The Coalition for the Human Right to Peace Conference at Lurie Conference Room, Clark University

As convenor of the Coalition for the Human Right to Peace, Virginia Swain, Co-Founder of the Center for Global Community and World Law, hosted a conference at Clark University on 19 February 2012. Additionally, The Coalition was part of a larger conference at the United Nations 22 March 2012. A report can be found at http://www.aedidh.org/?q=node/2096. For more on the Clark Conference, go to http://www.telegram.com/article/20120219/NEWS/120219566/1116. The history of this conference follows:  On 6 June 2011, at the invitation of Ambassador Chowdhury, Virginia Swain and Matthew Thomas travelled to Washington to participate at the CSO Washington-based Consultation on the Human Right to Peace organized by the SSIHRL and CEJIL, where they were briefed by a number of experts including Ambassador Chowdhury and Professor Carlos Villán Durán, President of SSIHRL, and prepared to go forward.  Although this Coalition is US-based, it has a global steering Committee which has met by teleconference since June 2011. It has members from Sweden, Norway, Australia, Spain, China, Finland, Belgium, the Netherlands and of course the United States. It is made up of academics and practitioners from many fields. Our conference on 19 February 2012 began a process to address the main areas of the Santiago Declaration. Information about the Coalition is provided on the web site below.  http://www.centerglobalcommunitylaw.org/wl_coalition.html  “The peoples of this planet have a sacred right to peace”. This statement from the Declaration on the Right of Peoples to Peace approved by the General Assembly on 12 November 1984, is fundamental to Virginia Swain’s work in the United Nations Community for the past twenty years. So it was very fitting that on 24 March 2011, Virginia started the Coalition for the Human Right to Peace at a well-attended gathering of Worcester cross-sectoral leaders when Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury spoke on Culture of Peace http://www.aedidh.org/?q=node/1969.  The Coalition was discussed in an interview with Virginia Swain & Joseph Baratta, Co-Founders,http://www.telegram.com/article/20110630/FLASH/106309652/1239/telegramtowns&TEMPLATE=TOWNPORTAL&WT_TOWN=telegramtowns .