17-19 September 2008 at the Centre for Peace Studies (CPS) at the University of Tromsø, Norway. The conference is held in collaboration with the Tampere Peace Research Institute (TAPRI), Finland


This year’s conference addresses the critical and timely issues of theories and methodologies in peace and conflict studies and peace education, including restorative justice as a means to solve civil and criminal conflicts at individual, national and international levels.

Conference theme
European countries face several kinds of unrest and threats due to juvenile delinquency, victimisations in high conflict or post conflict areas, terrorism, high crime rates, high recriminalisation rates, increasing costs of overcrowded prisons and decreasing local and national public participation in civil life. Norway is the European country that has more than two decades of experience with a national, state funded municipally organised, Mediation and Reconciliation Service (NMS) (Konfliktrådet).
This conference focus on the development of an alternative to the general societal response to such unrests and threats; Restorative Justice (RJ) is a theory and a practice of conflict resolution within civil and public societal sectors, involving people in democratic processes for peace building. The Working Party on Restorative Justice with the UN peace building commission is concerned with RJ in peace building in general.

More information about the conference theme, click here

Conference goals
- to discuss if, how and to which extent restorative justice is applicable (or non applicable) in various cultural/social/historical contexts, and whether commonalities can be identified within the different regions in the world under analysis.
- to investigate and analyse how marginal and/or minority social groups experience social conflict and coping ways to dealing with conflicts, tensions and violence on a family and wider group level.
- to discuss RJ as new area for peace studies and peace education at different societal levels, as well as for preventing and resolving ongoing or the aftermath of mass conflicts and violence.

More information, click here

PhD students
PhD students may be credited 5 ECTS for attendance and presentation of paper at the conference. Application is to be handled at the students` home university, so please check possibilities before attending the conference.

Keynote speakers
Ivo Aertsen, Professor, Department of Criminal Law and Criminology, Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium
More information here
Heather Strang, Director, Centre for Restorative Justice, Australian National University, Canberra ACT Australia and Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge UK
More information here and here

Organisers
Ida Hydle, CPS (organiser)
Frank Moller, TAPRI, Finland (co-organiser)
Elisabeth Sandersen and Carina Haug (CPS coordinators and secretariat)

Persons to contact
Professor Ida Hydle (ida.hydle@sv.uit.no)
CPS coordinator Elisabeth Sandersen (secretariat) (elisabeth.sandersen@sv.uit.no) and Carina Haug (carina.haug@sv.uit.no )

Conference fees
Full conference package: NOK 1500. The full package entitles the participants admission to all presentations, coffee breaks, lunch, conference dinner and social arrangements.
Presentations only: NOK 400 (special student fee NOK 200). Entitles the participants admission to all presentations and coffee breaks.

Unfortunately we are not able to grant any form of financial support to the participants.

Deadlines
Final date for registration: 15 August 2008
Final date for delivering abstracts of proposed papers: 15 July 2008
Deadline for canceling registration: 5 September 2008


Preliminary Schedule

First call for papers

Online Registration

Accommodation

About Tromsø

TAPRI