NOWAR2025 Conference: Exploring Abolition Movements
Event Date: 24th October 2025
Location: Online, October 24th - 26th
This year’s conference will bring together leading experts, activists, and visionaries who have made it their life’s work to advocate for a world beyond war, prisons, and police, a world which centers peace and justice for all. Throughout three days of sessions, we’ll hear case studies from communities around the world who are actively working to implement alternatives to the military, police, and prisons. Community leaders who are disrupting and de-escalating violence using nonviolent means. In solidarity,
It can feel like the world is spinning out of control as militarized violence, climate chaos, and economic inequality escalate. At the same time, I’ve been inspired by an expanding sense of global solidarity, epitomized by the thousands who traveled to Egypt for the March to Gaza and the millions who watched in real time as the Gaza Freedom Flotilla attempted to break Israel’s siege. Amidst the bombings, the repression of civil rights, and the incarceration of peaceful protesters, there is a growing people’s movement for transformative action that connects the dots between militarism, corporate capitalism, and the climate crisis.
In this context, I’ve been planning the logistics for our annual #NoWar2025 Conference with the feeling that this year’s theme of abolition is especially timely. The crises of our generation demand a holistic approach that acknowledges the interconnectedness of systems of oppression and the need for a collective abolition movement that dismantles state violence at all levels. I invite you to 
I’m delighted to announce that renowned organizer, writer, and teacher Dean Spade, and Ray Acheson, author of Abolishing State Violence: A World Beyond Bombs, Borders, and Cages, are confirmed speakers for #NoWar2025. 
The conference will also include skills trainings to offer concrete takeaways that you can implement in your own community. Sal Corbin, Board Chair for the DC Peace Team, will lead us in an active bystander training that teaches effective skills for assessing, de-escalating, and diffusing a problematic situation, such as intimidation, harassment, abuse, and physical violence.
As a global network with chapters in nearly 40 countries, World BEYOND War’s annual virtual conference is also an important time for networking amongst participants. Small group breakout rooms on days 1 and 3 of the conference will allow time to digest learnings from the sessions and share ideas about what abolition looks like to you and how we could get there.
I hope to see you (virtually!) on October 24-26 for the #NoWar2025 Conference.
Greta Zarro
Organizing Director
World BEYOND War
[email protected]