Nonviolence has a transformative role in the world. In this chapter, we’ll be looking at how and why nonviolence plays an important role in protection, unarmed civilian protection (UCP) and in transforming the world away from the growing threat of violence to civilians from conflicts. Nonviolence is a way of changing dominant militarized norms and addressing the need to rethink civilian protection. There is a need to address the capacity and knowledge gap in how we are protecting civilians from violence.

By using nonviolence, UCP is a practice that challenges the underlying myths and assumptions associated with the need to use the military for protection from violence. It demonstrates that unarmed civilians within communities can make others safer. As well as being a mechanism for local and community protection from violence, UCP uses nonviolence as the basis for understanding how it is defined, and how it works to protect civilians in sites of violence.

The chapter sets out how nonviolence principles are used in UCP and how they help UCP protect people through strong relationships, inclusion and understanding changing power dynamics (Julian, 2020). Using nonviolence is based on collaborative forms of power and legitimacy (Sharp, 2005; Atak, 2012; Vintagen, 2015) which are accessible to everyone. Nonviolence has been de-legitimized in global politics, but by using nonviolence and creating peaceful methods, UCP shows that nonviolence is part of international politics and is a component of creating sustainable peace and social cohesion in communities by making them safer for people.