History

The International Network of Museums for Peace (INMP) was created as the International Network of Peace Museums (INPM) in 1992 during the first international conference of peace museums, held in Bradford (England). This conference was arranged by the British Give Peace a Chance association, bringing together, for the first time, the management and staff of peace museums, anti-war museums and similar institutions worldwide. Over 30 representatives from 10 countries (including Australia, Japan and the United States) met up to exchange experiences and make a start on future cooperation.

Nine more conferences have been held since this first encounter. In 1995 the INMP organised the second international conference of peace museums in Stadtschlaining, at the Austrian Study Center for Peace and Conflict Resolution, now also the headquarters of the European Peace Museum. The third conference, in 1998, was arranged by a number of Japanese museums in Osaka and Kyoto. The fourth conference was held in Ostend (Belgium) in 2003 with the assistance of the Flemish Government. The fifth conference was hosted by the Gernika Peace Museum in Gernika-Lumo (Spain) in 2005. In 2008 the INMP returned to Japan with the sixth conference in Kyoto and Hiroshima. The seventh conference was held in Barcelona (Spain) in 2011 hosted by the Barcelona International Peace Resource Center. The eighth conference was held in 2014 and organized by the No Gun Ri International Peace Foundation in South Korea. With the assistance of the Korean government, the No Gun Ri Peace Park was established with a peace memorial (museum) and other attractions. The most recent ninth conference, in 2017, was held in Belfast with the support of the Ulster University and the city of Belfast.

In 2005, the INPM changed its name to INMP, with the extended definition of museums for peace and to be able to include more peace related sites, centres and institutions in the network. In 2008, the INMP secretariat was established in The Hague.

The INMP was also very much involved in drawing up the first peace museum directory, Peace Museums Worldwide, published in 1995 by the United Nations Library in Geneva (second edition, 1998). The directory, edited by Kazuyo Yamane was most recently updated in 2017.

In 2017, the INMP commemorated 25 years with its Ninth International Conference of Museums for Peace in Belfast, Northern Ireland.