Pathways to Reconciliation, Sarajevo 2005

About Pathways to Reconciliation and Global Human Rights

Pathways to Reconciliation and Global Human Rights brought together practitioners and thinkers from around the world to reflect upon, evaluate and advance the global human-rights agenda. The fourth in the Pathways to Reconciliation series, the four-day conference (16-19 August, 2005) was also an opportunity to engage the specific locale of Bosnia and Herzegovina in a global context. The conference was held in the beautiful and cosmopolitan city of Sarajevo, known before the war in the mid-1990's as the most oriental city in Europe.

Developing and assessing processes of reconciliation has been a central concern of human-rights institutions and organisations. However, their impact and role continue to be weak in a world convulsed by warfare and terrorism and division remains over how best to secure and prioritise fundamental human rights.

Consideration of how international institutions, the state and non-government organisations can co-ordinate their efforts to develop structures that favour human rights is a crucial step in the advancement of existing and future processes of reconciliation.

At this moment in time particularly, it is vital to empower those who have experienced conflict and to enable others who have sought to move societies forward from a history of the same.