2020/2021 Outstanding Peace Activist

Dr. Kevin Clements has a lifelong commitment to peace, having worked in the area for over 50 years. Dr. Clements was the Foundation Chair of Peace and Conflict Studies and Foundation Director of the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (NCPACS) at the University of Otago, New Zealand. He is the Director of the Toda Peace Institute in Japan. Prior to Otago University, he was a professor of peace and conflict studies and Foundation Director of the Australian Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Queensland. For several years he served as Secretary General of the International Peace Research Association (IPRA), President of the IPRA Foundation and Secretary General for IPRA’s Asia-Pacific region (APPRA). He was also Secretary General of International Alert based in London, Lynch Professor and Director of Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (ICAR) at George Mason University, and Head of the Peace Research Centre at Australian National University. He directed the Quaker United Nations Office in Geneva from 1982-1984.

Professor Clements is an expert on academic analysis and practice in the areas of peacebuilding and conflict resolution. He has been a regular consultant to a variety of non- governmental, governmental and intergovernmental organisations on conflict resolution, peacebuilding, disarmament and arms control, and human security issues. He received the Soka University, Distinguished Scholar Award for Peace 1996, the UNAA Peace Award in 2007, the New Zealand Peace Foundations 2014 Peace Award and was made an Honorary Life Member of the NZ Peace Foundation in 2020. He was awarded the International Studies’s Association Distinguished Peace Scholar of the Year Award 2022. He is a member of the Research Committee of the Institute for Economics and Peace and an expert at the Toda Peace Institute in development and peacebuilding. He is the chair of the Archibald Baxter Trust which works to celebrate NZ’s conscientious Objectors to War and encourages conscientious objection nationally and globally.  https://toda.org/experts/kevin-clements.html