Call for expressions of interest from speakers for INU’s International Student Seminar for Global Citizenship and Peace 2024

International Student Seminar on Global Citizenship and Peace 2024
World Peace and Political Justice
2nd–10th August 2024

International Network of Universities welcomes expressions of interest from faculty across INU member universities, who could contribute to the International Student Seminar for Global Citizenship & Peace on the theme of ‘World Peace and Political Justice’. The seminar is planned to take place from Friday 2nd August – Saturday 10th August 2024 at Hiroshima University, Japan.

Speakers would need to fully participate in the seminar program for the full 10 days and would need to arrive in Hiroshima on Thursday 1st August and depart on Sunday 11th August 2024.

Please refer to the Call for Speakers briefing note for full details.

Expressions of interest are welcome from faculty interested in the following areas. This is an indicative list however and we’re open to proposals from a broad range of perspectives and approaches:

  • • Conflict prevention and warning systems
    • Human rights and global justice
    • Global governance and institutions
    • Conflict resolution and diplomacy
    • Peacebuilding and post-conflict reconciliation
    • Political decision-making process
    • Economic exploitation
    • Political suppression
    • Nationalism
    • Religion
    • Decreasing natural resources
    • Economic impact of war
    • War crimes and international law
    • Legal responsibility
    • Humanitarian impact of war
    • Environmental consequences of war
    • Vulnerable groups
    • Information policies
    • Social media
    • Technology

Faculty who may be interested are asked to initially contact their home University International Office for support for their application, since home universities are required to fund the cost of the trip.

Expressions of interest are to be sent to INU@kingston.ac.uk with the following supporting information:

  • Name / Position / Department / University / Research or teaching interests
    Curriculum Vitae / Resumé
    Proposed title of the workshop
    300 word summary of the workshop
    List of open sources (max 10) which could form part of the reading list to support the workshop

The deadline for expressions of interest is 31st January 2024.

Seminar theme 2024:  World Peace and Political Justice

In recent years, the number of wars or armed conflicts, international and internal, in different regions of the world has risen due to contradictory interests, political suppression or economic exploitation. This negative development is characterised by diversification in the types of conflicts depending on the actors: states and non-state actors.

Because peace is a precondition for sustainable development, the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 16 calls for a peaceful and inclusive world, to provide access to justice for all and build effective accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels. But the reality presented in the SDG Progress Report 2023 with regard to the realization of this goal shows that the global community is actually making insufficient progress. Armed conflicts particularly undermine the progress of all other goals, including the SDGs. They cause numerous victims of the civilian population, violations of human rights and international humanitarian law and leave behind a life-threatening landscape of destruction.

The seminar will also consider the role of international organisations such as the UN in world peace. The most important purpose of the UN is to ‘maintain international peace and security’ as stated in Article 1 number 1 of the UN Charter. This could be achieved by taking ‘effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace’. The seminar will explore how effective and influential such organisations can be in achieving their purpose.

The aims of this year’s seminar are to explore the causes, effects and consequences of wars and conflicts on various areas and agendas and to discuss mechanisms for their prevention for a peaceful world.