited the view of some women she’d met in conflict situations: "‘The men have messed up enough. Now it’s time for us.’" She concluded, "Women have to be at the negotiating table."► Statements by stakeholders, among them Rwot David Onen Acana II, Paramount Chief of the Acholi people involved in peace talks over Northern Uganda.
► The number and variety of participants, ranging from Prince Zeid Ra’Ad Zeid Al-Hussein, Jordan’s Ambassador to the United States and former President of the International Criminal Court's Assembly of States Parties, to a host of women and men who do humanitarian work in the world’s most troubled regions.
Proceedings are to provide the basis for a 2008 Nuremberg Declaration on Peace and Justice.
