Geneva Day - International Geneva in a fragmented world

Recent years have highlighted that humanity’s biggest challenges are truly global and that we can only address them collectively. At the same time, crises have led to more fragmentation among member States and within societies. If the pandemic highlighted the agility of multilateralism to continue delivering in the midst of the crisis, the response has been uneven and global solidarity imperfect. The Russian aggression against Ukraine has violated basic norms of international law and its reverberation have only widened fault lines at the geopolitical level and between regions. Measures taken to address the triple planetary crisis are falling short of the urgency of the situation. In this context, there is not only a need to reaffirm basic norms of international law and to build on the achievements and legitimacy of multilateral institutions. It is also clear that multilateralism must become more agile to include all relevant actors, to break silos and to address emerging issues. This panel will discuss how to strike a balance between “classic” and “new” multilateralism and will explore the contribution of international Geneva to this endeavor. It will also highlight concrete initiatives that contribute to an innovative and future-oriented multilateralism and that can support cooperation over fragmentation.

Opening by

• H.E. Mr. Ignazio Cassis, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Swiss Confederation
• H.E. Ms. Naledi Pandor, Minister of International Relations and Cooperation of South Africa 

Speakers

• Mr. Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, Chairman, GESDA
• Ms. Mirjana Spoljaric Egger, President, ICRC
• Ms. Ngaire Woods, Dean, Blavatnic School of Government, Oxford
• Ms. Catrin Hinkel, General Manager, Microsoft Switzerland
• Mr. Volker Türk, UN High-Commissioner for Human Rights
• Ms. Nathalie Fontanet, State Councillor, Canton of Geneva

Moderator

• Ms. Marie-Laure Salles, Director, Geneva Graduate Institute

Media requests
Paola Ceresetti
Spokesperson
paola.ceresetti@eda.admin.ch
+41 79 240 19 18