Speaker Spotlight

With wars escalating worldwide, is ‘world peace’ a serious political goal, or a dangerous illusion?

World peace can seem illusory when violence dominates the headlines, but history shows that what once seemed impossible can become attainable. The end of apartheid and women’s suffrage are just two examples of this.

In fact, it is a dangerous illusion to believe that the status quo is acceptable, that human nature is inherently selfish, conflict is inevitable, and peace impossible.

The fact that wars are escalating worldwide today is a wakeup call for action and a clear indication of the urgent need for global institutions with a much stronger mandate to build and maintain world peace.  

World peace is not an inert state of tranquillity at the global level, but an expansive concept that encompasses justice, harmony, unity, and preserving the rights, wellbeing and prosperity of every individual and every community. Bringing about such a peace is not just the responsibility of politicians; working for peace is a choice before each one of us. 

International law was designed to prevent conflict. Why does it seem so powerless in today’s wars?

International law works most effectively when backed by shared values, collective responsibility, and accountability. Law without legitimacy or without consequences for breach becomes fragile. One might wonder how such a common understanding and shared vision can arise on the global scale. The social organisation of humanity has transformed over the course of human history. Just as humanity has moved through successive stages from hunter-gatherer societies to city-states and nation-states, the move towards global governance offers a pathway from division towards a more peaceful and united world.

Are today’s global institutions failing because they’re outdated, or because powerful states ignore the rules when it suits them?

Both are true. Many global institutions were built for a post-World War II reality that no longer exists. But rules also fail when power outweighs accountability. The deeper issue is that global governance still relies on the voluntary restraint and collective responsibility of states, rather than a sense of shared ownership of the system itself. Global institutions tend to work when states see their own security as inseparable from the security of others. We must work towards a system where states take their global responsibilities as seriously as their national responsibilities. Such a mindset is still emerging. We need to consider ourselves as world citizens and our institutions should be transformed to embody this identity.

Is peace blocked more by bad systems of governance, or by a lack of political will to change them?

Bad systems of governance and weak resolve reinforce each other. Flawed institutions discourage trust, and low trust weakens the courage to reform. But political will does not arise spontaneously; it grows when people believe change is possible and that responsibility for action is shared.

Peace advances when leadership shifts from focusing on short-term advantage to long-term collective wellbeing. The real obstacle may be imagination: our ability to picture governance that serves humanity as a whole.

In order to establish world peace, systems of governance must be developed which are cooperative and non-adversarial, in which society is not viewed in terms of factions of competing interests, but where governance is centred around service to others, humility, and an understanding that the welfare and happiness of each is dependent on the welfare of all.

One concrete step we should consider in this regard is teaching virtue ethics and global citizenship in schools. Educational movements across the world, both formal and informal, offer insights into how peace is relational and can be learnt through careful teaching practice and creative curriculum.

In a world shaped by inequality and economic insecurity, can peace exist without justice, or is that the real unfinished business?

Peace without justice is temporary, at best. Inequality creates resentment, fear, and instability. Economic insecurity doesn’t just harm individuals- it erodes social trust. A durable peace requires fairness, dignity, and opportunity, not only diplomacy. Justice isn’t a moral add-on to peace; it’s foundational.

Justice can be realised in many spheres– at local, national and global levels, in government policy, and through the actions of communities, families and individuals. Some of the most noteworthy recent achievements in socio-economic justice have been grassroots initiatives at the neighbourhood level.

The elimination of extremes of wealth and poverty, eradication of all forms of prejudice, realising the equality between men and women, and the involvement of women in every aspect of the life of society- these must be the foundations on which we build a lasting peace and the direction in which our efforts should be directed.

If there were one legal or governance reform that could most realistically move us toward lasting peace, what should it be—and why hasn’t it happened yet?

A realistic step would be strengthening binding international decision-making on security and conflict- so rules apply equally, not selectively. This hasn’t happened because states still fear losing sovereignty. Yet in practice, sovereignty is already constrained by global crises- from war to climate to pandemics. The question isn’t whether we share power, but whether we do so deliberately and fairly.

Building peace is often framed as the responsibility of institutions and leaders, yet it is equally rooted in the moral choices of each one of us, and in the depths of our hearts. Systems of governance mirror the values people live by—how they understand justice, exercise power, and relate to those beyond their own group. From this perspective, peace requires more than legal reform; it depends on cultivating qualities such as unity, fairness, and responsibility toward the whole of humanity. When individuals see themselves as participants in a shared global community, not merely citizens of competing states, political and legal structures gain the moral foundation they need to endure. Lasting peace emerges when personal transformation and institutional change advance together.