The Hague’s heritage on the subject of international peace and justice dates back as far as the turn of the 16th century, when Hugo de Groot advocated for international agreements on war law and justice. Nearly 3 centuries later, in 1899, the first international peace conference took place in The Hague, heralding a series of subsequent events that strengthened the city’s expertise and reputation on the subject. This steadily attracted peace and justice organisations and their experts from across the world to the city.
As this community grew, so did the need for a space where they could meet, share and explore. The Hague Humanity Hub is the answer to this call and was initiated by the municipality of The Hague. Their efforts are paying off, and The Hague Humanity Hub community is bustling. A wide array of new solutions have been initiated here, from tech-based applications, to social, legal and justice-focused solutions. Many of those are being built into mature use cases, with an often phenomenal impact on the international communities where they are deployed.
The Hague is situated at an extraordinarily beneficial location in the Netherlands’ economic region. The city is surrounded by three global top-100 universities and several world-leading business clusters. Think Delft with its advanced high-tech community, Rotterdam with its maritime and logistics ecosystems and Leiden with its reputable life-sciences community. And these are only a few examples. Exciting opportunities arise from connecting the non-profit community with the diversity of available expertise and the region’s impressive R&D infrastructure. The Hague Humanity Hub is widely connected to these clusters and facilitates discovery, collaboration and innovation between the communities. This relationship significantly increases the non-profit community’s clout.
A notable example of a collaboration between the peace & justice community and the tech community is a solution developed by ESA BIC- alumni and The Hague Humanity Hub member Space4Good. Together with the Carter Center, they developed technology that helps detect unexploded landmines in conflict zones, using satellite data in conjunction with optical artificial intelligence algorithms. ESA-BIC, which is affiliated with the European Space Research and Technology Centre in Noordwijk (about 25km from The Hague), is an incubator that helps startups get access to satellite data with the purpose to build scalable business solutions.
Initiating international justice initiatives
Technology certainly isn’t a magic solution to all humanity’s problems. In many cases, the answers are best found in political or legal action. In those instances, The Hague Humanity Hub acts as a meeting point for international journalists, councillors, legal professionals and humanitarian professionals, to discuss ways to address certain developments and establish justice.
Take for instance the preparations for the Ukraine Accountability Conference, facilitated by The Hague Humanity Hub and attended by two coalitions of Ukrainian NGOs working on recording war crimes since the Russian occupation of Crimea in 2014 and the invasion of 2022 met in The Hague, alongside many colleagues from civil society. Over the day they discussed what survivor-centred justice may look like in Ukraine and compared examples of transitional justice mechanisms from around the world. The discussants included many members of Humanity Hub’s vibrant ecosystem of accountability and human rights organisations. In addition, the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor Karim Ahmad Khan came to Humanity Hub to address the civil society representatives, alongside the Netherlands Minister of Foreign Affairs, Wopke Hoekstra.
Bringing peace and justice to life
Despite the large international peace and justice community in The Hague, not all citizens are equally involved in the many related initiatives and organisations in the city. To involve more of its citizens with the various Peace and Justice activities taking place in the city, the programme Just Peace was established in 2022. This public-facing year-round programme is run by The Hague Humanity Hub with support from the municipality of The Hague and invites citizens to visit and engage with various peace and justice-related initiatives taking place in the city.
The Just Peace platform justpeacethehague.nl invites people to read, write and share stories on peace & justice in The Hague, and invites young writers to join the platform. The Hague Humanity Hub focuses on co-created events with Just Peace partnerships, and runs their own events and exhibitions that are specifically tailored to engaging citizens in discussions, and to elicit personal explorations about citizens’ role in safeguarding peace and justice, both in their own neighbourhoods and at a much wider international scale. In The Hague, September and October have been assigned as ‘Just Peace Month’ ’, during which many related organisations open their doors to the public and many exhibitions and gatherings take place that engage citizens with the many initiatives taking place in The Hague.