# Center for Global Nonkilling

The Center for Global Nonkilling (originally known as the Center for Global Nonviolence) is an international non-profit organization focused on the promotion of change toward the measurable goal of a killing-free world. The Center for Global Nonkilling is an NGO in Special Consultative Status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council and a participant organization of the World Health Organization's Violence Prevention Alliance.

## History

The history of the Center for Global Nonkilling started in 1988 in Honolulu, Hawai‘i, as the "Center for Global Nonviolence Planning Project", an exploratory initiative set up at the Spark M. Matsunaga Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution, University of Hawaiʻi, by Professor Glenn D. Paige. Its purpose was to be a creative facilitator of research, education-training, and action in the form of problem-solving leadership for nonviolent global transformation. During this phase the Center was responsible for a series of publications and events in partnership with the University of Hawaiʻi.
In 1994, the Center for Global Nonviolence was finally established as an independent nonprofit, focusing on research and networking. Notable outcomes where the publication of Nonkilling Global Political Science in 2002 and the celebration of the "First Global Nonkilling Leadership Forum" in November 2007, Co-chaired by Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire. A major outcome from the Forum was the acknowledged need and demonstrated support for establishing a successor Center for Global Nonkilling, along with an associated Global Nonkilling Leadership Academy. This would come about in 2008 with the transition from Center for Global Nonviolence to Center for Global Nonkilling.
On its official website, the Center for Global Nonkilling defines its mission as the following:
   Small, creative, and catalytic in partnership with individuals and institutions locally and worldwide—by combining and sharing the spirit, science, skills, arts, institutions and resources of all—the Center for Global Nonkilling can contribute to new and renewed leadership for change towards a just, killing-free world in which everyone has the right not to be killed and the responsibility not to kill others. The means to achieve this mission include:
   * Discovering and encouraging global nonkilling human capabilities
   * Introducing nonkilling knowledge in global education and policy
   * Applying nonkilling knowledge in global problem-solving
   * Developing and assisting nonkilling global leadership
   * Assisting institutions/centers for global nonkilling
   * Measuring, monitoring, and disseminating the impact of nonkilling global efforts.

## Organization

The Center is governed by a chairperson, currently Anoop Swarup, together with a governing council. Its everyday business, such as meetings and publications, is executed by a Director, currently Joám Evans Pim. The Center has three UN Representatives: Christophe Barbey (Geneva), Winnie Wang (New York), and Elina Viitasaari (Gender Focal Point). The Center also has special advisers and honorary sponsors, including Máiread Corrigan Maguire, Óscar Arias, Juan Esteban Aristizábal Vásquez, A. T. Ariyaratne, Federico Mayor Zaragoza, Neelakanta Radhakrishnan, and Bernard Lafayette Jr. The Center also maintains a number of research committees.

## Activities

The Center engages in four main activities, namely publications and media, including publication of working papers, articles, and books; monitoring and advocacy, mainly at the United Nations; education and training programs, with its own sets of learning materials at school and university level; and research programs, via its research committees, colloquia, and seminars.