True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice.

A just peace includes not only civil and political rights — it must encompass economic security and opportunity. For true peace is not just freedom from fear, but freedom from want. It is undoubtedly true that development rarely takes root without security; it is also true that security does not exist where human beings do not have access to enough food, or clean water, or the medicine and shelter they need to survive. It does not exist where children can't aspire to a decent education or a job that supports a family. The absence of hope can rot a society from within.

Peace is not merely the absence of visible conflict. Only a just peace based on the inherent rights and dignity of every individual can truly be lasting. It was this insight that drove drafters of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights after the Second World War. In the wake of devastation, they recognized that if human rights are not protected, peace is a hollow promise.

Peace is not just the absence of conflict; peace is the creation of an environment where all can flourish regardless of race, color, creed, religion, gender, class, caste or any other social markers of difference.

A just and lasting peace demands apologies and forgiveness. ... A just and lasting peace embraces gender equality. ... A just and lasting peace calls for economic reforms.

Peace is not merely the absence of war but the presence of justice, of law, of order — in short, of government.

This peace is not the absence of anything. Real peace is the presence of something beautiful. Both peace and the thirst for it have been in the heart of every human being in every century and every civilization.

Justice always assumes that an individual's rights are guaranteed. We cannot talk about justice without speaking about rights. Regarding peace, we must see it in correlation with justice. Peace is possible only if justice prevails. Peace can only be created with justice.

We cannot make peace between a victor and a vanquished. In order for peace to be lasting, it must be based on justice and the rights of all the protagonists must be recognised and granted.

Peace ought to be the result of a system well considered, founded on the true interests of the different countries, honorable to each, and ought not to be either a capitulation or the result of a threat.

The respect of the rights of others is peace.

Real peace will not come from some magic formula that will suddenly and once and for all be "discovered," like the promised land or the holy grail. Real peace is a process — a continuing process for managing and containing conflict between competing nations, competing systems, and competing international ambitions. Peace is not an end to conflict but rather a means of living with conflict, and once established it requires constant attention or it will not survive.

I would call the human right to peace an ultimate or “end right”, in that the state of peace is the result of the promotion and protection of human rights. Indeed, a society where human rights are upheld is a society that is free of the kind of structural violence that leads to armed conflict. Now, as it has been said many times, peace is not the mere absence of war. Peace in a holistic sense, peace in its individual and collective dimension, entails a state of internal and external harmony.

Real peace is not just a matter of structures and mechanisms. It rests above all on the adoption of a style of human coexistence marked by mutual acceptance and a capacity to forgive from the heart. We all need to be forgiven by others, so we must all be ready to forgive. Asking and granting forgiveness is something profoundly worthy of every one of us,