The Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF) held the international conference “Nagorno-Karabakh peace process: on the role of the question of justice for the conflict resolution”. The conference, which was supported by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), took place on 23-27 November 2012 at the Evangelische Akademie Arnoldshain near Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
More than forty participants, including high-ranking representatives from politics and research from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Russia and Germany participated at the four-day conference. The main focus was the role of justice in the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which has been neglected in political and academic discussions so far. The highly contrasting positions of the conflicting parties appear to be mainly due to incompatible ideas of justice, whereby they generally are inclined to achieve absolute solutions.
The conference's aim was to explore, how and under what conditions the disparate ideas and claims of justice of the counterparties could be made aware, communicated and transformed in order to contribute to a peaceful settlement of the conflict. Firstly, following introductory lectures by German experts on problems of justice in peace processes as well as on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict well-known scholars from Armenia and Azerbaijan took a critical look at the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict from the perspective of the respective states. Afterwards, the politicians got a chance to speak – prominent parliamentarians from both countries discussed the respective ideas of solution to the conflict. Further presentations, including these of renowned experts from Germany and Russia dealt with external factors in conflict management.
For the first time experts from research and politics from the countries of the region were brought together in Germany so as to create an important platform for an international and intersectoral dialogue. The conference was organized by PRIF's research department "Governance and Societal Peace".
Organisation and contact:
Peace Research Institute Frankfurt
Tel.: +49 69-95910432 and +49 176-77421033