The International Network of Peace Museums was established following a conference in Bradford in 1992. At this conference, directors and curators of peace and anti-war museums worldwide came together for the first time – the open network that emerged aimed to promote cooperation between peace museums and stimulate the creation of new peace museums worldwide.
Between 1992 and 2009, the network was very informal, sustained by occasional newsletters between international conferences. As the number of peace museums worldwide increased, however, the network needed to formalise its structures. Steps towards addressing this were taken at the Gernika conference of 2005, including changing the name of the organisation to the International Network of Museums for Peace (INMP).
In 2009 the INMP was established as a foundation (nonprofit) in The Hague and, with the support of the municipality, opened its secretariat and archive in the Bertha von Suttner Building near the Peace Palace in 2010. Since 2014 the INMP, as an international NGO, has been granted special Consultative Status from the UN ECOSOC and gained ANBI status in the Netherlands. The foundation consists of a General Coordinator, ten international Executive Board members and twelve international members in the Advisory Committee. In 2018, the INMP Office in the Hague was closed and moved to the Kyoto Museum for World Peace at Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan.
