In the 20 years since the ground-breaking UN Security Council resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security, women’s access to formal peace processes is continues to be severely limited despite years of active advocacy from Women, Peace and Security actors. Formal peace negotiations remain a secluded and heavily male dominated arena. It is time to move beyond demanding a seat at the table for women, and rather to re-think and re-strategize what inclusive mediation should look like.

A workshop on inclusive mediation was held in Reykjavík in November 2021 with the objective of looking beyond the narrow models of women’s inclusion, and to focus instead on exploring a variety of avenues available for women’sparticipation in peace processes. Attendees of the workshop got the opportunity to discuss and develop concrete ideas of different avenues that could be utilized to ensure women’s active inclusion in peace processes worldwide.

In the political imaginary, the meaning of justice in cases of sexual violence is usually equated with criminal justice. However, research shows that justice for survivors of sexual violence is a more nuanced and complex phenomenon. Taking survivor-centred justice seriously demands the rethinking of different justice mechanisms and the creation of different political, social and legal pathways to justice. To address the “justice deficit” in cases of sexual violence the conference explored alternative approaches to justice as part of efforts to hold the state and offenders to account.

The conference was open to all and consisted of five panels exploring the topic across different themes and regions with a particular emphasis on the Nordic context. A special Nordic workshop was also held parallel to the conference. Results include further collaboration between researchers on the topic as well as video recordings from the conference for public dissemination.