History
No other city has a richer history of international cooperation than Geneva.
In 1863, a small group of Genevois created the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) which led to the first international humanitarian treaty, the Geneva Convention of 1864.
In 1919, the city gained strength and momentum as a platform for dialogue and cooperation when the victorious states of World War I decided to establish the League of Nations and the International Labour Organization (ILO) there.
After World War II, the international community chose Geneva again to host key international organizations. Today, key actors in the health sector, like the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria have all set up headquarters there.
How did Geneva acquire its international renown? Who put this small Swiss city on the world map? When and why did this happen? Was it planned, or did it happen by chance? With this book, Joëlle Kuntz takes a concise and irreverent look at a story that is familiar yet seldom told: the emergence of Geneva as an international city.
Geneva and the call of internationalism
A history
by Joëlle Kuntz
Read1 March – 17th May 1865: First International Telegraph Conference in Paris
Read1871: Negotiating the future of telecommunications but where are the women?
Read1876: A Serbian Red Cross Ambulance assisting wounded in the Serbo-Turkish war
ReadJuly 1906: Review Conference of the Geneva Convention at the Geneva Parliament Hall
ReadThe League of Nations librarians in the 1920s
Read1932: the Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments of the League of Nations opens in Geneva
ReadArchives of the World Council of Churches - 1952: International Missionary Conference in Willingen, Germany
ReadThe memory of World Council of Churches’ Assemblies
Read1956: Three Hungarian women carrying all of their belongings and a child, arriving at the Eisenstadt Camp
Read22 July 1958: Foundation stone of the BIPRI building, the predecessor organization to WIPO
Read24-25 November 1959: record energy levels reached as CERN’s Proton Synchrotron comes into operation
Read24 May 1962: Foundation stone of the WHO Headquarters
Read15–18 November 1977: The Governing Body of ILO adopts its Multinational Enterprise Declaration
Read8 May 1980: Smallpox is officially declared eradicated
ReadJune 1981: Mr. Lech Walesa at the 67th session of the International Labour Conference
ReadWorld Refugee Day: Contemporary Commemoration based on a long tradition
Read15 April 1994 - Signature of the Final Act of the Uruguay Round at Marrakesh
Read1994: Rwanda Red Cross volunteers monitoring and assisting displaced populations during the Rwandan Civil War