The Hague Approach

For the past year, The Hague Institute for Global Justice, with help from the Van Vollenhoven Institute (VVI), researched lessons learned from post-conflict activities in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. The research drew from local experiences to recommend guiding principles important and common to peacebuilding interventions. What is The Hague Approach?

The Hague Approach began as a set of six principles for achieving sustainable peace. It also embodies the philosophy of The Hague Institute. Using The Hague Approach to inform its future work in peacebuilding, the Institute has continued to carry out interdisciplinary policy-relevant research, and use its convening power to facilitate dialogue between various actors (e.g. public-private, civil-military, and local-global) conduct professional training and capacity building.

The Six Guiding Principles:

  1. Conflict Prevention highlights the importance of participation of all relevant international actors in programs and strategies that prevent the onset and recurrence of conflict.

The principles are recommendations for policy-makers and are practical and accessible. They were launched alongside a comparative study on rule of law building activities in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as a detailed field-study on rule of law in post-Qaddafi Libya.

What does The Hague Approach aim to achieve?

Conflicts devastate societies. Their costs can be counted in human suffering, economic collapse and the instability they provoke, often beyond the borders of the country where hostilities first began. The six guiding principles can assist peacebuilders in their important and often complex work to achieve sustainable peace.

The Hague Approach aims to provide guidance to international policy-makers on how to engage in sustainable peacebuilding. To this end, the principles outline practical tools and timely policy recommendations based on empirical findings. In particular, The Hague Approach emphasizes local participation, engaging relevant actors in networks rather than in hierarchies, leveraging new technologies for peacebuilding, and promoting monitoring and evaluation and continual learning. When the lessons of experience are suitably applied, sustainable peace is within reach.

What is the future of The Hague Approach?


Further Reading

Active: Fact-Finding in Lebanon



Completed: Conflict Prevention in The Hague



Active: Distinguished Speaker Series
