The ICM Process seeks to facilitate and promote communication among people in areas of conflict and to explore avenues for constructive cooperation towards conflict resolution. The Process is based on the premise that, while 'solutions' to long-standing disputes are never guaranteed or easily available, it is nevertheless important to foster ideas and allow information to flow between conflicting parties and divided populations to promote a greater understanding from which a collaborative dialogue may emerge.

The ICM Process seeks understanding and resolution in areas of conflict within the context of non-discriminatory, equitable, representative and transparent processes of negotiation, which deny a position of privilege in negotiating processes to those who resort to terrorism, their sponsors and their front organizations. The Process recognizes democratic representation, political and civil rights, and fundamental freedoms, as integral to any process of resolution in areas of contemporary conflict. It seeks, moreover, solutions that reject the creation of arbitrary boundaries and divisions between communities and social, ethnic, religious or ideological identities, and recognizes, at once, the need to nurture and protect cultural diversity, as also the unity and indivisibility of human identity and values, as well as the imperatives of integration in a globalizing world order.

The ICM Process endeavors to draw upon a wide synthesis of human experiences across peoples, communities and nations, and to foster a dialogue on the future geo-political architecture of South Asia within the progressively integrating 'global village'.

The first initiatives under the broad mandate of the ICM Process was a two-day International Conference on the theme "Jammu & Kashmir: Alternative Futures" held on May 18-19, 2006 , at the Heritage Village Resort, Manesar.

The Conference was followed by a meeting of delegates from Pakistan Administered Jammu & Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan, and the J&K Diaspora with senior officials of the Government of India, including the Minister of Home Affairs, the National Security Advisor and the Foreign Secretary.

The ICM Process is a project of the Institute for Conflict Management, a non-profit, non-governmental think tank which focuses on conflict studies, terrorism, insurgency, sub-conventional warfare, and areas of public policy relating to these issues. The Institute is headed by its founding President, K.P.S. Gill.