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Striving for World Peace through Communication

By Robbie Stotler

The International Peace Bureau (IPB) is an international non-governmental peace organization. It was founded in 1891 along with several other organizations all contributing to the peace movement at that time. When the IPB was created its main functions were to serve the cause of peace by promoting disarmament, non-violent prevention to conflicts, safe resolutions to conflicts, and international cooperation through meetings, events, conferences, consultation, and more. In other words, it sought peace through communication.

Today, the IPB still has an ultimate goal of using communication for peace purposes, but employs some new communication processes more relevant to the present-day situations and technologies. For example, it serves as a communication network for 300 peace organizations throughout 70 different countries. It also serves in more intermediary and interactive roles, such as providing arbitration procedures (legal techniques for resolutions outside of court) and a forum for negotiation between nations.

The most notable and recent accomplishments from the IPB have been their strong opposition to the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, the European Nuclear Disarmament movement, various nuclear weapon seminars during the Euromissile campaigns, and a range of other various peace talks. The IPB's most recent accomplishment came in 1991 when it hosted an international exhibition to the United Nations which appealed against nuclear weapons and encouraged the launch of the World Court Project.