Four major events dominated Gerard Powers’ first year as director of policy studies at the Kroc Institute.

The first, a conference on “The Ethics of Exit,” focused on the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. Prominent scholars and Iraq experts addressed the political, military, and moral issues associated with the three major options: strategic withdrawal, staying the course, and deeper engagement.

The March 21 event was enhanced by its location in New York City and co-sponsorship with Fordham University and the Fourth Freedom Forum. Among the speakers were Stanley Hoffmann of Harvard University, Jean Bethke Elshtain of the University of Chicago, Lawrence Kaplan of The New Republic, and Kroc senior fellow George Lopez.

Some 200 people attended “Ethics of Exit,” but the panelists’ insights reached a wider audience. Five essays based on conference presentations were published in the May/June edition of Foreign Policy magazine, and the conference was broadcast on the Internet, including live screenings at Notre Dame and the University of Illinois. Video and transcripts of the conference proceedings are available on the Kroc Institute’s web site.

While the March conference focused on post-intervention issues, an invitation-only colloquium was planned for November 11 at Georgetown University to address the wider challenges for the just war tradition posed by terrorism and preemptive war. The Committee on International Policy of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops asked the Kroc Institute and Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service to convene the colloquium “The Ethics of War after 9/11 and Iraq.”

Two other major events in 2004-05 focused on the possibilities for peacebuilding. Powers and program assistant Colette Sgambati helped organize the fifth annual Summer Institute on Peacebuilding, which is sponsored by the Kroc Institute and Catholic Relief Services. The summer institute, held May 22-27 at the Hesburgh Center, attracted three dozen church leaders, CRS senior staff and CRS partners from twenty countries for intensive training, discussion and strategizing. The sessions were geared toward strengthening participants’ capacity to resolve conflict and promote reconciliation from the Congo and Kosovo to Eritrea and El Salvador.

In July, the second annual conference of the Catholic Peacebuilding Network brought 75 academics, church leaders, and grassroots peacebuilders from 21 countries to the island of Mindanao in the Philippines. The conference drew insights from the Church’s rich experience of peacebuilding in Mindanao that could be useful for future peacebuilding efforts there and for Catholic peacebuilding in other conflict situations. Joining Powers at the conference were Kroc faculty members Scott Appleby, John Paul Lederach, Daniel Philpott, and Martha Merritt. In addition to a video of conference proceedings and conference papers, which are available on the newly-created CPN website (cpn.nd.edu), a monograph on Catholic peacebuilding in Mindanao will be published in Spring 2006.

The next CPN conference will take place in Burundi on July 24-28, 2006. These annual conferences will tie into a new research project by the CPN, the Kroc Institute and the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago that will produce a major book on the theology, ethics and praxis of Catholic peacebuilding.

In 2006, the Kroc Institute will launch a series of policy briefs that highlight the policy dimensions of the institute’s scholarly research. Powers expects the series to address such issues as the United Nations’ counter- terrorism efforts since 9/11, U.S. policy on the new International Criminal Court, and sustaining the peace after peace agreements.

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