Project work flow

AgenZ advised the German Foreign Office on the conference concept, formulation of objectives and organisation. Together with the German Foreign Office, AgenZ also worked with the steering committee, which was composed of representatives not only of the governments invited, but also of the International Center for Transitional Justice, the Crisis Management Initiative, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, the Working Group on Development and Peace (FriEnt),  KOFF, Göttingen's Georg August University and the Robert Bosch and Dräger Foundations. Each of the members contributed their own thematic and regional expertise in considering the various possibilities for bringing lasting peace to crisis-torn regions. In addition to providing the concept, AgenZ also held the conference on site.

The event was a great success: some 400 participants from more than 80 countries discussed their experiences with work conducted during and following conflict – among them the then Foreign Ministers of Germany and Afghanistan Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Rangin Dadfar Spanta, Nobel Prize winner Martti Ahtisaari, and Lakhdar Brahimi, former UN special envoy to Iraq, Afghanistan and Haiti.

Backround

In historical terms, the Higher Superior Court of Nuremberg made a particularly significant setting for the opening event. It was in the criminal chamber of this court that the Nazi crimes were tried 60 years ago. In his opening speech, the German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier stressed the necessity of creating links between the areas of peace and justice. The aim of the conference, he said, was to determine ways to ‘help societies that have been damaged by conflict to find their own way of strengthening links between peace and justice’ – because for this, as Steinmeier emphasised, there was ‘no master plan whatever’.

The results achieved in Nuremberg were recorded in the ‘Nuremberg Declaration on Peace and Justice’, which takes a stand for a sustainable definition of peace – one which includes not only peace but also justice, security, development and institutional reform. The Declaration was communicated to the Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-Moon, and is now registered as UN Document A/62/885.

Services

• Collaboration with the German Foreign Office on the overall concept of the conference 
• Advisory services on the formulation of objectives, subject matter and the conference programme 
• Advice on and assistance with the one-year preparatory process (including interface management)
• Financial planning and management 
• Running of the conference (including fringe programme, management of speakers and participants, security planning)
• Publication of preparatory studies, press work, event documentation, creation and moderation of the internet pages

Further information

Conference website "Peace and Justice"
> www.peace-justice-conference.info/

The Nuremberg Declaration on Peace and Justice
> www.peace-justice-conference.info/declaration.asp