Towards a New Agenda for Peace and Common Security
By Anna Sundström and Björn Lindh
When the situation in the world is gloomy, we need initiatives that can provide hope for the future. At a time when the Cold War threatened to turn into a devastating nuclear war, the concept of “Common Security” was established by an international commission led by then Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme. The commission concluded that in a nuclear war there are no winners. Both sides must realize that they have a common problem to deal with. The concept of Common Security was the guiding one when disarmament negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union eventually got under way.
In 2022, 40 years after the Palme Commission, the Olof Palme International Center, International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and International Peace Bureau (IPB) took the initiative to form a new international commission that analysed how the concept of Common Security today can be a tool for a better world. The text below is based on the report Common Security 2022.