8th Anniversary of the September 18th HWPL World Peace Summit Result Report

Peace as an Institution: A Foundation for Sustainable Development

This report summarizes the 8th Anniversary of the September 18th HWPL World Peace Summit held online on September 18, 2022. September 18th has been the date to commemorate the HWPL World Peace Summit in 2014, which brought together leaders and activists from around the world to declare their commitment to cooperation for world peace. And it has been the date to discuss achievements and future directions of peace projects annually.

This year, HWPL focused on peace in terms of institutionalization. Under the theme of ‘Peace as an Institution: A Foundation for Sustainable Development’, this summit introduced a series of action plans and cases that contribute to institutionalizing peace as a form of norm, culture, or law in each society, which serves as a foundation for the global community to achieve the goal of sustainable development for co-existence and co-prosperity. And all these efforts are based on the principles of peace contained in the Declaration of Peace and Cessation of War (DPCW), proclaimed with the participation of experts in international law.

Marinus Bee, Speaker of the National Assembly of Suriname, explained the political structure and function in the process of making peace an institution. He emphasized that the legislative branch can establish a representative democracy that creates a legal structure for the government to carry out its functions of promoting and guaranteeing the values of peace, security and equality. Therefore, as the most traditional and important actor in today’s international society, in order for the state to establish the foundation of peace, it is understood that the parliament serving as legislator and the symbol of democracy representing citizens, the justification to formulate various policies and programs that are the basis of peace.

Octavia Alfred, Minister for Education, Human Resource Planning, Vocational Training and Nation Excellence of Dominica, explained the introduction of peace education as a long-term approach to raising awareness of peace as a part of the civic education curriculum. The peace education textbook with 12 chapters prepared by HWPL has become a guideline for the implementation of peace education in many educational institutions around the world. Although the methods of introducing education policies differ from country to country, the development of a series of policies to make peace publicly recognized through education has been a process of establishing peace as a culture in each society.

Mahendra Das, the Temple President of Sri Sri Radha Madhava Mandir of the Philippines, presented an institutional approach to interreligious dialogue in terms of the role of religion in contributing to peace. He described the implementation of Religious Peace Acadamy, where representatives of different religions, including Islam, Christianity, and Hinduism, participated to explain their religious characteristics and share information. He suggested that regularizing international exchanges and programs to prevent conflicts based on religious misunderstanding can be a starting point for a foundation of peace.

Young Min Chung, General Director of IPYG, emphasized the role of youth as the main role-player of international action for peace. The Youth Empowerment Peace Workshop (YEPW) and the Youth Empowerment Peace Class (YEPC) as programs led by IPYG are functioning as a platform for young people from all over the world to unite to create a network of youth in which they voice a common voice for peace.

Chairman Man Hee Lee of HWPL reminded that the mission to achieve peace is assigned to all in the global community. The objects he refers to as the global peace family are the people of the world who will play a role of leaving peace as a legacy for future generations to create a world peace community. Thus, institutionalization through multidimensional approaches will be the basis for the stable operation of sustainable development that people around the world are making together.

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