Welcome to PGL's Occasional Paper Series

Our Occasional Paper Series is comprised of papers that are published, by invitation, that address key issues - in particularly detailed and novel fashions in connection with the research in the relevant areas - that impact the overall field of peace as a global language. Please note that Occasional Papers are published by invitation only (we do not accept unsolicited submissions for Occasional Papers). Particularly due to our broad community (many of whom have English as a second language) authors are encouraged to write in an accessible style (that is not excessively formal or abstract) using references that are available to the general public online (so that members of the community may access them, and follow-up to find out more about particular issues of interest). When the details of all references are contained in-text (often as internet links) a formal reference list is not required. Authors are encouraged to use a variety of not only deductive/theoretical explanation but also inductive explanation (through a range of clear examples that community members can readily access online). All articles must follow the correct format, whose template is available here. Authors are also encouraged to create tables and figures (graphs, diagrams and pictures) in Google Drive and the link to them in the article. Each article is available free on this page and also as a PDF (see the link at each article).

Each dimension differs along a spectrum (the dimensions are seldom black or white, nor all or nothing). We are talking about specific acts by specific people in specific contexts. What might seem like the same violence actions, even by the same person, may become different types of violence because of the influences of context (context in the sense of Michael Halliday's Systemic Functional Grammar). These dimensions include: level, impact/source (which produces the distinctions between: direct violence, cultural violence, and structural violence). Of the three types of impact/source, the two that comes from an identifiable source (direct violence and cultural violence) can also differ in terms of intent/awareness (which produces implicit violence or explicit violence), stage (being primary or secondary). Secondary violence can differ in terms of target (other or lateral/self). One way to understand these types and distinctions is:

• Level: 

  • Violence can occur at different levels of humanity. There are various different frameworks of different levels of humanity (which have different definitions and numbers of levels). One framework is, from intra-personal violence (within a person or self-harm), to inter-personal violence (between individual people) to inter-group violence (between groups), to amalgamated group. This last level is similar to inter-group but is useful to refer to when looking conflicts between large groups that are made up of different subgroups, like nations, countries, or large political parties. Often the dynamics within a large group is created by the sub-groups within that group. Also members of large groups are not homogeneous and there can exist conflicts within large groups between subgroups. This level is also useful to avoid the psychological bias known as perceived outgroup homogeneity (when people incorrectly think that other groups are more homogeneous than they really are).

• Impact/source:

  • Direct violence: Sometimes called personal violence. This is what people usually think of when they think of violence. This is influenced by the punitive approach to harm/violence and justice in Roman and Judeo-Christian jurisprudence (jurisprudence is the theory or philosophy of law) which typically sees harm/violence as being when a particular person can be found guilty of harming someone else (in Western legal systems this guilt is represented by civil or criminal liability) for which they must be punished. This is violence where there is clear subject (the person, organisation or social structure doing the violence). Direct violence can have particular source (or channels of effect) or area of impact, such as war, physical, psychological/mental, cognitive/educational/thought (examples of this are: misinformation, which is untrue information shared unknowingly; disinformation which is untrue information shared knowingly; malinformation, which is true information share to create harm or violence; and propaganda, which is information disseminated broadly where the, often secret, aim is to influence public opinion regardless of how true the information is. Propaganda is often a mix of misinformation, disinformation, malinformation, facts, arguments, rumours, half-truths, unethical framing, attempts to appeal to people biases, and attempts to emotionally manipulate people. These are cognitive/educational/thought violence because they inhibit people's human right to education and freedom of thought), gender-based, cultural (in the sense of harming a culture or traditions or collective memories/records), structural (in the sense of harming a structure or organisation such as families, societal cohesion or inter-group relationships), ecological, or environmental.

  • Cultural violence: Sometimes called incitement (to discrimination, hostility and violence). Cultural violence is aspects of culture or communication that legitimise or promote (promote in the sense of communication that legitimises something) direct violence. This communication often takes the form of misinformation, disinformation or propaganda when it legitimises violence (propaganda, because of the negative connotations of the word, is often referred to by supporters of propaganda using different, newer, nicer sounding words like "public relations" or "PR", "marketing" , "corporate/organisational/political communications" or just "communications", or the newer terms "public diplomacy"). Cultural violence is distinct from (and when we use the concept of cultural violence we must be clear how cultural violence is distinct from) these concepts: 

    • Psychological violence (which is a form of direct violence where communication or media content directly causes psychological harm). Therefore a specific action can contain elements of cultural violence and psychological violence.

    • Culture or communication that is an instance of legitimate communication or intellectual rights (communication or intellectual rights in this sense are: freedom of speech, freedom of expression, academic freedom, intellectual freedom, freedom of the press and independence of the media, transparency and accountability for organisations, political speech and the right to dissent and participate in and maintain political/civic/democratic processes and spaces). Sometimes this requires finding the appropriate balance between reducing cultural violence, while at the same time also avoiding disproportionate or unnecessary restrictions on communication rights. 

  • Structural violence: Sometimes called indirect violence. Structural violence is where there is no actor directly harming another person but where people's realisation of their potential is still being blocked in ways that are preventable, for example, problems like: homelessness, unequal or inadequate access to education or healthcare, poverty or a minimum wage that is not high enough to support people, gender pay gaps, and other systematic disadvantages experienced by people of particular identity groups. These are types of violence because they are preventable and block people from meeting their potential. They are structural violence because they are a violation of human rights (for example homelessness is the violation of the human right to have a safe, dry, warm-enough, and stable-enough home) and it is unclear who the subjects/people/organisations that are causing the violence. Structural violence is harm that is part of the underlying structure of society or embedded in networks of relationships or our habits of interaction (so the cause can be difficult to identify), rather than being clearly caused by specific individuals or groups. Structural violence is distinct from implicit violence because for implicit violence we know the subject doing/creating the violence (even though the subject is not aware that they are creating violence), whereas for structural violence we do not know the subject who is doing/creating the violence.

• Intent/awareness: 

  • Direct violence and cultural violence can differ in terms of (whether someone is conscious of the fact that they are committing violence), which can sit on a spectrum between being explicit or implicit. 

    • Explicit violence: This is what most people think of when they think of violence. This is violence where the person doing the violence consciously decides to do (direct or cultural) violence or are consciously not concerned with the consequences (they intend to do violence or are aware that they may be committing violence). Disinformation when it legitimises violence is a type of explicit cultural violence.

    • Implicit violence: This has been identified more recently in a range of research. It is (direct or cultural) violence that is unconscious ("implicit"), that is, it is carried out without the awareness/intent of the person who produces the violence. This violence is however still detectable (as cultural violence or direct violence) through research, such as the research on how misinformation that legitimises violence (which is implicit cultural violence) implicit bias (which might be implicit cultural violence or implicit direct violence) and implicit discrimination (which is usually implicit direct violence because it directly harms people rather than just promoting other violence). See for example these accounts of this research:

      • news reports by CNN, Vox here and here

      • research in the American Economic Review (done by Business and Economics departments at universities in the US.)

      • research in the Harvard University here and here (the research project "Project Implicit")

      • a detailed study at Duke University

      • this short explanation of "implicit bias" by the American Psychological Association

Most modern racism and other prejudice and discrimination is implicit violence, as explicit prejudice has become less and less social acceptable. These understandings have been applied practically in education and community engagement to reduce implicit violence, for example in medical training programs, as reported in the news, and in the University of Sydney's Peace and Conflict Studies program's course Human Rights, Peace and Justice.

• Stage: 

  • The above types of violence, except for structural violence, can differ in terms of stage:

    • Primary violence: This is what people usually think of when they think of violence. This is violence caused by a subject (person, group, animal, or thing) impacting an object (a different person, group, animal, or thing).

    • Secondary violence: This is when direct violence or structural violence provoke further violence. Secondary violence is often caused by people who do not have their human needs (see human needs below) met. This does not excuse nor justify secondary violence, and secondary violence is not less immoral than primary violence. It is fundamentally impossible to observe and measure the degree to which outside factors (like primary violence) strip people of their agency/responsibility and force people to do a social behaviour. This impossibility is part of the The Structure and Agency Problem which is an important issue in philosophy, sociology, and other research areas that deal with social phenomena (for a summary see the sections on "Structure and Agency Problem" in Chapter 3 and "Appendix 2: Glossary of Research Terms" of the book: Grix, J. (2019). The Foundations of Research (3rd ed.). Red Globe Press."), including those closely connected to peace like international relations and education. All violence is immoral, so we must assume that people have enough agency to refuse to commit violence. The identification of secondary violence provides, not an excuse, but a way to explain to (see what factors make violence more likely and thus how violence can be reduced and eliminated). 

      • Target: 

        • Secondary violence can either be:

          • Other-focused violence: This is what people usually think of when they think of violence. This is violence caused by a subject (person, group, animal, or thing) impacting an object (a different person, group, animal, or thing). While that is the same explanation as the above's "primary violence", the key point here is that the violence affects an object that is different from the subject.

          • Lateral violence (self-focused): At a group level, this is violence “created by experiences of [violence and] powerlessness, which results in people within an oppressed group expressing their frustration and anger through engaging in conflict [and violence] with each other”. At a personal level this would be violence created by experiences of violence and powerlessness, which results in oppressed individuals engaging in violence against them self.

A particular instance of violence (a particular violent event or pattern in the real world) is a combination of different dimensions, for example:

• a non-defensive (unprovoked) military attack might include: multi-group, direct and cultural (the cultural violence is propaganda), explicit, and primary

• when an individual person is homeless that might include: inter-personal, structural

• a situation of gender discrimination and sexual harassment in the workplace might include: inter-group, direct and cultural (the cultural violence is the promotion of gender-biased ideas), implicit (men may not be aware that they are discriminating against women and may not be aware of their own gender biases), secondary and other-focused (it may be caused primarily by a group of men who themselves face socio-economic class discrimination in areas like education, employment, and healthcare)

Two Different Levels of Peace?

Peace can be seen as having two levels. While the first level is good, the second level is usually better.

• Level 1: Negative Peace: This is referred to through a lot of common phrases like security, the protection of a country's security and interests, national security, international security, peace through deterrence, keeping the peace, restoring quiet, or peace through strength. When defined widely this is the absence of direct violence and explicit violence, and the presence of negative human rights (negative human rights, which are usually just called negative rights, are human rights that people naturally have the capacity for that need to be protected from interference, such as: the right to life, liberty and security of person; freedom of speech; freedom of association; freedom of movement; and freedom from arbitrary detention). When defined narrowly this is the absence of war (see the definition of direct violence above). One example of Negative Peace policy is removing and reducing weapons used in war, which is called "disarmament", through organisations such as the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs. 

• Level 2. Positive Peace: Sometimes called peace with human rights or peace with justice. This is Negative Peace plus the absence of other types of violence (such as structural violence and implicit violence) and the presence of justice/human rights (especially positive human rights, which are usually just called positive rights, which are things that people need in order to live a safe and reasonably comfortable and happy life such as economic wellbeing, health, housing, and education), Peace Rights and where people's needs are met (see below for more on these terms). One example of Positive Peace policy would be helping to end (or reduce) homelessness. Specifically, this could be helping people to overcome the preventable obstacles that are stopping homeless people from being able to find and live in a safe and secure home. Positive Peace can also be reductions in other forms of structural violence such as: unequal or inadequate access to education or healthcare, poverty or a minimum wage that is not high enough to support people, gender pay gaps, and other systematic disadvantages experienced by people of particular identity groups. In this way Positive Peace covers important priorities for individuals, groups and organisations. Because of the dangers of structural violence, development (development in terms of positive human rights, both personal, and collective as in building and effectively managing organisations/institutions and systems) is integral to Positive Peace.

Negative Peace is Often Unsustainable and Unstable

Negative Peace not only lacks human rights, Peace Rights, human needs, and justice (see below for more on these terms): because Negative Peace lacks these things it also often lacks stability, sustainability, and the length of its continuation is difficult to predict. This shows that satisfying human rights, Peace Rights, human needs, and justice (as well as them being intrinsically valuable) can also give peace more stability, sustainability, and predictable duration. Some real-life examples of situations of unstable Negative Peace are:

• The MAD strategy which means "mutually assured destruction". The MAD strategy is an approach to pursuing Negative Peace through confrontation and threats between countries that have nuclear weapons (or an approach to justifying the existence of nuclear weapons by claiming that if various countries have nuclear weapons there will be Negative Peace). The MAD strategy requires, and produces, an international situation of Negative Peace that is inherently unstable and dangerous. This international situation is inherently unstable and dangerous because countries must: very quickly and accurately monitor other countries' use of nuclear weapons, maintain a very high level of willingness and readiness to use nuclear weapons in a way that will result in the mass killing of civilians, and have procedures in place to use nuclear weapons quickly when a country believes that another country has probably used nuclear weapons against them. This creates the possibility of the accidental use of nuclear weapons that could, if other countries also use the MAD approach, cause a nuclear war and the widespread destruction of life. We know that the world has come close to nuclear war because of this kind of accident at least once, in 1983, which is the subject of the documentary "The Man Who Saved The World".

• The situation in North East Asia (the region of North Korea, South Korea, China, and Japan) and their allies

• The situation of Russia, Ukraine and their allies before Russia’s invasions of Ukraine that began in 2014 (the Russian invasion and occupation of Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine) and 2022 (the Russian invasion of other parts of Ukraine)

• The situation between Israel and neighbouring countries (like Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Yemen) before 7 October 2023

• Situations in countries run by governments that claim to be very focused on "law and order" and "national security" but not equal human rights and equal opportunities for minorities, and that use violence to repress minorities and to control disagreement

• The situation of the deaths of a disproportionate number of black people by police actions or while in police custody, and police brutality and racially motivated violence against black people in the US and other countries

• The US under President Donald Trump's first presidency. President Donald Trump often opposed equal human rights and Positive Peace, and during his first presidency there was the January 6th 2021 violent insurrection, and other efforts by President Donald Trump and his supporters to overturn the 2020 US election.

• We can see many historical examples in countries that have endured armed revolutions and civil wars following wide-spread violation of human rights

• Research on nonviolent social movements (which are one type of adversarial rights-based approach to peace) from 1900 to 2006 shows that, nonviolent social movements are twice as successful as violent uprisings/insurgencies ( also see here. Success is usually defined as "the overthrow of a government or territorial independence achieved because of a campaign within a year of its peak"). Violent uprisings are more focused on promoting Negative Peace (rather than Positive Peace) because they do not respect human rights like the human right to life, liberty and security of person and often involve violations of the law of armed conflict (see below for more on the law of armed conflict). Nonviolent social movements are also ten times more likely than violent uprisings to lead to democratic outcomes (regardless of whether the movement succeeded or failed in the short term), although some research suggests that violent revolutions are less likely than nonviolent revolutions to be reversed through (violent and nonviolent) counterrevolutions.

What are Human Rights?

This raises the question: what are human rights? There are a lot of different answers to this question, some very critical of the way human rights has conventionally been handled. One conventional way of understanding human rights is the above-noted distinction between negative rights (which generally find more support in individualistic Western societies and systems) and positive rights (which often find more support in collective non-Western societies and systems). For PGL human rights are not so much about having "black and white" definitions of what human rights are and are not, but also about the process of communication, dialogue, negotiation and exchange about what human rights are, can be, and should be. Human rights can be defined narrowly as just the area of (traditionally Western-dominated) law known as "human rights law". However, broader definitions of human rights often refer to human rights and justice in the wider sense of other things that are considered human rights like rights under other areas of the law (see "Peace Rights" below), human needs, adequate equality and equity, inclusiveness, individual and collective self-determination and the right to be involved in decision making that affects you. PGL activities, with our focus on peace (and Positive Peace and things that promote that such as cross-cultural understanding, engagement and inquiry), often uses broader definitions of human rights that encompass a range of sources and understandings that go beyond just the technical, Western-dominated, definition of "human rights law". We also often consider rights particularly related to preventing and positively transforming: violence, cross-cultural misunderstandings, inter-cultural conflict, wars and civil wars, armed conflict, and foreign occupation.

Rights in the Context of Peace: "Peace Rights"?

Peoples' rights are recognised in a range of areas associated with cross-cultural interaction, inter-group conflict, armed conflict, and foreign occupation. One way to describe this body of rights is "Peace Rights". 

In a legal sense, individual countries, some regions (like the European Union and African Union), and the mechanisms of international law, promise to guarantee Peace Rights through a range of different, and sometimes overlapping, bodies of law, which are:

• Human Rights Law. This can be:

  • International

    • Such as the treaties that countries have signed up to such as the International Bill of Human Rights and the "core" international human rights instruments, and other human rights instruments like these

  • Not international

    • Such as national or local human rights law. National or local human rights law often focuses on preventing discrimination, bullying, and harassment. One example is Japan's relatively weak domestic human rights law.

• Other bodies of international law that are particularly related to war and civil wars, armed conflict, foreign occupation, and inter-group conflict, such as:

  • The law of armed conflict, which has two distinct parts:

    • International Humanitarian Law

      • This is the rules about how armed force can be used (what conduct armies must follow during military actions). This is also called "jus in bello ".

    • The rules about conditions under which armed force can be used.

      • This is the the rules about when armed force can be used (when it is justified for a country to begin to use armed force). This is also called "jus ad bellum ".

  • Refugee Law

  • International Criminal Law, particularly mass atrocity crimes (which can occur both in times of peace and in times of war) and large-scale military aggression

    • Such as the through the International Criminal Court. International Criminal Law overlaps with the above areas of human rights.

• Other international law not focused on conflict can also become relevant to conflict, for example:

  • The law of statehood is a body of law that determines if a political entity has the status of a "state" under international law and this is often relevant in international conflict. One recent example is the ongoing (as of 2024) International Criminal Court case State of Palestine (which began in 2015) about alleged crimes committed in Palestine since June 2014. In that case the International Criminal Court ruled (in February 2021 ) that it could launch the case because the law of statehood determined that Palestine had the status of a "state" under international law.

  • Different areas of law not specifically related to conflict can also interact in ways that are important for international conflict. For instance, in the International Court of Justice case: Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem (2024; see, specifically: Paragraphs 86-94 of the Advisory Opinion of 19 July 2024) two areas of law that interact are the law of occupation and the law of the sea. In that International Court of Justice case, one of the issues the court had to consider was whether Gaza is occupied by Israel (one reason this question is important is that under the the law of occupation a military has special responsibilities regarding the care of a foreign territory/area/country it occupies). This involved both legal and factual questions. The legal question, of when a particular territory is defined as "occupied" by a foreign military, is set by the law of occupation. For the factual question of whether the situation in a particular territory (in this case, Gaza) fits that definition, one of the facts that the International Court of Justice found was relevant was that Israel maintains control over Palestine's territorial waters (and maritime areas) off the coast of Gaza. The international law of states' territorial waters (and states' maritime areas) is in the body of law known as the law of the sea.

• Universal Jurisdiction

  • This is national law (that is, law that operates through a specific country's courts) that (unlike most national law) can apply in territories outside of that country (this is why the "jurisdiction" is called "universal", based on the principle that particularly serious crimes (often defined as crimes against humanity, war crimes, genocide, torture, and terrorism) harm the international community or the international order itself, which individual countries may act to protect. This is not international law. Spain is one of the countries that has most actively used universal jurisdiction. Universal Jurisdiction overlaps with the above areas of human rights.

Often human rights or Peace Rights are not just a method that is part of conventional legal mechanisms, but also an ethic which can be pursued through a range of methods and mechanisms that extend beyond conventional legal mechanisms. Thus there are of course many other conceptions of human rights, and Peace Rights, that may not be well represented in international legal instruments or national legal systems, including:

• Indigenous and minorities' tradition, innovations, and new creations in areas of rights and duties/responsibilities

• Religious and spiritual sources of ideas about rights and social obligations

• Rights explored through philosophy, research, and intellectual inquiry

• Literature, poetry, music, film, and other arts, social media, and information technology and AI, as sources of theory and practice on rights

• Human rights pursued through the wide range of nonviolent social movements (also see here which lists various other terms used for the same thing) that have appeared particularly since the the 20th century, such as:

  • The historical nonviolent movement for Indian self-determination and to end British colonial rule of India led by Mahatma Gandhi and others

  • The international movement against apartheid in South Africa

  • The civil rights movement in the US

  • The movement for equality and self-determination for Palestinians

  • the "Black Lives Matter" movement

  • The "Me Too (#MeToo)" movement

  • The "Fight for $15" movement

  • The movement against the violation of human rights (including sexual assault), and environmental abuses, by the US military in Okinawa

• Rights promoted through more cooperative or inclusive (and less punitive) community or legal mechanisms like Restorative Justice and Alternative Dispute Resolution

• Theory and practice around rights developed by activists, aid and development professionals, government and UN workers, academics, community workers and organisers, and teachers and students

How is Social Justice, Human Rights (and Peace Rights), and Human Needs, Connected to Peace?

Of course justice has a range of meanings. One modern definition is that justice is basically synonymous with people's rights under human rights, Peace Rights, and other international law. Often the terms social justice, human rights, human needs are used in connection to different approaches to justice.

Often the terms "social justice" and "human rights" are used in the context of adversarial rights-based approaches to peace and justice (for example protests, demonstrations, boycotts, and legal approaches to rights). On the other hand, often "human needs" is used in the context of cooperative approaches to peace and justice (which traditionally has been called conflict resolution, and in newer research is called conflict transformation. This includes methods such as dialogue between people, dialogue between groups, negotiation, mediation, alternative dispute resolution, and group discussions run by a facilitator). See here and here for more on these distinctions.

Different approaches (adversarial rights-based approaches, or cooperative approaches, or other approaches) are suited to different situations, and have their own common conditions for effectiveness. While cooperative approaches to peace are usually the best, they are not always possible at a particular time. For example, when there is a significantly unequal power relationship between different groups, cooperative approaches to peace are unlikely to be successful in building peace between those groups (until power between those groups has been equalised). One of the most well-known current examples of this negative role of unequal power is the Israel-Palestine conflict (see for example this short evidence-based analysis, written in 2011, that has correctly predicted that cooperative approaches to peace would continue to fail in the Israel-Palestine conflict until power between the Israeli and Palestinian groups has been equalised). On the other hand, adversarial rights-based approaches are often most likely to be effective when they are driven by diverse coalitions who cooperate well together, convert opponents, and have diverse tactics and the discipline to not lapse into using violent tactics. And while adversarial rights-based approaches, and cooperative approaches, can seem very different (and there can seem to be a tension between them), the skills and outcomes generated from one these approaches can also support the realisation of conditions for success in the other approach. That is, in the real world both of these approaches are often used at different stages and with different parties, within the same overall conflict. Skills from cooperative approaches to peace (skills like speaking, listening, discussion, empathy, negotiation, consensus-building for coalitions for change, intercultural communication, and cross-cultural competencies and intercultural effectiveness) can help in building diverse intersectional coalitions to drive campaigns (of adversarial rights-based approaches) for justice and equal human rights for disadvantaged people. And in the other direction: Adversarial rights-based approaches can help create the conditions required for cooperative approaches to be effective. For example, adversarial rights-based approaches (if we use the Israel-Palestine conflict again as an example, adversarial rights-based methods used include: boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS), recognising a people's equal right to statehood, and helping a people to achieve equal human rights) can help to equalise the power between parties, which can enable cooperative approaches to be effective. That is, cooperative approaches can be used to help bring about the conditions for success for adversarial rights-based approaches, and vice versa (adversarial rights-based approaches can be used to help bring about the conditions for success for cooperative approaches).

Contributions of Language to Peace

Language can contribute to peace in many ways. 

Language can support intercultural or international exchange, promote cross-cultural competencies and intercultural effectiveness, drive innovation through intercultural cooperation and the combination of resources for various cultures, and reduce misunderstandings between cultures.

Language is also a core tool for the above-mentioned two common approaches to peace and justice: adversarial rights-based approaches, and cooperative approaches. Cooperative approaches to peace (such as dialogue between people, dialogue between groups, negotiation, mediation, and group discussions run by a facilitator) are generally heavily focused on the exchange ideas through speaking, listening, and discussion (and some writing, reading, visual aids, and physical activities). As noted above, equal power is important in these cooperative approaches means that parity in language (with perhaps a mutual bridging language being used) is important.

Language is a also a core tool for adversarial rights-based approaches to peace. This is true both in the actual (in-situ) use of the various methods (for example protests, demonstrations, boycotts, and legal approaches to rights) that comprise adversarial rights-based approaches, and in the preparation for the use of adversarial rights-based approaches through building of diverse, cooperative, and supportive, intersectional groups (people from different cultures, races, ethnicities, languages, socio-economic classes, genders, sexual orientations, and other groups) that make adversarial rights-based approaches effective. In fact, intercultural linguistic competence is a core driver for the four key ingredients of successful nonviolent social movements (nonviolent social movements are one type of adversarial rights-based approach to peace) that are part of adversarial rights-based approaches to peace:

1.  A large and diverse population of participants that can be sustained over time.

2. The ability to create loyalty shifts among key regime-supporting groups such as business elites, state media, and—most important—security elites such as the police and the military.

3. A creative and imaginative variation in methods of resistance beyond mass protest.

4. The organizational discipline to face direct repression without having the movement fall apart or opt for violence.

Adversarial rights-based approaches, and cooperative approaches, are two quite different approaches to peace and justice. However, as noted above, both of these approaches can be used (at different stages and with different parties) within the same overall conflict to support the conditions for success for the other approach (that is, cooperative approaches can be used to help bring about the conditions for success for adversarial rights-based approaches, and adversarial rights-based approaches can be used to help bring about the conditions for success for cooperative approaches). Exploring and implementing this kind of intersection of approaches (the intersection of cooperative and adversarial rights-based approaches and other approaches) is another key way that language can help to promote peace and justice for a diverse range of issues, contexts, and communities.

Language is also critical to support education/training, intersectionality, and the development and deployment of critical thinking skills in inter-cultural contexts, for: mutual learning through discussion and shared analysis (which is the classical Platonic meaning of "dialogue"), peace practice, peace research, and peace praxis (activities that involve the deliberate linking of peace research and peace practice). As noted above, equal power is often an condition for cooperative approaches to peace, and for different groups who do not have English as a first language English can serve as a bridging language which can help to equalise the power between different groups.

As noted above, because of the dangers of structural violence, development for positive rights is integral to Positive Peace. Development is another area of peace that improved language competencies can support. Language skills can also support negative rights in that people are more able to exercise negative rights because they have more options of where and who to exercise them with.

Language competencies can also help people to avoid the effects of harmful communications (such as cultural violence, propaganda, misinformation, and disinformation) and learn more about (and prevent and reduce) various types of violence.

One Approach to Peace as a Global Language

Efforts to increase the satisfaction of human rights, Peace Rights, and human needs (for various disadvantaged groups or in various situations), or the reduction of various forms of violence/harm, can all be seen as forms of peace. Therefore, peace is more than the imposition of "calm", "harmony", "quiet" or "security" (or something else) upon someone else. Instead, peace is often about the removal of unnecessary and negative barriers so that people, organisations, structures, communities, and ecologies can better meet their potential. “Potential” can of course seem unclear or abstract, but in PGL many of us believe that through communication and language we can learn from each other about what that potential, and our collective potential, might look like and how we can embrace it together. We do not argue that one meaning of "peace" (and related ideas) is correct for all people in all situations. Instead, we recognise that "peace" can carry a variety of meanings in different contexts and circumstances for different people. And we look forward to exploring and learning with you what peace means, and should mean, for you, your community, our wider shared human society, our environment, and our planet.

*  Paul Duffill (duffill*rikkyo.ac.jp; please replace the "*" with the [at] symbol) is Research Fellow, Research Institute of Community and Human Services, Rikkyo University (研究員, コミュニティ福祉研究所, 立教大学); Special Project Researcher, Center for Foreign Language Education and Research, Rikkyo University (特定課題研究員, 外国語教育研究センター, 立教大学); and a Member of the Committee of Peace as a Global Language. He began his formal education in peace studies as a teenager through Aikido (合気道) in the Akarui Aikido school (明るい合気道) in Hamilton, New Zealand. He holds a Blue Belt (三級) in Akarui Aikido, and a Black Belt (黒帯) in Daitoryu Aikibudo (大東流 合気武道) which is sometimes considered a style of Aikido.