surance of the cause of peace in stating: ‘‘We the 
People of the United States, in Order to Form a 
more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domes-
tic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, 
promote the general Welfare, and secure the Bless-
ings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity’’. 
(5) The Founders of this country gave America 
a vision of freedom for the ages and provided people 
with a document which gave this Nation the ability 
to adapt to an undreamed of future. 
(6) It is the sacred duty of the people of the 
United States to receive the living truths of our 
founding documents and to think anew to develop 
institutions that permit the unfolding of the highest 
moral principles in this Nation and around the 
world. 
(7) During the course of the 20th century, 
more than 100,000,000 people perished in wars, and 
now, at the dawn of the 21st century, violence seems 
to be an overarching theme in the world, encom-
passing personal, group, national, and international 
conflict, extending to the production of nuclear, bio-
logical, and chemical weapons of mass destruction 
which have been developed for use on land, air, sea, 
and in space. 
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(8) Such conflict is often taken as a reflection 
of the human condition without questioning whether 
the structures of thought, word, and deed which the 
people of the United States have inherited are any 
longer sufficient for the maintenance, growth, and 
survival of the United States and the world. 
(9) Personal violence in the United States has 
great human and financial costs. A 2004 World 
Health Organization report estimates that inter-
personal violence within the United States costs ap-
proximately $300 billion annually, not including 
war-related costs. The U.S. Centers for Disease 
Control and Prevention states that an average of 16 
young people age 10 to 24 were murdered each day 
in the United States in 2005. The Pew Charitable 
Trust calculates that child abuse and neglect in the 
United States cost $103.8 billion in 2007. 
(10) Promoting a culture of peace has been rec-
ognized by the United Nations Educational, Sci-
entific 
and 
Cultural 
Organization 
(UNESCO) 
through passage of a resolution declaring an Inter-
national Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-Vi-
olence for the Children 2001–2010. The objective is 
to further strengthen the global movement for a cul-
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ture of peace following the observance of the Inter-
national Year for the Culture of Peace in 2000. 
(11) We are in a new millennium, and the time 
has come to review age-old challenges with new 
thinking wherein we can conceive of peace as not 
simply being the absence of violence, but the active 
presence of the capacity for a higher evolution of the 
human awareness, of respect, trust, and integrity; 
wherein we all may tap the infinite capabilities of 
humanity to transform consciousness and conditions 
which impel or compel violence at a personal, group, 
or national level toward developing a new under-
standing of, and a commitment to, compassion and 
love, in order to create a ‘‘shining city on a hill’’, the 
light of which is the light of nations. 
TITLE I—ESTABLISHMENT OF 
DEPARTMENT OF PEACE 
SEC. 101. ESTABLISHMENT OF DEPARTMENT OF PEACE. 
(a) ESTABLISHMENT.—There is hereby established a 
Department of Peace (hereinafter in this Act referred to 
as the ‘‘Department’’), which shall— 
(1) be a cabinet-level department in the execu-
tive branch of the Government; and 
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(2) be dedicated to peacemaking and the study 
of conditions that are conducive to both domestic 
and international peace. 
(b) SECRETARY OF PEACE.—There shall be at the 
head of the Department a Secretary of Peace (hereinafter 
in this Act referred to as the ‘‘Secretary’’), who shall be 
appointed by the President, by and with the advice and 
consent of the Senate. 
(c) MISSION.—The Department shall— 
(1) hold the cultivation of peace as a strategic 
national policy objective; 
(2) reduce and prevent violence in the United 
States and internationally through peacebuilding and 
effective nonviolent conflict resolution; 
(3) strengthen nonmilitary means of peace-
making; 
(4) work to create peace, prevent violence, pre-
vent armed conflict, use field-tested programs, and 
promote best practices in nonviolent dispute resolu-
tion; 
(5) take a proactive, strategic approach in the 
development of policies that promote national and 
international conflict prevention, nonviolent interven-
tion, mediation, peaceful resolution of conflict, and 
structured mediation of conflict; 
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(6) address matters both domestic and inter-
national in scope; 
(7) provide an institutional platform for the 
growing wealth of expertise in peacebuilding to dra-
matically reduce the national and global epidemic of 
violence; 
(8) support local communities in finding, fund-
ing, replicating, and expanding programs to reduce 
and prevent violence; 
(9) invest in non-governmental organizations 
that have implemented successful initiatives to re-
duce and prevent violence, both internationally and 
domestically; and 
(10) work with other government agencies to 
apply and practice the science of peacebuilding in 
their respective fields of responsibility. 
SEC. 102. RESPONSIBILITIES AND POWERS. 
(a) IN GENERAL.—The Secretary shall— 
(1) work proactively and interactively with each 
branch of the Government on all policy matters re-
lating to conditions of peace; 
(2) serve as a delegate to the National Security 
Council; 
(3) call on the experience and expertise of the 
people of the United States and seek participation in 
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