Introduction to Symposium on the Colombian Peace Talks and International Law

Abstract

In September and October of 2016, Colombians witnessed a series of political events that defied their belief. First, the Colombian Government and theFuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia—Ejército del Pueblo(FARC—EP), signed to great fanfare a historic peace agreement finalizing Colombia’s armed conflict. The Un Secretary-General, the U.S. Secretary of State, and dozens other top diplomats and heads of states gathered in Cartagena for an emotional signing ceremony, symbolically ending a fifty-year armed confrontation that, according to the Colombian Center for Historic Memory, killed more than two hundred thousand people, 80 percent of which were noncombatants.