Donate
Follow TFF
Facebook-f X-twitter Linkedin-in Tiktok Telegram Weixin Vk
Archive 1986 - 2017
Jan Oberg

Open Letter

To the President of
the UN General Assembly,
Mr. Jan Eliasson

Lund, Sweden – August 14, 2006

The board of the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, TFF, Sweden sends the following Open Letter that aims to stimulate a wider discussion about the preconditions for a genuine peace process also after UN Security Council Resolution 1701.

Already supported by distinguished civil society leaders, we hereby encourage like-minded individuals and organizations to sign it. See how after the Open Letter.

Uniting for Peace

The history of this conflict makes it abundantly clear that violence on either side stands no chance of alleviating the suffering on all sides. If continuing, it will have devastating consequences for global security. A comprehensive, all-inclusive process built on dialogue, civilian initiatives and modern conflict-resolution is the only road to peace and justice.

While there are sincere efforts by some governments to end the carnage on both sides of the border, there have been serious delays in achieving an armistice in the Israeli-Lebanese confrontation. Unfortunately, yet again the UN Security Council has been victim of deliberate procrastination. At the same time the tragedy in Palestine remains all-pervasive and conditions in Iraq have deteriorated further.

In light of this, we call upon the President of the UN General Assembly to initiate preparations for a Uniting-for-Peace-resolution in order to urgently begin the long road towards human security, conflict-resolution, justice and reconciliation throughout the region.

This is provided for by United Nations General Assembly Resolution 377, also known as the “Uniting for Peace” Resolution: it states that, in the event that the UN Security Council cannot maintain international peace, a matter can be taken up by the General Assembly. The resolution was initiated by the United States in 1950 as a means of circumventing possible Soviet vetoes.

“… if the Security Council, because of lack of unanimity of the permanent members, fails to exercise its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security in any case where there appears to be a threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression, the General Assembly shall consider the matter immediately with a view to making appropriate recommendations to Members for collective measures, including in the case of a breach of the peace or act of aggression the use of armed force when necessary, to maintain or restore international peace and security.”

The General Assembly, no less than the governments of member states, should address itself to the festering issue of Iran’s uranium enrichment, which further aggravates conditions in the Middle East. It is worth noting that several General Assembly resolutions since 1974 and UN Security Council Resolution 687 (1991) of the UN Security Council call for a Nuclear-Free Zone in the Middle East but have yet to be implemented. Nuclear proliferation is not the only issue; as long as the nuclear weapons powers ignore their obligations to disarm under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, proliferation is unavoidable.

To prevent further destruction of life and property words have to translate into overdue action.

• The first priority is to stop warfare at once between Israel and Lebanon, followed by an international conference on the Middle East modelled on the OSCE in Europe.

• Such a conference offers an opportunity to begin a new and holistic peace process in the region.

• Such an initiative however can only succeed if all the parties to the various conflicts participate. This would mean Lebanon including Hizbollah, Israel, Palestine with Hamas and Fatah, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the Arab League, the USA, the UK, Russia, Turkey and the European Union. It is essential that governments encourage civil society organizations to deliver inputs to such a conference, before, during and after it.

• This process should be led by the United Nations. No one should set any preconditions for such a meeting. Everyone should have the right to put their issues and concerns on the table.

• There is an urgent need for a genuinely impartial mediator.

• The majority of world public opinion is no longer willing to condone self-serving power politics that abandon fundamental elements of international law.

• While citizens around the world advocate an all embracing and non-violent response to the inaction of political leaders in these troubling moments of history, they are concerned that years of raw and dishonest approaches in dealing with these clusters of conflict in the Middle East will increasingly result in violent protest over the status quo and boost rather than limit the threat of wider war as well as terrorism.

• We urge Member States to assure that the United Nations, if deployed in a peacekeeping and peace-building role, be given a concise mandate and adequate human and material resources to accomplish its mission.

Sincerely

Christian Hårleman, TFF Board chairman

(Organisations mentioned for identification purposes)

The Board of Directors
International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, IPPNW

Fiona Dove, director
TNI, The Transnational Institute, Amsterdam

Dietrich Fischer, academic director
European University Center for Peace Studies, EPU, Stadtschlaining, Austria, TFF Associate

Farhang Jahanpour, professor
Department of Continuing Education, Oxford University, TFF Associate

Edward Canfor-Dumas, Eirwen Harbottle & Diana Basterfield
mfp, ministry for peace, London

Claire Hickson, head of advocacy and communications
Saferworld, London

Kevin Clements, dr. professor
The Australian Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, ACPACS

Paul Ingram, senior analyst
BASIC, British-American Security Information Council, London

Scilla Ellworthy, dr., director & founder
Peace Direct, London, TFF Associate

Johan Galtung, dr. hc. mult., professor, founder & co-director
Transcend – A Network for Conflict Transformation By Peaceful Means, TFF Associate

Gabriel Carlyle
Voices in the Wilderness UK

Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, chairman and former Prime Minister of Malaysia, The Perdana Global Peace Organisation, Kuala Lumpur

John Sloboda, executive director & Rosie Houldsworth, assistant director
Oxford Research Group, ORG, Oxford

Richard Falk, professor emeritus, international law
Princeton University and the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, TFF Associate

Stuart Rees, professor & director
Centre for Peace & Conflict Studies, CPACS, and the Sydney Peace Foundation, University of Sydney, TFF Associate

Kathy Kelly & Jeff Leys
Voices for Creative Nonviolence, Chicago

James A. Paul, executive director,
Global Policy Forum, New York

Barbara Müller, dr., director
Institute for Peacework and Nonviolent Conflict Transformation, IFGK
Wahlenau, Germany

Stella Cornelius, director
Conflict Resolution Network, Chatswood, Australia

Jens-Peter Steffen, dr.,
International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear Weapons
IPPNW e.V., Germany

Peace & future researcher + ‌Art Photographer

View all posts by Jan Oberg →

Share

Archive 1986 - 2017Forum

Related Posts

Archive 1986 - 2017
Now we know: there need be no clash of civilizations
LONDON – So far so good, at least on the wider level. While internally Iraq seems on the edge of chaos, the much heralded clash of civilizations between the Muslim and Judaeo-Christian worlds has yet to become apparent. We have anger and despair aplenty in the Arab and Muslim worlds. But very little rushing to the standard and there was no great pilgrimage of warriors to join the fight, as happened when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan twenty years ago, and then, having driven the Red Army out, were left to ferment in that mountainous redoubt. With the armaments supplied by the CIA the mujahidin were transformed into Al Qaeda that became, for a relatively brief moment as these things go, ‘the greatest threat to the homeland that America has ever known.’ Nevertheless a ‘Cold War’ between much of the Muslim world and the West is certainly in full swing. Winston...
Archive 1986 - 2017
Nuclear Age Peace Foundation Statement
The Challenge of Nuclear Weaponsin the Twenty-first CenturyA Path Forward The peoples and governments of the world face an urgent challenge relating to weaponry of mass destruction and particularly to nuclear weaponry.  At the crossroads of technology, terrorism, geopolitical ambition, and policies of preemption are new and potent dangers for humanity. Despite ending the nuclear standoff of the Cold War era, nuclear weaponry is again menacing the peoples of the world with catastrophic possibilities.  We recognize the need for any government to pursue its security interests in accordance with international law; and further, we recognize that distinctive threats to these interests now exist as a result of an active international terrorist network having declared war on the United States and its allies. Nonetheless, we reject the assessment of the current US administration that upgrading a reliance on nuclear weapons is in any sense justified as a response. We find it...
Archive 1986 - 2017
Sanctions against Yugoslavia – A continuation of NATO’s aggression
By Karin Wegestal MP, the Social Democratic Partyon behalf of the Swedish Committee for Solidarity with the Yugoslav People During the last decade, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia has received more than 500,000 refugees from Croatia and Bosnia, and another 300,000 internally displaced persons, mainly from the province Kosovo and Metohia. For a country with about ten million inhabitants, such an influx of homeless people is obviously a very heavy burden – even under peaceful conditions. But in addition to that, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia has been the subject to sanctions from the western powers for close to ten years and its infrastructure was badly hurt through Nato’s intense bombardment during 78 days in 1999. The result of all this is that Yugoslavia, once the most developed industrial country in Eastern Europe, is today the poorest country in Europe. In Serbia excluding Kosovo, with about ten million inhabitants and...

Recent Articles

Media
Nonviolent Journalism and the Collective Field of Human Freedom
Tony Robinson October 4, 2026 Violence is easy to recognise when someone is being beaten, shot or killed. It becomes more difficult when nobody is holding a weapon. Poverty, discrimination, exploitation and repression can restrict a human life just as effectively, although they do so in very different ways and with very different consequences. Simply adding more categories to an ever-growing list of forms of violence does not really solve the problem. The more interesting question is what all these different situations have in common and why it makes sense to describe them using the same word. Human beings do not simply react to what happens around them. They remember the past, imagine things that do not yet exist, make plans and undertake projects. Workers organise because they imagine different working conditions; people migrate because they imagine another life somewhere else; social movements emerge because people refuse to accept the...
Blog
Of course, we can we abolish war before it destroys us!
It’s a matter of principles, courage, vision and pulling together – while the militarist world is falling apart… Peter Langille October 3, 2026 “Here, then, is the problem which we present to you, stark and dreadful and inescapable: Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war?”The Bertrand Russell—Albert Einstein Manifesto, July 9, 1955 ⁕ The forecast for what’s ahead is worrisome. The sharp rise in armed conflicts over the past three years is adding to what was already the highest level in over seventy years. Genocides, which should be prevented are supported. A shared climate emergency that jeopardises survival is ignored. Diverse polls now suggest that people are war-weary, worried and interested in a more effective United Nations. And, there are viable policy options for a more secure world! Yet governments are doubling-down, betting on more war and investing heavily. If current trends persist,...
Blog
The World Beyond Global Disorder
Johan Galtung 1930-2024October 2015 Published here on October 3, 2026 Let us focus on Civilization for conflict analysis and remedies. Major forms of disorder use violence; war is state organized violence. The most belligerent states are the United States of America and Israel, both with civilization roots. National Evangelism, the US Protestant Christian civilization– more national than evangelical–justifies US warfare as exceptionalism of a people chosen by God, with a manifest destiny to run the world. Orthodox Judaism justifies Israeli warfare to conquer and expand from Nile to Euphrates as a religious right and duty to the Eternal One. The third most belligerent country, the UK, no longer believes it is God-chosen but chosen by the USA; not quite the same but something. But the root cause of global disorder lies in the Occident–with Islam–seeing itself as the single, universal civilization valid for all at all times, all others being...

TFF on Substack

Discover and subscribe to more peace materials on TFF Substack

Posts
Videos
TFF Channel on Rumble

Most Popular

Media
Nonviolent Journalism and the Collective Field of Human Freedom
Tony Robinson October 4, 2026 Violence is easy to recognise when someone is being beaten, shot or killed. It becomes more difficult when nobody is holding a weapon. Poverty, discrimination, exploitation and repression can restrict a human life just as effectively, although they do so in very different ways and with very different consequences. Simply adding more categories to an ever-growing list of forms of violence does not really solve the problem. The more interesting question is what all these different situations have in common and why it makes sense to describe them using the same word. Human beings do not simply react to what happens around them. They remember the past, imagine things that do not yet exist, make plans and undertake projects. Workers organise because they imagine different working conditions; people migrate because they imagine another life somewhere else; social movements emerge because people refuse to accept the...
Blog
Of course, we can we abolish war before it destroys us!
It’s a matter of principles, courage, vision and pulling together – while the militarist world is falling apart… Peter Langille October 3, 2026 “Here, then, is the problem which we present to you, stark and dreadful and inescapable: Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war?”The Bertrand Russell—Albert Einstein Manifesto, July 9, 1955 ⁕ The forecast for what’s ahead is worrisome. The sharp rise in armed conflicts over the past three years is adding to what was already the highest level in over seventy years. Genocides, which should be prevented are supported. A shared climate emergency that jeopardises survival is ignored. Diverse polls now suggest that people are war-weary, worried and interested in a more effective United Nations. And, there are viable policy options for a more secure world! Yet governments are doubling-down, betting on more war and investing heavily. If current trends persist,...
Blog
The World Beyond Global Disorder
Johan Galtung 1930-2024October 2015 Published here on October 3, 2026 Let us focus on Civilization for conflict analysis and remedies. Major forms of disorder use violence; war is state organized violence. The most belligerent states are the United States of America and Israel, both with civilization roots. National Evangelism, the US Protestant Christian civilization– more national than evangelical–justifies US warfare as exceptionalism of a people chosen by God, with a manifest destiny to run the world. Orthodox Judaism justifies Israeli warfare to conquer and expand from Nile to Euphrates as a religious right and duty to the Eternal One. The third most belligerent country, the UK, no longer believes it is God-chosen but chosen by the USA; not quite the same but something. But the root cause of global disorder lies in the Occident–with Islam–seeing itself as the single, universal civilization valid for all at all times, all others being...
Read More
Living-Peace-Sign-Budapest-copy
Media
Nonviolent Journalism and the Collective Field of Human Freedom
Tony Robinson October 4, 2026 Violence is easy to recognise when someone is being beaten, shot or killed. It becomes more difficult when nobody is holding a weapon. Poverty, discrimination, exploitation and repression can restrict a human life just as effectively, although they do so in very different ways and with very different consequences. Simply adding more categories to an ever-growing list of forms of violence does not really solve the problem. The more interesting question is what all these different situations have in common and why it makes sense to describe them using the same word. Human beings do not simply react to what happens around them. They remember the past, imagine things that do not yet exist, make plans and undertake projects. Workers organise because they imagine different working conditions; people migrate because they imagine another life somewhere else; social movements emerge because people refuse to accept the...
b54a1f10-8c65-4f0b-9dd5-4abc0a7d04cc_2659x2659
Blog
Of course, we can we abolish war before it destroys us!
It’s a matter of principles, courage, vision and pulling together – while the militarist world is falling apart… Peter Langille October 3, 2026 “Here, then, is the problem which we present to you, stark and dreadful and inescapable: Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war?”The Bertrand Russell—Albert Einstein Manifesto, July 9, 1955 ⁕ The forecast for what’s ahead is worrisome. The sharp rise in armed conflicts over the past three years is adding to what was already the highest level in over seventy years. Genocides, which should be prevented are supported. A shared climate emergency that jeopardises survival is ignored. Diverse polls now suggest that people are war-weary, worried and interested in a more effective United Nations. And, there are viable policy options for a more secure world! Yet governments are doubling-down, betting on more war and investing heavily. If current trends persist,...
010
Blog
The World Beyond Global Disorder
Johan Galtung 1930-2024October 2015 Published here on October 3, 2026 Let us focus on Civilization for conflict analysis and remedies. Major forms of disorder use violence; war is state organized violence. The most belligerent states are the United States of America and Israel, both with civilization roots. National Evangelism, the US Protestant Christian civilization– more national than evangelical–justifies US warfare as exceptionalism of a people chosen by God, with a manifest destiny to run the world. Orthodox Judaism justifies Israeli warfare to conquer and expand from Nile to Euphrates as a religious right and duty to the Eternal One. The third most belligerent country, the UK, no longer believes it is God-chosen but chosen by the USA; not quite the same but something. But the root cause of global disorder lies in the Occident–with Islam–seeing itself as the single, universal civilization valid for all at all times, all others being...
Screenshot 2026-10-02 011738
TFF Blog
Q & A for China Social Science Academy Journal: How to promote innovation?
Jan ObergPhD, director, The Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, TFFLund, Sweden October 2, 2026 This is my full original manuscript. The Chinese Academy of Social Science, CASS, makes two publications out if it. 1. China’s Five-year plan emphasized the capabilities of basic research and original innovation. It is regarded as the goal of the future social development, which, as required, should be significantly enhanced. Can you comment on the importance of original innovation in research and academic study? I believe it is easier to define “original innovation” in the natural sciences than in social sciences. The breaking points of what constitutes something new, or innovative, are not quite as sharp in the latter. But in both fields it is about opening up something that was closed, unseen, unexplored before – making manifest what was earlier latent. Innovations come in many forms and shapes – naming something that was not...
arctic-circle-map
Conflict analysis
US-Denmark-Greenland Agreement: The Winner Takes It All – Forever
The agreement is catastrophic both because of what it says and what it doesn’t mention. It reduces further the major asset of security policies: Freedom of action. Jan Oberg TFF director September 25, 2026 A couple of hours before the agreement was signed on September 22, 2026, I published the following 13 hypotheses about what it would most likely contain on TFF Substack (in English). I was wrong on only the first point. Contrary to what Trump had written on his Truth Social platform, it does not appear to come into force immediately. In fact, it turned out to be worse than even I had anticipated. After these hypotheses now come a number of reflections in light of what the agreement actually contains, and does not contain, as well as the way in which it has generally been presented by major media outlets and by the public-service broadcaster DR. My...
girl-5894831_1280
Media
✅ TFF Share Blog, News & Notes from 2021 till today
Below are TFF-related media mentions, comments, videos and social media posts published elsewhere but not on this homepage. We happen to catch and list only a fraction. Regarding video comments and debates, we recommend that you go to the TFF Video Channel on Substack where many of them are reproduced. Jan Oberg is a contributor to China Daily – 52 million daily clicks – and Global Times, CGTN and CCTV (the national television), China Investment, Xinhua News Agency and several others. Articles and videos on these media very often multiply into countless Chinese (and Western media) that re-post them from these main media. Thanks to The China Academy, his analyses, interviews and comments are frequently posted on YouTube channels such as Thinkers Forum and Wave Media. These videos are often re-posted on Bilibili (China’s YouTube), the China Content Center on TikTok, and on the Chinese edition of TikTok, Douyin.com. This means reaching hundreds of millions of viewers worldwide over a year. While there are too many to catch on all these...