One of the astonishing generation of Scandinavian scholars who launched “peace research” as a serious study in the 1960s, Asbjørn Eide came from an intellectual background of law as did many others of the “Parents” generation, most notably Bert Röling [the Dutch justice involved in the Tokyo War Crimes trials] and Roger Fisher at Harvard.
Early on, Mr. Eide became interested in the possibilities of a revolution in the idea of international law as an instrument for peace, particularly through the workings of the United Nations and its Charter but also through the beginnings of peacekeeping and the legacy of the second U.N. Secretary General, Dag Hammarskjöld. His first book was a study of what has subsequently been labeled “First Generation” peacekeeping, but he very rapidly became part of the much more sociologically focused “school” centered in Norway, led by Johan Galtung at the Peace Research Institute in Oslo [PRIO], Nils Ørvik at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, and Johan Jørgen Holst who later became the Norwegian Foreign Minister.
Asbjørn Eide became the second Director of PRIO following Johan Galtung’s acceptance
of an academic chair. He continued the on-going effort to make PRIO the centre of a network
of peace researchers from all over the world and to build bridges not merely across the so-
called “Iron Curtain” but also between the industrialized countries of 'the North' and the
increasingly important countries of the developing world -- 'the South.’ He took over as
Secretary General of the International Peace Research Association from Bert Röling in 1970
and continued in that position for the next seven years, acknowledging the importance of East-
West relations, the Cold War and the nuclear rivalry, but also steering the Association towards a
deeper involvement from countries and movements from the developing world.
However, Asbjørn Eide never gave up his interest in the potential use of the law as a conflict
resolution mechanism and his attention switched partly towards human rights and international humanitarian law. More specifically, he focused on improving the Geneva Conventions to embrace intra-state conflict. He did this as a member of the Norwegian delegation working on
Protocol 2 of the revised convention which attempted to set some legal limits on behavior in civil
wars and domestic strife.
Currently a professor at the University of Oslo, Asbjørn Eide continues to pursue his interest in Humanitarian law and in Norway’s role as a small but influential member of international society with [as he puts it] the “…kind of a standing internationally which makes it more easy to operate in many ways…” The fact that successive Norwegian Governments have been able to play many peacemaking and peace building roles over the years is in no small measure due to the work and influence of Asbjørn Eide and his colleagues.
