Peace without human rights is only a pause between wars

We are marking the launch of the first United Nations Peacebuilding Week. It is a welcome initiative. But if recent conflicts have taught us anything, it is that peace cannot be built on ceasefires or memoranda alone. Nor can it be imposed solely through military means.

Durable peace depends on whether societies are able to address the grievances, injustices and abuses that fuelled violence in the first place. It depends on whether their rights to health, education and a livelihood are fulfilled. In other words: peacebuilding begins with human rights.

Sadly, human rights are increasingly disrespected, and some experts reckon last year was a tipping point: the trend is accelerating in the wrong direction.

I have been reflecting on this after returning from Syria, where there is, after years of devastation, some hope of a different future. The questions Syria now faces are not simply about reconstruction or stabilisation. They are about whether a country shattered by atrocities can build a social and political order based on rights, dignity, equality and justice. They are about transitional justice, accountability, and whether all components of Syrian society, including women and young people, are protected and have a say on their future.

That is the real test of peacebuilding. Not whether the guns fall silent, but whether a society can begin to rebuild trust, acknowledge suffering, and create institutions that help people reject violence. Without that, peace is not peace at all. It is only a pause – a chance for the guns to reload.
My own view has been shaped by experience on both sides of this debate. As the Netherlands’ minister of defence, I saw the hard limits of military power. However committed governments may be, there are always more crises than there are troops, assets or political mandates. No country, and no alliance, can be everywhere it is needed. The military taught me that hard power exists to protect the “soft” values that we hold so dear: freedom, dignity and justice. 

Today, in my role as EU Special Representative for Human Rights, I see just as clearly the limits of the broader international system. I see that this system will not survive unless we fight as hard for it as we are ready to invest in our physical security. The UN remains indispensable. But let us be honest: in conflicts such as Sudan, the international community has neither the tools nor, too often, the political will to protect civilians from mass violence. We watch atrocities unfold and lament our inability to stop them. 

That should force a reckoning. If we cannot reliably intervene once killing has become commonplace, then we must become much more serious about prevention, inclusion, accountability and addressing the root causes of conflict before they explode. We must also actively fight the erosion of international humanitarian law and protect the institutions that hold states and individuals accountable, including the International Criminal Court.

Human rights are not a soft add-on to security policy, but central to it. Societies do not descend into violence out of nowhere. It is when people are denied rights, excluded from power, stripped of dignity, and left without peaceful means to pursue justice that conflict becomes attractive – both to the powerful who can harm others with impunity, and the desperate on whom they prey. Without rights, instability returns – however many tactical victories may be claimed in the meantime.

This is also why the European Union matters much more than many people realise. The EU is sometimes criticised for being too cautious, too procedural, too slow in matters of war and peace. Some of that criticism is fair. 

But it misses the extent to which the EU is already engaged in the daily work of peacebuilding and prevention: through its delegations, special representatives and envoys, through quiet diplomacy to secure humanitarian access, through support for mediation, and through sustained investment in governance, resilience and development. 

In fact, most of the world’s donor funds to make conflict less likely now come from the EU or EU member states.  That rarely makes headlines. But it matters. Moreover, in my opinion, the greatest investment the EU is making is in civil society and media freedom. These actors are protecting and fighting for the values and norms that we hold so dear.

Peacebuilding lacks the drama of war; the UN's Peacebuilding Week might not lead TV news. Yet it is precisely the patient, political, rights-based work of building institutions, protecting communities and addressing grievances that determines whether violence will return to places like Syria.

If we want peace to last, it cannot rest on fear, silence or exhaustion. It must rest on freedom, justice, dignity and equality. Without human rights, peacebuilding is not merely incomplete. It is unsustainable.