DPCW anniversary renews debate on stronger global peace framework

Marking its 10th anniversary, the Declaration of Peace and Cessation of War (DPCW) is at the centre of renewed international debate on how to reinforce legal mechanisms to prevent conflict and advance sustainable peace.

Proclaimed on 14 March 2016, the DPCW was proposed as a set of shared standards to prevent war and encourage the peaceful settlement of disputes, at a time when armed conflict continues to recur worldwide.

The declaration begins with the recognition that countless young people are sacrificed in war. Rather than focusing only on managing conflict after it breaks out, it outlines a direction for preventing conflict structurally and institutionalising cooperation.

Over the past decade, support for the DPCW has steadily expanded, laying the groundwork for the practical implementation of its standards.

Heavenly Culture, World Peace, Restoration of Light (HWPL) is an international peace NGO established to protect lives from the devastation of war and help build a sustainable peace order.

HWPL's establishment is rooted in the wartime experiences of its chairman, Man-hee Lee, who, as a student soldier during the Korean War, witnessed the devastation of conflict firsthand. His conviction that youth must not be sacrificed in war remains central to the organisation's mission.

Since then, HWPL has developed an international network uniting political, religious, and civil society actors, and has promoted discourse on peace-related international law, education, and interfaith collaboration. The DPCW is a product of these efforts.

The declaration's roots go back to the HWPL World Peace Summit held in Seoul on 18 September 2014. According to HWPL, the summit brought together 1,933 participants from 152 countries, including former and current heads of state, government officials, religious leaders, international law experts and representatives of civil society.

A central issue raised at the conference was that responding to conflict only after it erupts is not enough to prevent the recurrence of war. That led to a broader consensus on the need for international standards to prevent conflict and institutionalise cooperation.

In 2015, HWPL launched the HWPL International Law Peace Committee, made up of international law experts from around the world. Following legal review and consultation, the committee completed the draft of the DPCW, comprising 10 articles and 38 clauses. It was officially proclaimed on 14 March 2016.

The DPCW contains a preamble and 10 articles with 38 clauses. While it is grounded in the core principles of existing international law, it provides a more detailed outline of mechanisms for preventing war and strengthening cooperation.

Its provisions include establishing international standards on the use of force, codifying procedures for the peaceful settlement of disputes, strengthening international cooperation and collective security, guaranteeing freedom of religion and encouraging interfaith collaboration, and expanding a culture of peace through wider civil participation.

The DPCW is not presented as a replacement for the existing international legal order. Rather, it seeks to complement and reinforce already agreed principles of international law so they can function more effectively in practice.

It is also notable for seeking to broaden the basis for implementing international norms by recognising the roles of actors beyond the state, including religious communities and civil society.

Since its proclamation, endorsements have continued to emerge from international organisations and national legislatures. Regional parliamentary bodies such as the Pan-African Parliament, the Central American Parliament and the Latin American and Caribbean Parliament have adopted resolutions supporting the DPCW.

More recently, the Chamber of Deputies of Paraguay, the Senate of the Dominican Republic and the National Legislature of South Sudan have also adopted resolutions endorsing it.

Support has also grown at the civil society level. According to the organisers, around 900,000 endorsements have been collected from citizens in 178 countries. That suggests the diffusion of the declaration's ideas has occurred not only through state diplomacy but also through civil society engagement.

These developments show that the DPCW has evolved beyond a mere declaration, expanding its influence through ongoing engagement with international institutions and the wider public.

For much of history, conflicts have often been brought to an end through war. The pattern of determining order through the superiority of force has repeated itself across generations.

A meaningful civilisational shift would lie in changing that structure by moving away from resolving conflict through war and towards resolving it through law, agreement, procedure and cooperation. Conflict itself may not disappear, but the means of dealing with it can change.

The DPCW aims to clarify standards governing the use of force, establish robust dispute-resolution procedures, and embed the roles of religion and civil society within a formal institutional framework. In doing so, it seeks to reinforce mechanisms that can prevent conflict from escalating into war.

The last decade has been a period of advancing that proposal within the international community and building institutional and social support around it. The challenge ahead is to consolidate those gains.

International norms need to be strengthened so that conflicts do not escalate into war, and a structure must be firmly established that holds both states and societies accountable.

The objective is not to preserve war as a default method for addressing disputes, but to foster a global environment where peace is deliberately chosen and systematically sustained. Conflict may endure, but the means of resolution must evolve. The DPCW stands as a concrete step towards that institutional transition.