Conference

From the First World War until the height of the Cold War, actors from the decolonizing world sought to build connections with international peace movements. These efforts produced new networks and practices of solidarity while also exposing tensions over the centrality of decolonization in global struggles…

International Coalitions for Peace in the Era of Decolonization, 1918-1970

In 2025, GTGC co-organised with the City of The Hague and the Hague Humanity Hub a Just Peace Festival, a vibrant platform on the pressing global challenges of peace with justice. The festival involved a wide range of different activities, including dialogues, exhibitions, performances, film evenings,…

The Just Peace Dialogues were a set of meetings for public deliberation of key aspects of building peace in today’s world. The dialogues were held across seven days at the heart of the Just Peace Festival (16 - 22 June 2025).

From 1 August 2018, Alanna O'Malley was appointed as Chair of United Nations Studies in Peace and Justice, focusing on the ‘lesser-known actors’ of the UN: women, the youth, the agents of informal diplomatic networks within the UN and actors from the Global South. This Special Chair has been created…

Conference

Does a moving hybrid zone leave a genomic footprint?

The War and Peace Studies track offers you a comprehensive understanding of the historical, theoretical, and practical dimensions of war and peace, while addressing the complex challenges of conflict and peacebuilding in the contemporary world.

This project maps the policy of ‘Paz Total’ (Total Peace) and ongoing peace negotiations between non-state armed groups and the government of Colombia under the presidency of Gustavo Petro (2022-2026).

Indirect Method, Critique, and Responsibility in Derrida, Hegel, and Heidegger. Explores why Derrida, Hegel, and Heidegger conceive of their thought as a “movement” rather than as a presentation of results or conclusions.

On the brink of war, what influences decision makers to attack another country? Using innovative theoretical angles, Femke E. Bakker explores whether the basic assumptions of democratic peace theory are indeed correct. She stresses the microfoundations of conflict, questioning the assumptions on…

"A Green Office (GO) is a platform for sustainability that is established and run by students with the support of the university or Applied Sciences school staff members. The primary goal of a GO is to ensure that the institution is becoming more sustainable in all its facets. This way, the sustainable…

Teaching excellence is one of the core functions of the War, Peace and Justice (WPJ) research group. WPJ members engage in diverse forms of public engagement, but all share a commitment to education.

Our ability to learn and control movements is essential for engaging in goal-directed behaviour. From buttoning your shirt and driving a car, to cooking dinner and brushing your teeth -- our actions in daily life rely on this ability.

Conceptualizing ceasefires as bargaining instruments challenges established ideas about the processes that lead up to conflict settlement, and about war re-emergence, with important implications for our understanding of war and peace.

The specialization Peace, Justice and Development at Leiden University examines the legislation that governs international relations in a global society.

Fireside Peace Chats

The War, Peace, and Justice (WPJ) research group brings together leading social scientists, researchers, teachers, and both current and former leaders and practitioners to explore cutting-edge issues in war, conflict, peace, and justice.

The Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda arising from United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 has reached a critical juncture in its short 20-year history. Despite comprising ten resolutions designed to bolster the agenda and expand its scope and normative power, serious challenges to the…

Tom Buitelaar assesses how 'agency' is addressed in peacekeeping studies and identifies gaps.

In this article, Jasmijn Boeken, explores in which ways the defining characteristics of the different zones can be found in the digital sphere.

Perception of material culture, design and digital knowledge applications

Mariska Jung (FGGA), Looi van Kessel (FGW), and Jasmijn Rana (FSW) have received a KIEM grant together with the Institute for Social Justice (in development) for their project 'Hope springs eternal': Protest and social movements in the Netherlands.

Onderzoek van de onderzoeksgroep 'War, Peace and Justice'

Are you thinking about studying Crisis and Security Management: War and Peace Studies? Learn more and watch the videos.

Law and peace in the work of Hans Kelsen. A re-evaluation of Kelsen’s legal philosophy: legal pacifism as tacit meaning of his Pure Theory of Law

How is it possible that people kill each other? And above all: how is it possible that people who are able to peacefully live with each other at one moment, can kill each other at another one?

We know that armed conflict breeds conflict. We also know the political, economic and demographic factors that inform this repetition of conflict. But we do not understand why accumulated conflict risk factors sometimes do and other times do not pay out in more violence. What if we go beyond macro structural…

Marie Robin, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs, discusses in Le 1 Hebdo, Radio France and RFI how revenge, often condemned as destructive, can also reveal what societies consider just and shape pathways toward peace.

Lecture

Finding solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the not-inconsiderable task of the new Peace Academy in The Hague. Professor Maurits Berger and twelve students from different conflict zones are starting a creative thinking process that aims to discover the basic conditions for peace in the…

Together with Knud Andresen, Bart van der Steen recently published a volume titled A European Youth Revolt. European Perspectives on Youth Protest and Social Movements in the 1980s.

Squatters and autonomous movements have been in the forefront of radical politics in Europe for nearly a half-century—from struggles against urban renewal and gentrification, to large-scale peace and environmental campaigns, to spearheading the antiausterity protests sweeping the continent.

Eschatology played a central role in both politics and society throughout the early modern period. It inspired people to strive for social and political change, including sometimes by violent means, and prompted in return strong reactions against their religious activism.

Southern Crossings: Indian activists and the Afro-Asian movement in the early Cold War era

Dario Fazzi

Providing a valuable overview of regionalism throughout the entire continent, Regionalism in Modern Europe combines both geographical and thematic approaches to examine the origins and development of regional movements and identities in Europe from 1890 to the present.

This study focuses on increasing our understanding of the different pathways converts take during conversion to Islam.

Political Islam is not new to the Middle East, but the appearance of ISIS has stretched the phenomenon to the extreme.

Book by Soledad Valdivia Rivera

What is the relationship between democracy and peace? Do the two go hand in hand, so that less democracy means less peace? Or can democracy work against peace: for example, by producing protectionist and militarist governments? Or is there something more deeply wrong with democracy as we know it, such…

The Just Peace festival is coming up shortly. From 21 to 24 September we will be celebrating peace in The Hague with some inspiring HagueTalks, the Peace in the Park festival and the annual Peace Run.

The Peace Run was held in The Hague on 14 September as part of the Just Peace festival. The event aimed to gather funds for UNICEF the Netherlands. A large team from Leiden University took part in the Run. Altogether a successful day!

Today’s world faces large-scale climate change and other environmental disruptions. Meeting these challenges involves major adjustments to economy and society, with substantial potential for conflict and violence. This dialogue assembled leading authorities on the relationship between climate and peace,…

Buitelaar argues that IOs micro-level discourse adapts imperfectly to macro-level changes, balancing adaptation to pressures with commitment to values.