L'oeil de la Genève Internationale

2023 will mark the Centenary of the Declaration of Geneva. Born from the consequences of the Great War, this text was adopted on 23 February 1923 and recognized for the first time the existence of specific rights for children. This anniversary is therefore significant for International Geneva. It is an opportunity to reaffirm the importance of the activities of organizations working for children and young people throughout the world. In this impetus, the Office of International Geneva is pleased to continue next year, through its website, promoting the activities of the organizations of International Geneva and those who shape it. Happy Holidays!

On Wednesday, 13 December, CERN invites you to "Embark on the search for the invisible." Particle physicists are almost like detectives relying on their powers of deduction to find the culprit who left weird tracks. Which particle was it? Where did it come from? If no one saw it, was it ever really there?" You are encouraged to register to attend. This discrete Stingray was pictured by Trent Parke in Coral Bay, Australia, in 2003. 

On 7 December, the secretariat of the Minamata Convention with the International Conference on Mercury as a Global Pollutant (ICMGP) invites you to the "Mercury Health Risk Communication" webinar. This session will gather experts, health scientists, and IOs to share their knowledge on the human health risk of mercury and discuss opportunities and challenges in communicating health risks to the public and professionals. This photograph depicts a victim of Minamata disease with a representative of the Chisso Chemical Plant. It was taken in 1971 by the renowned photojournalist W. Eugene Smith. Smith spent four years in Minamata documenting the consequence of mercury pollution. He is the author of many books, notably, "W. Eugene Smith Master of the Photographic Essay."

The 113th Session of the IOM Council will take place from 29 November to 2 December. As underlined by Director General Antonio Vitorino in the 2023 Programme and Budget: "the past year has been one of institutional growth at a time of proliferating crisis (...) New challenges have emerged to which IOM has been called to respond, from Afghanistan to Pakistan, to Ukraine, while still supporting long-standing displacement situations from Bangladesh to the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, to Yemen." This scene was taken in the Rawdah camp for IDPs in Marib, Yemen by Magnum photographer Moises Saman in 2021. 

Today 21 November, FIND invites you to the "TB screening: Policies, Practices, Challenges and Opportunities webinar" at 10:00 – 12:00 GMT. This event will showcase the global survey of National TB Programmes conducted by UCL, WHO, and FIND. In the same field of expertise, starting at 15:00 CET, the WHO and the Union organize the webinar entitled: "2022Multisectoral engagement to improve gender equity in TB and ensure no one is left behind." Magnum photographer Stuart Franklin took this picture in a National TB hospital in Arusha, Tanzania, in 2007. 

To mark its 45th anniversary, the APT is organizing on 15 November - jointly with the commune of Chêne-Bougeries - a conference-debate dedicated to its founder "Jean-Jacques Gautier: his commitment to prevent torture." Convinced that it would be possible to prevent torture by opening the doors of all places of detention to external control, Jean-Jacques Gautier founded the Swiss Committee against Torture, now the APT, in 1977. The idea of a system of visits to places of deprivation of liberty was first realized, in Europe, in 1987. Then, the APT succeeded in convincing the international community of the relevance of an optional protocol to the UN Convention against Torture (OPCAT), adopted in 2002.

A Crisis in Peacekeeping? What Room for Peace Operations in the New Agenda for Peace? - A Geneva Security Debate organized by the GCSP that will explore, through a panel of experts, what peace operations could and should look like and entail in 2024? This event will take place online on 11 November. The image above shows a team of the United Nations Deployment Force patrolling the North Macedonia – Kosovo border in 1998, by Nikos Economopoulos. 

The World Summit on Frontline Humanitarian Negotiation, the CCHN's flagship event, will take place from 1 to 3 November. Shaped by humanitarian professionals' real-life challenges, the program offers several sessions led by experts from around the world and, for the first time, a negotiation simulation run by experienced frontline negotiators. This picture belongs to the ICRC's audiovisual collection. It was taken at the end of the Rwandan genocide on 20 August 1994. About 1500 Rwandan refugees at the time crossed the Ruzizi Bridge to get to Zaire, where they invaded the city of Bukavu. Here the Rwanda-Zaire border is temporarily closed. As revealed in the picture, frontline negotiations happen in tense and insecure environments, the results of which are often life-saving operations for the population concerned.

This 27 October, on the occasion of UNESCO's World Day for Audiovisual Heritage, the geneveMonde.ch platform, will be launched. A unique editorial initiative, never realized before: telling the story of international Geneva with the help of RTS archives, organizations present in Geneva, and especially with documents from the public. It is thus a new form of storytelling that will take shape throughout publications in a participatory dynamic. The ambition of geneveMonde.ch, composed of two journalists and a historian, is to identify all those moments of history that allow a better understanding of the "world city" that is Geneva and to contribute to opening it up in the eyes of the general public. This shared history of international Geneva, at the crossroads of history, memory, and remembrance, is launched under the aegis of the FONSART (Foundation for the safeguard and valorization of the audiovisual heritage of the RTS).

The Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) holds the World Cancer Congress in Geneva from 18 to 20 October. Through a multidisciplinary program that presents the latest successful interventions in cancer prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and care, experts and leaders will deliver a suite of innovative and interactive sessions covering the full spectrum of cancer control. Nancy Borowick spent years photographing her parents undergoing parallel treatments for stage four cancer. This multi-rewarded intimate family story is part of the book entitled "The Family Imprint: A Daughter's Portrait of Love and Loss," Hatje Kantz publishing, and will be shown at the Xposure festival in February 2023.
 

The Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipation annual Summit will take place at the Campus Biotech from 12 to 14 October. The core program will focus on a yearly update of GESDA's Science Breakthrough Radar, presenting 40 scientific trends produced by 1000 scientists worldwide and Solution Pathways that generate momentum for change, such as the Open Quantum Initiative, the Neurotech Compass or Accelerating Decarbonization. You may register here to attend virtually. The image above was taken by famous photojournalist and Magnum founder Henri Cartier-Bresson at Les Yvelines in France in 1968. 

"Is finance transitioning quickly enough to meet climate imperatives? This question is part of the high-level Summit and over 65 community-led events of the Building Bridges 2022 edition. Participants from the finance sector, NGOs, academia, governments, and international organizations will gather from 3 to 6 October to accelerate the transition to a sustainable financial system. The picture above was taken in Tanzania by Magnum photographer Steve McCurry in May 2014. 

Under the theme “Towards a sustainable and inclusive recovery: ambition to action,” the WTO Public Forum will take place from 27 to 30 September. The opening session will be a discussion between Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and CNN news anchor Richard Quest. You may access the 144 sessions program and watch live. The image above was taken at WTO headquarters by photographer Luca Fascini in the framework of the book Internation Geneva, 100 years of Architecture by Joëlle Kuntz, Slatikine publishing.

Today 19 September to 23rd, UNECE holds its Global Forum for Road Traffic Safety, the "only permanent body in the United Nations system that focuses on improving road safety" by functioning primarily on harmonizing traffic rules. The daily life scene above was pictured by Martin Parr in 2019 in Tenby, Wales, Great Britain. 

On 13 and 14 September, WAIPA's 26th World Investment Conference will gather Investment Promotion Agencies (IPAs) and industry leaders from around the world to share knowledge and best practices to address economic and social issues for better economies and communities. This image was taken in a coffee plantation cooperative on the border of the Virunga National Park in DRC in 2019 by Carl De Keyzer.

For the first time, children from the Child Rights Connect Children's Advisory Team, an initiative that empowers children as human rights defenders, addressed their message during the opening session of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Among the statements, Jorge, a young boy from Bolivia, said: "If we educate people to take better care of the environment, the environment will be better cared for." All documents related to the 91st CRC session that will last until 23 September 2022 are accessible here. Magnum photographer Emin Ozmen took this image in Normandy, France, in 2020. 

From 30 August to 2 September 2022, UNODA convenes the 10th meeting of States Parties (10MSP) to the Convention on Cluster Munitions in Room XIX at the Palais des Nations. You may also consult the program of the #10MSP side events here. Commissioned by the ICRC, the photographer Marco Di Lauro took this image of cluster bomb debris collected from a battlefield by the NGO Mines-Advisory Group (MAG) in Dahuk province, Iraq, in February 2014.

From 27 to 29 June, the ICRC will be holding the first World Conference on Health in Detention. Health professionals, managers working in detention settings, and academics are invited to share their experiences and research to strengthen prison health systems. In the framework of International Humanitarian Law, the ICRC's role is to ensure that people deprived of liberty are treated humanely.
Photo caption: 1939-1945. British Indies. Group II. Italian prisoner of war camp. ICRC doctor-delegate attending an appendix removing.

From 23 to 25 June, the Academic Council of the United Nations (ACUNS)https://acuns.org/annual-meeting-2022/, in collaboration with the Graduate Institute and UN Geneva, will hold its annual meeting under the theme "Evidence-Based Solutions for Intensifying Global Challenges." The conference's purpose is to bring together scholars and practitioners active in the work of the UN to apprehend and address global challenges. Peter van Agtmael took this image at the UN's 2012 General Assembly in New York. Those buttons are for delegates to vote yes, no, or abstain. 

June 2022 marks the 50th session of the Human Rights Council. Fifty years ago, on June 19, 2006, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Mr. Kofi Annan opened the first session of the Human Rights Council at the Palais des Nations and said : "Human rights are from the third of the three pillars, with economic and social development and peace and security, on which all the work of the United Nations must be based."