You cannot have peace without human rights, democracy, gender equality, and clean water. Look to the root causes of war and you will find, in their reverse, the root foundations of peace."

"To have a peaceful population," says Cora Weiss, "we must teach peace." This belief is the cornerstone of Cora's life's work. As president of the Hague Appeal for Peace, she is leading a Global Peace Education campaign dedicated to the abolition of war. She brings her skills as a convener and an educator into diverse venues – from the classroom to the boardroom. She began her work in the early 1960s, when she co-founded Women Strike for Peace, which helped to bring about the end of nuclear testing in the atmosphere. As director of the Committee of Liaison with Families of Prisoners Detained in Vietnam, she facilitated communication between families and POWs in Vietnam.

It took Cora and her small staff three years to plan for the Third Hague Appeal for Peace Conference in the Netherlands. The result of her work was the largest civil gathering of international peace activists in history, with nearly 10,000 people from more than 100 countries. The May 1999 conference gave participants opportunities in 400 panels and workshops to discuss mechanisms for abolishing war and creating a culture of peace. The document adopted by the conference, the Hague Agenda for Peace and Justice for the 21st Century, was also adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations. The conference launched a number of organizations as well as Cora's Global Campaign for Peace, an online resource for peace. The goal of the campaign is to build public awareness and political support for the introduction of peace education into all spheres of formal and informal education in schools throughout the world and to promote the education of all teachers to teach for peace. Cora worked as an election observer at the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip. She was an active delegate to the World Council of Churches' Third World Conference on Women (Nairobi, Kenya, 1995), and the NGO Women's Forum, Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing, China, 1995). She worked to create peace tents, places for women to speak and convene, at both conferences. She is former president of the International Peace Bureau, at which she now serves as UN representative, and the first recipient of the William Sloane Coffin Award for Peace and Justice offered by the Yale Divinity School.

Hague Appeal for Peace Global Campaign for Peace