UN truce resolutions typically pass with broad majorities and received all 193 votes for the London Games in 2012. Yet signatories have repeatedly broken their own promises.
The United Nations and the organisers of the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics have called for a seven-week pause in all global conflicts a week ahead of the opening of the competition.
Supporters of the initiative, which is rooted in an ancient Greek tradition, say it sets a moral baseline at a time when armed conflicts are on the rise.
Backed by a UN General Assembly resolution, the proposed timeout covers the 6-22 February Winter Games and the 6-15 March Paralympics, with a week added on either side.
"On ethical grounds, we want to send a message that the Olympic Truce, the Sacred Olympic Truce, should be respected," Constantinos Filis, director of the International Olympic Truce Centre in Athens, said.
"This may not always be achievable in practice. But the message reaches every corner of the globe: that wherever possible, we should strive toward creating even a small space for peace."
Ceasefire initiatives, Filis argues, still count in an era of global disorder and political polarisation as unilateral power increasingly threatens international cooperation.
The Olympics were revived in their modern form in 1896 and the concept of a truce surrounding the event came almost a century later, as wars raged through the former Yugoslavia beginning in the early 1990s.
The truce during the 1994 Winter Games in Norway resulted in a pause in the siege of Sarajevo, allowing aid convoys to deliver food and medicine to the Bosnian capital's residents.
Six years later in Sydney, North and South Korea marched together at the opening ceremony.
In ancient Greece, the truce was respected by warring city-states. It allowed athletes and spectators to travel safely to the Games at Ancient Olympia, an event of supreme athletic and spiritual significance.
UN truce resolutions typically pass with broad majorities and received all 193 votes for the London Games in 2012. Yet signatories have repeatedly broken their own promises.
Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 infamously began during a truce period.
"I think the Olympics are an excellent moment to symbolise peace, to symbolise respect for international law and to symbolise international cooperation," UN Secretary General António Guterres told reporters on Thursday.