About
Goals
Insights
To develop insights that help to stop current and future wars.
Resources
To convince people, donors, and governments to dedicate more resources to reducing armed conflict and building a more peaceful world.
Inspiration
To offer ideas and inspiration to people who are directly affected by armed conflict and those trying to help them.
Research
To expedite further research by creating an unprecedented historical archive of successful efforts to directly reduce armed conflict.
Prove
To prove that we can stop war and that peace is possible.
Our
Approach
Each case we have represents a unique historical process in which the initiatives of people or organisations directly contributed to preventing, containing, or ending an armed conflict. For the time being, the entire index is drawn from the period 1990-present. Each case has been coded along multiple axes to offer the search functionality on this website and provide opportunities for the comparative analysis of relevant cases.
We have been creative with the source base of our work, employing any credible documentation and information to make the case that each example did in fact stop a war and illustrate how this was done. Listed below, our sources include but are not limited to:
Armed Conflict Databases
Armed conflict databases, such as the Uppsala Conflict Data Programme (UCDP), the Armed Conflict Survey of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, and the Correlates of War Project.
Related Databases
Other databases such as UN Peacemaker, the Peace Accords Matrix at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame, the Peace Agreements Database at the University of Edinburgh, and the Dynamic Analysis of Dispute Management Project at the University of Central Arkansas.
Online Archives and Published Documentation
The online archives and published documentation (including impact assessments, financial records, public-facing outputs, etc) from practitioner organisations ranging from the African Union, Economic Community of West African States, European Union, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, and the United Nations to the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, the Community of Sant’Egidio, and a host of other NGOS.
Academic Literature
An expansive selection of academic literature representing a wide range of disciplines, including rare and recently published works.
Published Coverage
Coverage of armed conflict and peace initiatives by reputable journalists and media outlets from around the world.
Jurisprudence from Legal Institutions
Jurisprudence from legal institutions such as the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court, the Permanent Court of Arbitration, and ad-hoc tribunals such as the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the Special Court for Sierra Leone.
Note From the Author
We want to use history to improve how we stop war and build a more peaceful world.
This report documents 180 historical cases of when people and organisations have successfully stopped war. For the purposes of this project, we are not focusing on open-ended concepts such as creating “positive” or “legitimate” peace. Instead, our goal is to collect as much useful information as is possible on successful efforts to stop organised and armed groups of people from using conflict, violence, and war to achieve their goals and use this knowledge to facilitate and inform current and future efforts to reduce armed conflict. Each case, therefore, is included on the weight of the historical evidence that can support the claim that a war was stopped and does not necessarily conform to strict criteria.
We believe that further research on the cases presented here will provide useful lessons and insights to the field. To expedite such work, we are developing analytical tools and seeking analysts and scholars to collaborate with us. In future, I hope scholars and practitioners will consider our data as they design and develop any research on previous initiatives to reduce armed conflict to inform their work.
Once completed, the database will be able to provide a shortlist of historical cases that resemble, to some extent at least, the parameters of a contemporary conflict for further analysis. Further research on these cases, tailored to the circumstances of the contemporary conflict, should then be carried out by people and organisations with appropriate expertise on/experience of the historical cases with the express intention of gathering lessons, warnings, and insights from key individuals involved in those successful efforts. Eventually, every case we have documented should be furnished with documents and testimonies of those involved to preserve this information for future generations. Given the resources and time required to continue refining the database and complete the project, we will one day be able to provide in-depth assessments of all historical cases of successful interventions that are relevant to a current conflict and communicate the knowledge of the individuals involved in those cases directly to practitioners on the ground. I am convinced that by employing history in the rigorous, patient, and global way I have described, we can improve how we stop war and ultimately build a more peaceful world.
Dr Elliot Short
Margate, United Kingdom, 2022.
Who We Are
