New Video Series on Ceasefires and Security Transitions Launched by Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue and Centre for Security Studies at ETH Zurich

Zurich/Geneva, 14th October – With several devastating wars currently highlighting both the urgency and fragility of ceasefire arrangements, the demand for practical knowledge on when and how ceasefires can support peace has never been greater. To meet this need, the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (HD) and the Centre for Security Studies (CSS) at ETH Zurich, are launching a new video series on ceasefires and security transitions.

The series, Understanding Ceasefires and the Security Transition, is designed as a short, practical course for policymakers, conflict parties, mediators, and peacebuilders. It provides accessible guidance on how ceasefires can be designed and implemented as part of broader security arrangements, drawing on comparative case studies and real-world negotiation experience.

“Ceasefires are pivotal yet often misunderstood elements of peace processes. This series brings clarity by combining practitioner experience and academic insight into a format accessible to those working in the field, based on HD’s 25 years of experience helping parties to negotiate and implement ceasefires worldwide,” said Govinda Clayton, Lead of the Ceasefire Team at HD.

Professor Andreas Wenger, Chair of the CSS at ETH Zurich, noted: “This series leverages more than a decade of ETH research into ceasefire mediation. It offers unique, practice-oriented knowledge at a moment when policymakers urgently need tools to navigate complex conflicts.”

Produced under the Ceasefire Project, a joint initiative of HD and CSS ETH Zurich, the video series provides concrete insights on:

• The different types of ceasefires and their purposes
• How ceasefires interact with political negotiations and security transitions
• How to monitor and implement ceasefires.

• How ceasefire connect to broader SSR and DDR processes. The videos complement the recent publication of Ceasefires: Stopping Violence and Negotiating Peace (Georgetown University Press, 2025), co-edited by Govinda Clayton, Simon Mason, Valerie Sticher, and Andreas Wenger. Together, the book and videos provide one of the most comprehensive overviews to date of how ceasefires can support peace.

The full video series is freely accessible here

For more details see: Ceasefireproject.org

Media Contacts:
Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (HD): pr@hdcentre.org
Centre for Security Studies (CSS) at ETH Zurich: mediation@sipo.gess.ethz.ch