Talking while fighting: Civil conflict ceasefire conference

Ceasefires are a common feature of almost all armed conflicts. Yet despite their importance, we currently lack a clear understanding of how ceasefires influence civil war. In particular, it is not clear why or when ceasefires occur, how they affect the behavior of armed actors, or the role they play in facilitating (or undermining) peace processes. We therefore propose to organize a conference to map both the academic and the policy landscape related to academics. The aim of the conference is two-fold: First, we want to extend and broaden the research front on ceasefires, particularly related to civil conflicts. By bringing together researchers from around the world who work on ceasefires, we will establish a new research network focused specifically on ceasefires and related security arrangements. Second, the conference will bring together academics and policy- and decision makers and practitioners who work directly on negotiating, designing, and monitoring ceasefires. In doing this, the conference will facilitate a policy dialogue between these communities that will give policy makers access to cutting-edge research and knowledge relevant for their work, and academics critical insights as to the questions and issues that the policy community believe would benefit from further research. We plan for a three-day conference 18-20. September 2019 in Oslo. The first two days of the conference will have an academic focus, while the last day will focus on the policy environment. The conference is a collaboration between the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), EHT Zürich and NORDEM. This is an extension of an already ongoing collaboration between the PRIO and ETH Zürich to developing a ceasefire dataset. This collective effort is financed by both the Swiss and the Norwegian MFAs.