We have decided to establish an organisation which will form and support international peace brigades. We find this historically and morally imperative.

Peace Brigades, fashioned to respond to specific needs and appeals, will undertake non-partisan missions which may include peacemaking initiatives, peacekeeping under a discipline of nonviolence, humanitarian service. We also intend to offer and provide services to similar efforts planned and carried out by other groups.

We appeal in particular to:

• peoples of diverse cultures, languages, religions and social systems ready to contribute in new ways to the  nonviolent resolution of conflict;
• all those who seek to fulfil the high principles and purposes expressed in the Charter of the United Nations; and
• all who work to preserve human life with dignity; to promote human rights, social justice and self-determination; and to create the conditions of peace.

We call upon individuals and groups to enlist their services in the work of local regional and international peace brigades. We are forming an organisation with the capability to mobilise and provide trained units of volunteers. These units may be assigned to areas of high tension to avert violent outbreaks. If hostile clashes occur, a brigade may establish and monitor a cease-fire, offer mediation services, or carry on works of reconstruction and reconciliation.

Those who undertake these tasks will face risks and hardships. Others can provide support and show solidarity in a multitude of ways.

We are building on a rich and extensive heritage of nonviolent action, which no longer can be ignored. This heritage tells us that peace is more than the absence of war.

We are convinced that this commitment of mind, heart and dedicated will can make a significant difference in human affairs. Let us all join in the march from falsehood to truth, from darkness to light, from death to life.

Grindstone Island Consultation, Ontario, Canada, September 4, 1981.