11 November 2021, 20:30–23:00 CET
From the battlefields of the future, SIPRI connects to a battlefield of the past.
The College of Mayor and Aldermen of the City of Ypres has announced it is awarding the 2020 Ypres Peace Prize to the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots: a worldwide campaign that strives for a global ban on autonomous weapons.
Dr Sibylle Bauer, Director of Studies for Armament and Disarmament at SIPRI and member of the prize selection committee, will deliver the laudation speech at the award ceremony. The programme for the evening includes remarks by the Chairman of the Peace Fund and Mayor of Ypres, Emmily Talpe. Isabelle Jones and Ousman Nour will accept the prize on behalf of the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots.
The prize will be presented in person at 20:30 CET in the Cultural Centre Het Perron of the city of Ypres, West Flanders, Belgium.
Watch the live stream of the ceremony here.
About the Ypres Peace Prize
Ypres is a small city in the north-west of Belgium which was devastated during World War I by four years of fighting between the Allies and Germany. All residents were forced to leave, and 500 000 people were killed in the Ypres area. Because of its wartime past, the city has developed a local peace policy over the past 20 years and is now designated a ‘city of peace’, promoting dialogue on this unfortunately still relevant topic. In this context, the city awards a triennial international peace prize to a person or organization that recently made an outstanding contribution to peace anywhere in the world. Young Ypres students choose the laureate from a list of five candidates. Because of the global pandemic, the 2020 Peace Prize is being awarded in 2021, in conjunction with the armistice commemoration for World War I. More information about the Ypres Peace Prize is available here.