Wednesday, 18 March 2026
A public knowledge exchange event, held at the 糖心原创 later this month, will bring together leading academics, policymakers, and peacebuilding practitioners to explore how relational restorative justice approaches are contributing to ongoing peace efforts in Colombia.
The public event on 26 March, , jointly hosted by the university in collaboration with Colombian and international partners, will feature contributions from those who work directly with the process.
The practitioners will share lessons from the Comuneros del Sur process – a regionally focused peace initiative in the department of Nariño involving a dissident faction of the National Liberation Army (ELN) that has pursued a locally grounded dialogue with the Colombian government.
The collaborators – including Dr Kerry Clamp, Associate Professor in Criminology in the School of Sociology and Social Policy at Nottingham, Professor Jennifer Llewellyn of the Schulich School of Law at Canada’s Dalhousie University, Dr Andrei Gomez Suarez of the Colombian Government Delegation for Negotiations with Comuneros del Sur, and Mr Mathias Zeller of the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Colombia – will showcase the collaborative work connected to Colombia’s Total Peace Policy, a national strategy aimed at addressing armed violence through dialogue, justice mechanisms, and territorial development.
Peace negotiations have traditionally treated justice as something to be addressed only after a final agreement has been reached. What is emerging in the negotiations with the Comuneros del Sur in Nariño suggests that justice can instead be pursued during the peace process itself."
“This event provides an opportunity to reflect on how initiatives centred on truth telling, reintegration, reparative action, and sustained dialogue are helping to build the relational conditions necessary for both peace and justice. These developments are not only significant for Colombia but may also offer important lessons for how peace processes are designed elsewhere.”
Unlike nationally scaled peace negotiations, the Nariño process emphasises practical steps to reduce violence against civilians, strengthen humanitarian conditions, and build legitimate forms of local governance during peace negotiations. The initiative foregrounds relationships between armed actors, communities, and local authorities, including Indigenous leadership, and is experimenting with new approaches to justice and accountability rooted in local realities.
What is especially powerful about this work is that it is being developed in collaboration with those directly engaged in the peace process in Colombia. By working alongside policymakers, community leaders, and practitioners, we are able to learn from the realities of peacebuilding as it unfolds. These insights not only matter for Colombia but contribute to a growing global conversation about how justice can be pursued in ways that support sustainable peace.鈥�
Through presentations and discussion, the public knowledge exchange event aims to highlight how these developments are informing a relational restorative justice approach to peacebuilding – an approach that places relationships, legitimacy, and community participation at the centre of conflict transformation, with insights co-produced with Colombian policymakers, civil society organisations, and community actors in Nariño. Rather than presenting Colombia simply as a case study, the initiative positions local practitioners and policymakers as contributors to globally relevant knowledge about peacebuilding, justice, and territorial governance.
The event will take place alongside a closed strategic policy dialogue bringing together experts from organisations including the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, the House of Lords, London School of Economics and Political Science, King's College London, ABColombia, and the Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan to reflect on lessons emerging from the Colombian process.
What is especially important to underline is how this work on relational restorative justice reflects the overall process logic of co-construction. Our collaboration is no traditional cooperation project, but rather an endeavour where every actor makes their own contribution and thereby adds their particular added value. This bears the potential of a lasting impact for this regional peace process, as the voices of affected actors such as communities and local authorities are incorporated in the very design of the structures created, with the realities of peacebuilding in Narino taken into account as it unfolds."
“We are convinced that the insights of this work are relevant beyond Colombia and hope they contribute to a larger conversation about how justice can be pursued in ways that support sustainable peace, and how new models of cooperation based on co-construction can have a positive impact.”
The broader project includes field engagement in Colombia with national institutions in Bogotá and regional and community-level partners in Nariño, as well as a series of analytical ‘think pieces’ exploring how relational restorative justice frameworks can support sustainable peace initiatives.
Additional materials and background analysis on the work can be accessed .
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More information is available from Dr Kerry Clamp in the School of Sociology and Social Policy, via kerry.clamp@nottingham.ac.uk
Notes to editors:
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