Inside Geneva

Send us a textIsrael blocked aid into Gaza for 10 weeks. Then the US and Israel came up with a new plan – without the United Nations. Established aid agencies had doubts. Inside Geneva finds out why.Jan Egeland,secretary general, Norwegian Refugee Council: ‘We would welcome anything that would allow us to resume work for a population that is starving and that has been suffocated by a siege over two months. But this seems to be militarized, politicized, manipulated. People have to walk long distances through the rubble to get aid.'The new Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has had a disastrous start. Dozens of Palestinians have been shot trying to get aid.Chris Lockyear, Secretary General, MSF: ‘This is not child's play. It is not a military operation. It is a different thing that requires years and decades of experience to get where we've got to now. So it breaks my heart to say it, but it wasn't a surprise to see those horrendous images from the first day of operation of the GHF in Gaza.'It's not clear who is actually running the new Foundation, but international lawyers warn they could be liable for war crimes.Philip Grant, Trial International: To lend material aid to the Israeli plan can be construed as complicity in the war crime of forcible displacement of the civilian population. And that would entail first of all the possibility for any state, almost any state in the world to use universal jurisdiction.Meanwhile the UN warns that Gaza's population is now close to famine.Jan Egeland: We now hope to see Europe, the United Nations and those who are there to defend international law to stand up for principle when Israel is besieging 2 million Palestinians, where half of them are children and totally innocent.Join host Imogen Foulkes on Inside GenevaGet in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/Host: Imogen FoulkesProduction assitant: Claire-Marie GermainDistribution: Sara PasinoMarketing: Xin Zhang

Send us a textThe world just agreed a pandemic treaty. But without the United States. Is it really a milestone?‘‘It is a major step forward. I mean, just imagine if we failed. We would not only go back to the point before the pandemic, before COVID-19 struck us, we'd go back to a point much further back,” said Zeid Ra'ad al Hussein from the International Peace Institute.But what about the global challenge of climate change?“We're up against a ticking clock. And even though we've enjoyed successes in the past, even though the renewables rollout is going rather well, it's all too little, too late from the point of view of avoiding genuinely dangerous degrees of warming,” says climate security expert Peter Schwartzstein.Why can't world leaders really unite around global challenges?‘Their children and grandchildren have to deal with abominable and extreme heat levels and forest fires and fierce hurricanes and no trade and collapsed economies and extreme food security and complete anarchy. Is this what they wish for their children. What form of love is that?” continues al Hussein.Join host Imogen Foulkes on Inside Geneva for in-depth analysis of where we stand. Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/Host: Imogen FoulkesProduction assitant: Claire-Marie GermainDistribution: Sara PasinoMarketing: Xin Zhang

Send us a textIt's been 30 years since the Beijing Declaration on Women, a landmark agreement to empower women and girls.“The Beijing declaration was such an incredible moment to say that enough is enough. Women are half of humanity and we have to be better,” says Lata Narayanaswamy, associate professor at the School of Politics and International Studies at the University of Leeds.But now, some governments are rolling back women's rights. Humanitarian programmes that help women and girls are being cut.“During his first presidential term, Trump vetoed a new resolution proposed under the UN Women, Peace and Security agenda because it enshrined the right of women to their reproductive rights,” says Leandra Bias from the Institute of Political Science at the University of Bern. What's happening? Support for vulnerable women is being cut, and toxic masculinity is growing. The UN is worried.“I am concerned about the resurgence in some quarters of toxic ideas about masculinity and efforts to glorify gender stereotypes, especially among young men,” said UN human rights commissioner Volker Türk. This week Inside Geneva asks what toxic masculinity actually means. Is it even new?“What worries me about the language of toxic masculinity is that it's like, ‘Oh my God, we didn't know this was coming.' But it's actually just a continuity of how violence and patriarchy combine,” says Narayanaswamy. Is there a connection between toxic masculinity and the repression of women? Are both now identifiers for authoritarian regimes?“‘We are the tough guys, we are actually the proper nations, while look at Europe, they have been completely emasculated and therefore they are not a model to aspire to.' Therefore, democracy is also not a model to aspire to,” says Bias. Join host Imogen Foulkes on Inside Geneva to listen to the full episode. Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/Host: Imogen FoulkesProduction assitant: Claire-Marie GermainDistribution: Sara PasinoMarketing: Xin Zhang

Send us a textOn Inside Geneva this week, aid agencies count the costs of funding cuts. “I am most sad for all the millions of people living with HIV and affected by HIV whose lives have been upended. They have lost access to life-saving medication. They have showed up at clinics for support, only to find no one there to help them,” says Angeli Achrekar, Deputy Executive Director for the Programme Branch at the Joint United Nations (UN) Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS). The cuts are hitting women and girls especially hard.“Right now, a woman dies from a preventable form of maternal mortality every two minutes. That's unacceptable. One of the grants that the United States has just cut supports the training and salaries of midwives,” says Sarah Craven, Director of the Washington Office of UNFPA, the UN Population Fund. What will happen to local NGOs in crisis zones that relied on UN support?“I have to have hope. I am the leader of the Sudanese Red Crescent Society. I have staff and 12,000 volunteers behind me. So, I always have to be really strong and give hope to everyone to continue serving Sudan,” says Aida Al-Sayed Abdullah, Secretary General of the Sudanese Red Crescent Society.But could the cuts bring much-needed reform?“Sure, the humanitarian system isn't perfect. It can be inefficient and a little bit colonialistic at times. But it was delivering results. We were seeing actual progress. Now, in just a few months, decades of progress will be erased,” says Dorian Burkhalter, SWI swissinfo.ch journalist.Or will the cuts cost lives and cause more crisis?“We're so close to ending AIDS, full stop. Now, we could very well be turning back completely. All those years of work, dedication and progress,” says Achrekar.Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/Host: Imogen FoulkesProduction assitant: Claire-Marie GermainDistribution: Sara PasinoMarketing: Xin Zhang

Send us a textOn Inside Geneva this week, we ask whether the United Nations (UN) and multilateralism have a future.“Is the UN anachronistic? I mean, it was formed after the Second World War. Obviously, it's getting a little bit dusty,” says political analyst Daniel Warner.Younger generations from the Global South tell us wherethey see the UN's flaws. “The countries of the Global North have not stood up to the ideals that they have created in an equitable manner. It's simply like preaching water and drinking wine,” says Pratyush Sharma from the Global South Centre of Excellence in Dehli.“The United Nations Security Council is absolutely inefficient in dealing with the reality of people, especially from the Global South,” continues Marilia Closs from Plataforma CIPÓ in Brazil.“The Global South cannot exist on its own. Likewise the Global North also cannot exist on its own,” says Olumide Onitekun from the Africa Policy and Research Institute in Nigeria.But the UN was created for very good reasons.“When you think about the end of the Second World War and how the UN was created, the world was so sick and tired of war, they wanted it to end. It's a different mindset. You know, it just makes me think, is that what we're going to need?” says Dawn Clancy, UN journalist in New York.Can the UN survive? Join host Imogen Foulkes on our Inside Geneva podcast to find out.Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/Host: Imogen FoulkesProduction assitant: Claire-Marie GermainDistribution: Sara PasinoMarketing: Xin Zhang

Send us a textThe world is changing fast. Are democracy and human rights under threat? Our Inside Geneva podcast takes a deep dive.“Donald Trump is unravelling the constitution, where I believe we could describe this as a coup d'état,” says human rights lawyer Reed Brody.What happens when Big Tech gets involved in politics?“It is fine for Instagram or TikTok to realise that I am into biking and then try to sell me bikes. That's fine. That's a product. Manipulate me to sell me that. But that's not fine with political ideas,” continues Alberto Fernandez Gibaja, Head of Digitalisation and Democracy at the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA).What about free speech?“For the first time in my life, I am listening to Americans on the radio and TV, talking to the press and refusing to use their names because they are afraid of retaliation,” says Brody.Is it still possible to have a democratic, fact-based debate?“For those of us who believe that we share a reality based on facts and science, we are on the losing side,” says Fernandez Gibaja.Are we losing the fundamental freedoms set out in the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights? Join host Imogen Foulkes on Inside Geneva to find out.Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/Host: Imogen FoulkesProduction assitant: Claire-Marie GermainDistribution: Sara PasinoMarketing: Xin Zhang

Send us a textIn Ukraine, and in the Middle East, men say they are negotiating peace. But are they?“Ending war is necessary to peace without a doubt, but ending war does not mean peace. So, whenever these men use the word ‘peace' in order to say ‘ceasefire' and ‘stop the guns', this is not peace,” says Deborah Schibler from PeaceWomen across the Globe (PWAG).“What the US is doing right now is an extractivist assertion of power, arguably even a second imperial ambition that we are seeing now alongside Russia. Democracy, peace and gender equality mutually reinforce each other,” adds Leandra Bias from the Universtiy of Bern.So, where are the women in these “peace” negotiations? Our guests tell Inside Geneva that they should be everywhere... not nowhere.“Women, women's perspectives, gender perspectives and human security perspectives have to be in every process and every structure of armed forces,” says Mahide Aslan, head of women and diversity at Swiss Armed Forces.“There are so many women who are really keen to get involved in these formal peace negotiations and who are ready for it, but it is made very difficult for them,” says Larissa Lee, from PWAG.How can women's voices be heard in peace talks? Join host Imogen Foulkes on our Inside Geneva podcast.Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/Host: Imogen FoulkesProduction assitant: Claire-Marie GermainDistribution: Sara PasinoMarketing: Xin Zhang

Send us a textOn Inside Geneva this week, we take a step back from the breaking news and talk to the authors of two books about the better side of humanity.“The defence of human rights is not a matter of holding a candle and singing Kumbaya. The defence of human rights is about playing hardball. It's about putting pressure on governments, making them realise that repression isn't paying because the consequences are so severe,” says Kenneth Roth, author of Righting Wrongs.Those consequences apply to violations of the laws of war – laws that are much stricter than you might think.“One can speak about the leaders of a war of aggression as having individual criminal responsibility. If it's illegal for the leader, maybe it's illegal also for the soldiers who participate in it. And maybe it's a violation not just to kill civilians on the other side, but Ukrainian soldiers,” continues Andrew Clapham, author of War.Defending human rights doesn't always make you popular.“I made sure that Human Rights Watch was bringing facts to the table that the governments didn't know. That was part of my job. My father fled the Nazis as a young boy. I grew up Jewish. I am Jewish. So I feel a certain responsibility to take on not just the duty of criticising Israeli abuses, but also to address the misuse of anti-Semitism,” says Roth.And while some governments are pushing back, international law is robust.“You might think that by changing the lawyers or creating facts on the ground, you're going to get away with it. But those war crimes allegations stick to you for life. There's no statute of limitations on war crimes, and you could easily find yourself prosecuted in ten or 20 years' time,” says Clapham.Join host Imogen Foulkes for in-depth interviews on two thought-provoking books.Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/Host: Imogen FoulkesProduction assitant: Claire-Marie GermainDistribution: Sara PasinoMarketing: Xin Zhang

Send us a textOn the third anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Inside Geneva has some big questions about the US-Russia talks this week on ending the war in Ukraine.“Is this really a peace deal or is it just a deal about money? Or is it even some kind of capitulation or a power grab?” asks Inside Geneva host Imogen Foulkes.What does US President Donald Trump want?“Do you want to just stop the war, or do you want to win it? We don't know what President Trump would consider a win. One suspects it's a win that would be purely transactional in US interests,” says Nick Cumming-Bruce, contributor for the New York Times.Who will have to make sure that peace is sustainable?“The US will take the decisions together with Russia, with Putin, but who is going to do the real work afterwards? It is Europe,” adds Gunilla von Hall, correspondent for Svenska Dagbladet. How can negotiations even take place without Ukraine?“We will never be able to talk about peace and sustainable peace as long as the Ukrainians are not involved, because the grievances will remain,” says Laurent Sierro, journalist at the Swiss News Agency Keystone-ATS. These are tough questions for the US, Europe and Ukraine. And what about the United Nations – does it have a role at all? Join us on Inside Geneva to find out.Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/Host: Imogen FoulkesProduction assitant: Claire-Marie GermainDistribution: Sara PasinoMarketing: Xin Zhang

Send us a textOn Inside Geneva, we take a deep dive into the United States' cuts in foreign aid.“In Colombia, they've just had to lay off 200 staff who were doing the demining in the south of the country. So, all of a sudden, these families have no work. And the alternative in the area, you know what it is: coca plants. So how is that in the US interest?” asks Tamar Gabelnick, director of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines.“The freezing is not democratic. Congress has voted for some of these programmes and it's Mr. Trump, Mr. Musk, etc. who are cutting them out without the approval of Congress. So, legally, I don't see how they can do this,” says analyst Daniel Warner.Why is Washington cutting something that is a lifesaver for vulnerable people worldwide, but costs just 0.2% of the US gross national product?“President Trump and Musk will say that these cuts to USAID are about shrinking a bloated bureaucracy and getting rid of waste and fraud. But I'd say that this whole thing has more to do with ideology and politics,” continues Dawn Clancy, a journalist based in New York.What happens when ideology cuts humanitarian aid?“It's not just American isolationism. It's not just America first. There seems to be a quite deliberate undermining of fundamental freedoms,” says Imogen Foulkes, host of the Inside Geneva podcast.“We don't have four years. The international legal framework and universal human rights are at a critical juncture and are being eroded, threatened and instrumentalised in unprecedented ways. Now is the time to step up,” says Phil Lynch, Executive Director of the International Service for Human Rights.  Search for Inside Geneva wherever you get your podcasts.Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/Host: Imogen FoulkesProduction assitant: Claire-Marie GermainDistribution: Sara PasinoMarketing: Xin Zhang

Send us a textGet in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/Host: Imogen FoulkesProduction assitant: Claire-Marie GermainDistribution: Sara PasinoMarketing: Xin Zhang

Send us a textWith Israel banning UNRWA and the US planning to withdraw from WHO, our Inside Geneva podcast reports on a turbulent couple of weeks for United Nations agencies. In Gaza, Israel's ban on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has come into effect.“UNRWA is what we call the backbone of the humanitarian operation. Meaning that they not only bring in aid themselves, but they are also the operation on which all other humanitarian actors depend,” says Jorgen Jensehaugen from the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO).US President Donald Trump has also announced that the US will leave the World Health Organization (WHO).“This is going to mean that all of the vital work of the WHO – polio eradication, AIDS, TB and malaria – will be even more underfunded,” continues Lawrence Gostin, professor of Global Health Law at Georgetown University in the United States.Trump has also ordered a freeze on US foreign aid.“The 90-day suspension is a death sentence for many small NGOs who simply don't have the finances to weather this period,” says Colum Lynch, a senior global reporter for Devex, a media platform for the development community.Where does that leave the UN's humanitarian work?“I think there is an increasing disrespect for what the UN stands for,” says Jensehaugen.“This is really the end of foreign aid as we know it,” concludes Lynch.Join host Imogen Foulkes on our Inside Geneva podcast.Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/Host: Imogen FoulkesProduction assitant: Claire-Marie GermainDistribution: Sara PasinoMarketing: Xin Zhang

Send us a textIn this week's Inside Geneva podcast episode, we ask: what makes a good peace agreement?“Peace is not just a status. Peace is a process, and it's a process that is part of politics in general,” says Laurent Goetschel from Swisspeace.So, are quick peace deals possible?“When someone says, ‘I want to have an agreement in 24 hours,' my response as a professional is, ‘Okay. What are our ideas? What is possible right now? What is the most that can be made out of this possibility, if indeed it is a possibility?'” says Katia Papagianni from the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue.Does peace mean more than just the end of fighting?“Peace, meaning just the absence of war, can be the result of a negotiation, maybe even a short negotiation between powerful actors directly or indirectly involved in the conflict. But it's not only about stopping hostilities. It's about working towards conditions that tackle the major issues. And this is a longer-lasting process,” adds Goetschel.Can a peace agreement offer everything that everybody wants? Can all human rights be protected immediately?“A peace agreement cannot guarantee the protection of human rights; it can just keep the door open and create some form of foundation for the political actors of a country to actually pursue the aspiration of protecting human rights,” adds Papagianni.Join podcast host Imogen Foulkes to hear about the tough, practical realities – and the hard work and patience needed – to create a sustainable peace agreement.Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/Host: Imogen FoulkesProduction assitant: Claire-Marie GermainDistribution: Sara PasinoMarketing: Xin Zhang

Send us a textFor our planet, each year brings new climate records, and they're not good ones.“We now know that 2024 is on track to be the warmest year on record. At the same time, we have accumulated more CO2 than ever in the history of human life on Earth,” says Celeste Saulo, Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization.On Inside Geneva this week, we look at the damage from the perspective of United Nations (UN) aid agencies.“Climate change is making us sick, and it's making us sick because it's increasing the possibility of having more infectious diseases and waterborne diseases like cholera. It's also sometimes destroying the capacity to produce food,” says Maria Neira, Climate Change Director at the World Health Organization.We also hear how aid agencies are trying to reduce their own carbon footprints.“Anyone who's in the field at the moment shouldn't be using their own agency vehicles. We should be ride-sharing. We've got 6,000 vehicles. Why aren't they electric? We've got 6,000 generators. Why aren't they all solar-powered?” says Andrew Harper, Climate Change Advisor to the UN Refugee Agency.It's part of a local Geneva initiative called 2050 Today to encourage the city's UN agencies, diplomatic missions and private enterprises to tackle climate change.“In my small mission, we know that our contribution may be minor in comparison, but we also understand the power of collective movements. By sharing the 2050 Today tools with our other embassies throughout the world, we aim to reduce our emissions by 45% from our 2022 levels,” says Matthew Wilson, the Ambassador of Barbados to the UN in Geneva.Sometimes great things start local – join host Imogen Foulkes on Inside Geneva to find out how.Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/Host: Imogen FoulkesProduction assitant: Claire-Marie GermainDistribution: Sara PasinoMarketing: Xin Zhang

Send us a textIn 2024 there are more than 100 conflicts ongoing, worldwide. A record number of aid workers have been killed. Tom Fletcher, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator: ‘It's not just the ferocity of these conflicts, Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, Syria. It's about that wilful neglect of international humanitarian law. And as a result we seem to have lost our anchor somehow. That scaffolding, that we felt was there, international humanitarian law that I was hoping we'd be taking for granted at this point, is shaking.' Inside Geneva asks whether we have given up on international law. Nico Krisch, Professor of International Law, Geneva Graduate Institute: If I see the Europeans talks about international law and the rules based order, but then keep supporting Israel in the face of the International Court of Justice - deliver weapons, not take part in the negotiations on the legally binding instrument on business and human rights that many countries in the global south want, then I ask well, what do you really mean by your commitment to international law and multilateralism? Can the United Nations survive such double standards? Richard Gowan, Crisis Group: I think the rest of the UN membership is watching this, they're seeing a fragmenting international order, and they are profoundly frustrated. And what about the long term effects of so much violence, for the perpetrators as well as the victims? Cordula Droege, Chief Legal Officer, ICRC: Humanitarian law is also based on the fact that to dehumanise your enemy means that you also dehumanise yourself. And if you do it on a large scale you dehumanise the entire society and the fabric of society. Is the age of multilateralism, cooperation, the ‘rules based order' over? Jan Egeland, Secretary General, Norwegian Refugee Council: The ideals were shared by more governments, there was more unity of purpose. And today there is more nationalism, introspection, skepticism. Europe first, America first, me first, rather than humanity first. Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/Host: Imogen FoulkesProduction assitant: Claire-Marie GermainDistribution: Sara PasinoMarketing: Xin Zhang

Send us a textIn this week's Inside Geneva episode, UN correspondents in Geneva and New York look back at 2024. Dorian Burkhalter, journalist, SWI swissinfo.ch: ‘Wars everywhere, climate change, deepening inequalities, AI…it's just threats everywhere. But it just seems like the more global our problems are becoming, the weaker the UN is also becoming.' But is the biggest event of the year the US election? Nick Cumming-Bruce, contributor, New York Times: ‘It's hard to top the US election because it's already dominating the conversation on everything else that we've covered in 2024.' What could an isolationist America first strategy mean for the UN, and for the multilateral system? Dawn Clancy, UN correspondent, New York: ‘Pulling out of the Paris Agreement, or the WHO, threatening to cut funding, the US is the biggest funder of the UN, billions of dollars. So it's just going to be chaos and no leadership.' Are we on the verge of a new world order, without the guardrails of international law, or the Geneva Conventions?  Imogen Foulkes, host, Inside Geneva: ‘The world is changing, while I'm watching, in terms of our fundamental principles, the world is changing while I'm watching, and for a while I didn't even quite notice it.'  Join us on Inside Geneva for an in-depth discussion of 2024, and some predictions for 2025. Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/Host: Imogen FoulkesProduction assitant: Claire-Marie GermainDistribution: Sara PasinoMarketing: Xin Zhang

Send us a textIs the world still committed to human rights? Our Inside Geneva podcast is in Strasbourg, where the Council of Europe is discussing how to defend the fundamental principles we agreed upon after the Second World War.“We can't just say, ‘Do it because it's a human right' or ‘Do it because it's in a treaty.' We have to demonstrate: ‘Do it, and this is how it will make your society better and stronger,'” says Michael O'Flaherty, Human Rights Commissioner at the Council of Europe.With autocracies in Russia and China and uncertain times ahead in the US, can Europe hold the line?“If Europe doesn't get this right, I can guarantee you it will not be good for Europe. It will be worse in the rest of the world as well, so it's a vicious spiral,” continues Peggy Hicks, UN Human Rights.But even in Europe, the commitment to human rights is sometimes weak.“For many, human rights are a bit of an afterthought in our policy. It's something to make us feel good about ourselves,” says Olof Skoog, the EU's Special Representative for Human Rights.We also talked to Sofia Moschin, student and human rights defender, who said that “inside Europe, there are constant violations of human rights, so I don't agree with the narrative that Europe is a human rights champion.”We also talked to Sofia Moschin, a student and human rights defender, who said, “Inside Europe, there are constant violations of human rights, so I don't agree with the narrative that Europe is a human rights champion.”How should Europe stand up for its values?“I'm not going to accept defeatism. Get furious – that's what we need to do now. Don't throw in the towel, don't surrender. Get indignant, get furious and fight back to save this astonishing achievement,” says O'Flaherty.Join host Imogen Foulkes on the latest episode of our Inside Geneva podcast to listen to these interviews in full.Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/Host: Imogen FoulkesProduction assitant: Claire-Marie GermainDistribution: Sara PasinoMarketing: Xin Zhang

Send us a textThis week Inside Geneva goes to New York. The United Nations (UN) General Assembly is hearing multiple reports of serious human rights violations.“I think it's more difficult to get the human rights message [across] here in New York at the General Assembly. But hopefully we will be heard,” says Mariana Katzarova, UN special rapporteur on human rights in Russia.Ukraine, the Middle East and Sudan are on the agenda. But so is the situation of human rights groups inside Russia.“The situation with political prisoners in Russia today is no longer a crisis, it's a catastrophe. We now have more political prisoners in Russia alone than there were in the whole of the Soviet Union, so that's 15 countries put together,” says Vladimir Kara-Murza, a former political prisoner.In Geneva, the Human Rights Council can order investigations – but will New York respond?“There is Gaza, the situation in Sudan, Myanmar, Syria – so many conflicts and humanitarian disasters, and there's an inability of member states to reach an agreement,” says Louis Charbonneau, UN Director at Human Rights Watch NGO.The UN Security Council, dominated by the US, China, Russia, the United Kingdom and France, can't agree – so it's paralysed.“I do have moments where I perhaps would like to stand up in the middle of the chamber and say: ‘Hey, do something!' But that's not professional and I would lose my press pass,” says journalist Dawn Clancy.The UN's main role is upholding peace and security. Is New York failing?“For peace and security, human rights are the core. Without human rights we cannot have peace or security,” says Katzarova.Join host Imogen Foulkes for Inside Geneva – in New York!Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/Host: Imogen FoulkesProduction assitant: Claire-Marie GermainDistribution: Sara PasinoMarketing: Xin Zhang

Send us a textOn Inside Geneva this week we talk to the people behind a new book about life in Gaza, told through the words of those who live there. “People are actually travelling in the middle of a war, in the middle of Gaza at midnight – the peak of the risk, if you like – to get somewhere where they can get a better internet so they can actually talk to us,” says Mahmoud Muna, editor of Daybreak in Gaza. This book, edited by Mahmoud Muna and Matthew Teller with Juliette Touma and Jayyab Abusafia, is about history, culture, food, music and life. “It's not a football game. This is about our humanity and it's about being able to sympathise with people wherever they are. This is not about taking sides. It's about whether we're human or not,” says Touma. “This book does not give voice to the voiceless. The people of Gaza, like people everywhere, have voices. The point of this book is not to give a voice; the point of this book is to amplify the voices of the people who are not being listened to,” continues Teller. In this episode, we also ask why human rights groups are uneasy about the upcoming UN Climate Change Conference (COP29) in Azerbaijan. “Dozens have been arrested in the months leading up to COP29, including 16 journalists, other society activists, and NGO leaders. There is still time for Azerbaijan to set the record straight, and they should release them. The UN should engage with Azerbaijan to ensure that it does so,” says Giorgi Gogia from Human Rights Watch. Tales from life in Gaza, climate change, and human rights. Catch this and more in the latest episode of our Inside Geneva podcast.Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/Host: Imogen FoulkesProduction assitant: Claire-Marie GermainDistribution: Sara PasinoMarketing: Xin Zhang

Send us a textThe presidential elections in the United States (US) are just a couple of weeks away. What will they mean for international affairs, for Ukraine, for the Middle East, for humanitarian work, for international law and for the United Nations (UN) in Geneva?“When I was in the US, I definitely saw that there is no interest for anything called multilateralism or collaboration globally. Because it's a matter of support – political, financial and moral support for international questions and for international Geneva. I think Europe is there, yes, but I don't think Europe will be able to match the US,” says Swedish journalist Gunilla von Hall.Does it even matter who wins? Or is the waning support for multilateralism part of a bigger problem?“Is multilateralism a system that allows all countries to deal with each other in a civil and non-violent way where common interest prevails? Or is it the appearance of a system that allows the continued hegemony of the old powers after the Second World War?” says Tammam Aloudat head of the international medical aid charity Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) Netherlands.“There are two words that are key here. One is the notion of polarisation, not only in the United States, but internationally. We see it in Geneva, we see it everywhere. The second is the word transactional. Everything seems to be transactional: ‘what's in this for me?' instead of someone coming in and saying: ‘for the common good'," adds analyst Daniel Warner.Would the multilateral system even be better off without the US?“I don't think we can afford to sit in an arena where our hope for multilateralism, which still is in the UN and its institutions, [means we are] sitting still, taking the constant bullying of the United States,” says Aloudat.Join host Imogen Foulkes on our Inside Geneva podcast to discover how important the US still is these days.Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/Host: Imogen FoulkesProduction assitant: Claire-Marie GermainDistribution: Sara PasinoMarketing: Xin Zhang

Send us a textIt's been one year since the October 7 attack by Hamas on Israel. Twelve months of violent conflict have followed, with tens of thousands dead. We look back at our coverage over the past year.“What we have to deal with is the immense stupidity of the wars that currently are in place. And here we are having to deal with wars of a sort that were better found in the history books devoted to the 20th century and ought not to have a place in the 21st,” said Zeid Ra'ad al Hussein, former United Nations Human Rights Commissioner.How have the aid agencies coped?“People tend to believe we can do things that we cannot do. We have no army. We have no weapons,” said Fabrizio Carboni, regional director for the Near and Middle East at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).How do they respond to critics who believe they should do more?“If we could release them all we would do it as soon as possible. If we could visit them we would visit them. And at the same time it takes place in an environment which is Gaza,” added Carboni.Why are we so quick to war, and so slow to peace?“There's a focus on the centrality of my pain, the pain my community feels and I feel, and I want the world to stand with me whoever I may be, and I demand it as a recognition of my suffering. But then the obvious question is, but how often do we, as individuals, side with others who are experiencing pain,” said al Hussein.Join host Imogen Foulkes for this special episode of the Inside Geneva podcast.Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/Host: Imogen FoulkesProduction assitant: Claire-Marie GermainDistribution: Sara PasinoMarketing: Xin Zhang

Send us a textFor 40 years, there has been an absolute ban on torture. But it still happens…“Horrific things can happen to you. Nobody is there to help you. Nobody is there to document it, etc. And I think sometimes we speak about torture without putting ourselves in the shoes of what this is,” says Gerald Staberock from the World Organisation Against Torture.On our Inside Geneva podcast this week, host Imogen Foulkes finds out how the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment came about.“The convention came in the 1980s, arising out of terrible situations in Latin America, the dictatorships in Chile and Argentina in particular. And of course, torture, enforced disappearances, and killings were used as a matter of course to suppress their populations and to suppress opposition,” explains Alice Edwards, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture.Today, some say torture might be justified in certain circumstances.“We didn't outlaw torture because it works or not. We didn't outlaw slavery because it doesn't work. We didn't outlaw robbery because it doesn't work, but because it is wrong,” says Staberock.As of today, 174 states have ratified the convention…but are they honouring it?“There is pushback, it's definitely on the rise I would say because torture is also on the rise. Torture is universally condemned but widely practised,” continues Edwards.How should we mark the 40th anniversary?“So much more has to be done to really eradicate torture. We have to recognise that it is still a problem, and we have to recognise it as a problem. For a torturer, for individuals, for society. A society that tortures is a sick society,” says Staberock.Join host Imogen Foulkes on Inside Geneva.Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/Host: Imogen FoulkesProduction assitant: Claire-Marie GermainDistribution: Sara PasinoMarketing: Xin Zhang

Send us a textThis month the United Nations (UN) will host the ‘Summit of the Future' in New York. What's the point of this high-level event? Inside Geneva investigates.“The UN is not an entity that does anything. I mean, we can all blame it, but what is the UN? It's just the sum of its parts: the governments,” says Christiane Oelrich, journalist for the DPA German Press Agency.Is the UN's 1945 structure even fit for purpose?“Historically the UN for many people is still associated with the West. And the question of including the global south still haunts the UN,” continues analyst Daniel Warner.Does the UN have an answer to today's brutal, intractable conflicts?“Since World War Two there have been plenty of conflicts, but what we have seen in the last three or four or five years is the use of aggression and violence as an instrument of foreign policy. Yes, that's right,” says Nick Cumming-Bruce, contributor for the New York Times.Can more peaceful nations rescue the UN's purpose?“The fact that some countries follow the path of aggression doesn't mean that all the rest of the world has to talk about failure now,” adds Oelrich.And is the summit a gamble for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres?“We should tip a hat to Antonio Guterres for even trying to do this given all of the stuff that's going on,” says Imogen Foulkes, Inside Geneva presenter.Join us on Inside Geneva to find out more about what we can expect from this summit. Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/Host: Imogen FoulkesProduction assitant: Claire-Marie GermainDistribution: Sara PasinoMarketing: Xin Zhang

Send us a textThe World Trade Organisation (WTO) Public Forum is underway in Geneva and its key theme is ‘re-globalisation'. Are we nervous of that word? Inside Geneva sat down with WTO officials to find out what it means.“Trade has been a very powerful force for reducing between-country inequality. Since 1995, for example, since the foundation of the WTO, extreme poverty in the world has been reduced from 40% to 10%, because of growth in many countries that was also export-led,” says Ralph Ossa, WTO chief economist.Many ordinary people think global trade makes them poorer. How can it benefit them?“At the WTO, our members have gotten together and many of them have formed a working group on trade and gender to especially put the lens of women to trade policy and to see what more can be done so that they can take advantage of opportunities,” says Johanna Hill, WTO Deputy Director.The WTO doesn't tell countries how to run their industries, but it does hope they can learn from one another.“Perhaps one member might say, ‘Well, you know, supporting women in my country has really been a tremendous success. Because now we see higher growth rates, lower poverty rates and so on. Why don't you give it a try yourself?'” says Ossa.Can global trade help us face global challenges?“Nobody questions the importance of regulating to protect the environment or to protect health - everybody agrees on that. It's the how that might be the question,” says Hill.Join host Imogen Foulkes for a trade special on Inside Geneva.Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/Host: Imogen FoulkesProduction assitant: Claire-Marie GermainDistribution: Sara PasinoMarketing: Xin Zhang

Send us a textConflict-related sexual violence has existed for as long as war itself – forever.“It is a weapon of war. I would say it's a weapon of mass destruction. It is really maximising harm,” says Esther Dingemans, Executive Director of the Global Survivors Fund.In Inside Geneva's final summer profile, we talk to a woman working to support survivors of sexual violence…from Sudan, to Ukraine, to Syria, or Chad.“Young girls have been raped in front of their parents. Fathers are bound to chairs and forced to watch that. Or that an older – a woman in her 80s is raped in front of her son-in-law,” says Dingemans.The 1949 Geneva Convention prohibits wartime rape and enforced prostitution. But even today there are few prosecutions. And what about the survivors?“Survivors doubt themselves. Most victims of sexual violence will always question themselves. ‘Am I to blame?'” explains Dingemans.The Global Survivors Fund works for reparation – not just money, but health care, counselling, and above all, recognition of the harm done.“What is really important, particularly for survivors of sexual violence - which is often surrounded by so much shame and stigma - is that they are acknowledged, that harm has been done to them, and that it was not their fault,” concludes Dingemans.Join host Imogen Foulkes on Inside Geneva.Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/Host: Imogen FoulkesProduction assitant: Claire-Marie GermainDistribution: Sara PasinoMarketing: Xin Zhang

Send us a Text Message.It's three years since the Taliban took back control in Afghanistan. Inside Geneva talks to an Afghan human rights defender.“I was scared and I could see it coming. Yes, I mean, I think for the women of Afghanistan, we knew that the Taliban taking over would mean a dark future for women,” says Fereshta Abbasi from Human Rights Watch.In three years, women's rights have been steadily, and brutally, repressed.“No matter what we have done in the past three years, we haven't been able to reverse a single decree of the Taliban that is restricting women's rights,” continues Abbasi.“In 2024, Afghanistan remains the only country in the world where women do not have access to education beyond the sixth grade. Women do not have the right to most employment. Women do not have the right to freedom of movement. Women do not have the right to protest and assemble. So, I think we need to speak about it,” says Abbasi.What can we do to support Afghan women?“I think it's very important to stand with them, to listen to them, and to amplify their voices. It's very difficult to think of a better Afghanistan, a brighter future for women under Taliban rule. And I don't want to think about that. I want to believe and hold my strength together, that this madness cannot last.”Join host Imogen Foulkes on Inside Geneva.Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/Host: Imogen FoulkesProduction assitant: Claire-Marie GermainDistribution: Sara PasinoMarketing: Xin Zhang

Send us a Text Message.Join us for a special extra edition of Inside Geneva to mark World Humanitarian Day, with testimonies from aid workers who have given their all – and who have often lost a great deal.“So I had taken him to the airport together with our child, and, yes, it took me in fact many years to be able to use the same elevator in the airport where I last kissed him,” says Laura Dolci. Dolci's young husband Jean-Selim was killed, just weeks after the birth of their son, in the bombing of the UN's headquarters in Baghdad in 2003.Twenty years on, WHO cameraman Chris Black was sent to Gaza, to support, and document, medical care there.“Something I really will never forget is a woman, with a young child, saying to me: ‘Are we safe here?' And I wanted to say: ‘Yes, you're in the grounds of a hospital, under international humanitarian law this is a protected space, you should be safe here.' But I couldn't say to her: ‘You're safe here,'” says Black.  More than 200 aid workers have been killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023. “People have told me oh you must be very brave for going to Gaza. And I don't think so. I think what's brave is the people who have been doing this work since early October and who go back every day to do it again and again and again,” continues Black.  “The aid worker, the humanitarian worker, the peacekeeper; ultimately it's a human being that decides to put its own being to the service of humanity,” says Dolci.  Join host Imogen Foulkes on Inside Geneva for an inspiring listen.Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/Host: Imogen FoulkesProduction assitant: Claire-Marie GermainDistribution: Sara PasinoMarketing: Xin Zhang

Send us a Text Message.In the fourth episode of our summer profile series on Inside Geneva, we talk to a Geneva career woman and a Geneva asylum-seeker about a project to unite communities through sport. Surely the world's humanitarian capital is good at welcoming refugees and immigrants?“We have all these international organisations working on various global challenges. But when you talk to people from Geneva, they don't really know what's happening in this bubble,” says Lena Menge, from the Geneva Graduate Institute and co-founder of Flag 21.For asylum-seekers, arriving in a new country, even a safe one, can be hard.“I was very lonely. It wasn't easy. You feel lost and don't really know what's happening or where you are. It takes time to realise where you are and what you are supposed to do,” says Mahdie Alinejad, an asylum-seeker from Iran and a coach with Flag 21.Flag 21 is a project that brings locals and asylum-seekers together – to run, swim, do yoga, and much more.“Sport was actually a meaningful tool to include people in need, people that needed a community around them as well,” continues Menge.The project benefits everyone.“It's not easy to have this confidence and grow in society as an immigrant. So this is a very good thing that they're doing, giving opportunities to people who really need it, to find themselves, their space, their place and their confidence,” says Alinejad.“They have such resilience and so much strength to share that you come away thinking ‘my God, my little problems are really nothing',” concludes Menge.Join host Imogen Foulkes on Inside Geneva to listen to the full interview.Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/Host: Imogen FoulkesProduction assitant: Claire-Marie GermainDistribution: Sara PasinoMarketing: Xin Zhang

Send us a Text Message.On Inside Geneva, we bring you part three of our summer profile series. This week we talk to a doctor looking for treatments for some of the world's most neglected diseases.“Neglect means that there are diseases that affect an important proportion of humanity but for which no new drugs have been developed because there is no money in it. Because they affect very poor populations in remote rural areas,” explains Olaf Valverde, clinical project leader at Drugs for Neglected Diseases (DNDi).Valverde is the clinical lead on a project looking for treatments for sleeping sickness.“It's a disease caused by a small parasite that almost always kills if untreated. During the first half of the 20th century there were huge epidemics. It not only destroyed communities but also caused the desertification of entire regions of Africa,” he adds.Cases of sleeping sickness with no effective treatment had been rising again until DNDi began combing medical trials – some abandoned by big drug companies as not profitable – for other options. They found one promising lead and began testing in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).“The motivation, concentration and interest shown by our doctors in the DRC who were developing the clinical trial, were totally amazing. For them it was an opportunity to serve their people. And that was absolutely beautiful,” says Valverde.The drug worked and sleeping sickness is on the way to being eradicated.“I think this is what I always wanted to do; to do something that could be helpful to others. And this is what satisfies me. Just seeing that people have opportunities.”Join host Imogen Foulkes on Inside Geneva to listen to the full interview. Please listen and subscribe to our science podcast -- the Swiss Connection. Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/Host: Imogen FoulkesProduction assitant: Claire-Marie GermainDistribution: Sara PasinoMarketing: Xin Zhang

Send us a Text Message.Here's episode two of our summer profiles series on the Inside Geneva podcast. We talk to the head of one of the world's leading humanitarian agencies. We start with his first assignment in Darfur, in western Sudan.“As I was one day building the shelter I realised for the first time in many years I hadn't thought of what's next? I wasn't thinking everyday where do I go from here, what do I do, what's my plan? I'd just been so absorbed in the work,” Chris Lockyear, Secretary General of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) told host Imogen Foulkes. We also discuss the current crisis in Gaza,  where, amid terrible destruction, MSF is providing medical care."What are we [on] now 37,000 people killed? It's astonishing. Neighbourhood after neighbourhood after neighbourhood which has been completely flattened,” continues Lockyear.  In Gaza, MSF staff have met children as young as five, who said they wished to die.“They've been going through this for months and months and months, and the brutality of what is happening, what they're living through, yes, people are saying that they would rather end it than continue. And that can't be a surprise to us.”MSF has been outspoken when it believes international law has been violated: “What does it mean elsewhere? How could this be translated into other countries? Into Sudan, into the future if we can operate as a world with such impunity? Where does that leave us?” says Lockyear. Join host Imogen Foulkes on our Inside Geneva podcast to listen to the full interview. Please listen and subscribe to our science podcast -- the Swiss Connection. Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/Host: Imogen FoulkesProduction assitant: Claire-Marie GermainDistribution: Sara PasinoMarketing: Xin Zhang

Send us a Text Message.On Inside Geneva, we're bringing you a series of summer profiles, from doctors in war zones to researchers into the diseases that affect the world's poorest.Today, we talk to international human rights lawyer Antonia Mulvey, who devotes herself to defending women.“With many of those that we work with, who have been subjected to sexual violence, part of it is listening to them, hearing them, acknowledging what has happened,” Mulvey says. From Somalia, to Sudan, or Lebanon, Mulvey and her colleagues offer support and advice, but the women affected are always in control.“Some have the courage and bravery to step forward, and we represent them in legal cases. But they have to lead the way,” she adds. Mulvey also hopes to inspire other women.“Let's step up, let's work with women, let's work with women's groups, to take more cases, to keep challenging it, to keep pushing that door open,” Mulvey concludes. Join host Imogen Foulkes on Inside Geneva.Please listen and subscribe to our science podcast -- the Swiss Connection. Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/Host: Imogen FoulkesProduction assitant: Claire-Marie GermainDistribution: Sara PasinoMarketing: Xin Zhang

Send us a Text Message.Geneva is the home of international law, the rules that are supposed to stop the worst violations in war. But does anyone respect it anymore? Andrew Clapham, Professor of International Law at the Geneva Graduate Institute, says: “It's quite blatant that when we like what the International Criminal Court is doing we will support it, but as soon as it steps out of line we will call it a ridiculous institution. So, it is a bit of a crossroads for international law.” The Geneva Conventions are 75 years old – are young people even aware of them? “We have the law, and at least my generation or younger generations tolerate much less those types of violations, and we are reporting more,” says Cristina Figueira Shah, international law student and co-President of the Human Rights, Conflict and Peace Initiative. Are there any rules of war that work? Laurent Gisel, Head of the Arms and Conduct of Hostilities Unit at the Legal Division of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), explains that “far fewer people know about the prohibition of blinding laser weapons than the mine ban treaty. Why? Because it has been prohibited before they were developed. And it was prohibited 50 years ago.” Does indicting a political leader achieve more than headlines? “Naming somebody as a potential war criminal has a huge effect because if the leader is named as a war criminal, like President Putin or Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, that means that assisting them to do what they are doing means that you are aiding and assisting, potentially, in a war crime,” says Clapham. How can we encourage more respect? “I think we should go back and understand all the reasons why we got to this point in the first place. How we wrote all the international treaties and understand from that what our generation can do to improve it,” says Shah.“Violation of international humanitarian law creates even more hatred. And if you want to live in peace afterwards, it helps to respect international humanitarian law during the conflict,” says Gisel. Join Imogen Foulkes for an Inside Geneva special from Geneva's Graduate Institute where experts and audience ask: “Is international law dead”? Please listen and subscribe to our science podcast -- the Swiss Connection. Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/Host: Imogen FoulkesProduction assitant: Claire-Marie GermainDistribution: Sara PasinoMarketing: Xin Zhang

Send us a Text Message.Save the Date for a live recordingWe'd like to invite you to a live recording session of our Inside Geneva podcast about the role of the Geneva Conventions and international law. Mark your calendars – June 5, 2024, from 12:30 to 1:30 pm – at the Geneva Graduate Institute. Registration is required to secure your spot here.If you have any questions, please email us at event@swissinfo.ch.Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/Host: Imogen FoulkesProduction assitant: Claire-Marie GermainDistribution: Sara PasinoMarketing: Xin Zhang

Send us a Text Message.In this week's episode of our Inside Geneva podcast, we revisit our coverage of laws that changed the world. Save the Date for a live recordingWe'd like to invite you to a live recording session of our Inside Geneva podcast about the role of the Geneva Conventions and international law. Mark your calendars - June 5, 2024, from 12:30am to 13:30pm - at the Geneva Graduate Institute. Registration is required to secure your spot here. If you have any questions, please email us at event@swissinfo.ch.From the Convention against Landmines: "The very day that I entered the hospital for war victims, I realised that all these patients were without one or two legs," said Dr Alberto Cairo from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). "Every day, just about, somebody was injured by a landmine, and they were rushed off to Khao-I-Dang hospital to have their legs amputated," said nurse Denise Coghlan, in Cambodia.The convention was adopted in 1997. Steve Goose, from Human Rights Watch, says: "This has been an extremely successful treaty, because it has saved so many lives, and so many limbs, and so many livelihoods."But landmines still cause huge harm."Every morning when I get up in the morning I put on my artificial leg. That's something that I will do every day for the rest of my life," said Stuart Hughes, a landmine survivor.We have a convention against genocide, but is it enough?Ken Roth, human rights expert, says: "People feel like, if you don't call it genocide, then it's not serious. And that's a mistake.""We have a genocide convention, and we don't have a crimes against humanity convention, at least not yet," said Paola Gaeta, professor at the Geneva Graduate Institute. And the Convention against Enforced Disappearances – a protection for families as well as the disappeared.Cordula Droege, from the ICRC, says: "Victims of enforced disappearances are not only those who are disappeared but also those who suffer directly from it, such as the relatives.""He was taken by armed men, and taken to a car, a red car without a plate number, and he disappeared," said Aileen Bacalso. Olivier de Frouville, UN expert on enforced disappearances, adds: "That's why we describe also for the relatives, who are victims of enforced disappearances, we describe it as torture, because this is real torture."Inside Geneva hears from the people who campaigned to make our world safer, and asks, are we honouring their laws and their sacrifices?Please listen and subscribe to our science podcast -- the Swiss Connection. Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/Host: Imogen FoulkesProduction assitant: Claire-Marie GermainDistribution: Sara PasinoMarketing: Xin Zhang

Send us a Text Message.Four years ago, our lives were upended by the Covid-19 pandemic. Countries locked down, millions became ill, millions died. And when the vaccine finally arrived, it was not fairly distributed. Rich countries bought too many, poor countries waited, with nothing. “What we saw during the Covid-19 pandemic was collapse. Basically, a complete failure of international cooperation,” says Suerie Moon of Geneva Graduate Institute's Global Health Centre. Surely we can do better? Countries are gathering in Geneva to try to hammer out a pandemic treaty. Do they have the vision? And the courage? “There's been so much lip service paid to equity, but when it actually comes to nailing down what that means, and how to avoid a repeat, it seems like governments are struggling,” says Kerry Cullinan, deputy editor of Health Policy Watch.  What about the vaccine manufacturers? Are they ready to share? Thomas Cueni former head of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers told us in 2023: “I've always been of the view that no treaty is better than a bad treaty. Have a good treaty, I think it would be great.”David Reddy, the new director-general of IFPMA, adds that they “remain committed to providing the expertise and know-how of our companies to global efforts to prepare for and respond to future pandemics.”Are we going to be better equipped for the next pandemic? “I think it would be an insult to the seven million people plus who died during the pandemic for there not to be a historic agreement,” says Cullinan.  Join host Imogen Foulkes on our Inside Geneva podcast to learn more about this treaty.This text was updated on May 16, 2024, to mention that Thomas Cueni is now the former head of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers. The interview mentioned in the podcast was recorded in 2023.  Please listen and subscribe to our science podcast -- the Swiss Connection. Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/Host: Imogen FoulkesProduction assitant: Claire-Marie GermainDistribution: Sara PasinoMarketing: Xin Zhang

In the wars in Ukraine and in the Middle East, new, autonomous weapons are being used. Our Inside Geneva podcast asks whether we're losing the race to control them – and the artificial intelligence systems that run them.   “Autonomous weapons systems raise significant moral, ethical, and legal problems challenging human control over the use of force and handing over life-and-death decision-making to machines,” says Sai Bourothu, specialist in automated decision research with the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots.  How can we be sure an autonomous weapon will do what we humans originally intended? Who's in control? Jean-Marc Rickli from the Geneva Centre for Security Policy adds: “AI and machine learning basically lead to a situation where the machine is able to learn. And so now, if you talk to specialists, to scientists, they will tell you that it's a black box, we don't understand, it's very difficult to backtrack.” Our listeners asked if an autonomous weapon could show empathy? Could it  differentiate between a fighter and a child? Last year, an experiment asked patients to rate chatbot doctors versus human doctors. “Medical chatbots ranked much better in the quality. But they also asked them to rank empathy. And on the empathy dimension they also ranked better. If that is the case, then you opened up a Pandora's box that will be completely transformative for disinformation,” explains Rickli.  Are we going to lose our humanity because we think machines are not only more reliable, but also kinder? “I think it's going to be an incredibly immense task to code something such as empathy.  I think almost as close to the question of whether machines can love,” says Bourothu.  Join host Imogen Foulkes on the Inside Geneva podcast to learn more about this topic.  Please listen and subscribe to our science podcast -- the Swiss Connection. Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter.

The world is marking 30 years since the Rwandan genocide. Inside Geneva talks to those who witnessed it. “We came to one village where there were a few survivors and a man came to me with a list and said ‘look, the names have been crossed out one by one, entire families, they were killing everybody from those families,'” says Christopher Stokes, from Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders). Charles Petrie, former United Nations (UN) humanitarian coordinator, recalls: “She thought there was a good chance that the Interahamwe [militia] would find the kids, the children, and she said, ‘pray that they don't hack them to death, pray that they shoot them'”. Why was it not prevented? “The paralysis of the UN system, the paralysis of all the major players to respond to what was pretty clearly a massive genocidal operation,” says Gareth Evans, former Australian foreign minister. Senior diplomats worked to make the UN stronger in the face of atrocities.   “Instead of talking about the right to intervene, we talked about the responsibility to protect. There are some kinds of behaviour which are just inconceivably beyond the pale, whatever country we live in, and just do demand this response,” says Evans. Has “responsibility to protect”, or R2P, worked?  “I don't think there's been significant progress. I would say actually that we went from perhaps a hope, an illusion that something would be done to actually not expecting anything at all now,” says Stokes. Join host Imogen Foulkes on the Inside Geneva podcast. Please listen and subscribe to our science podcast -- the Swiss Connection. Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter.

In Inside Geneva this week we get an eyewitness account of a mission to supply Gaza's hospitals. Chris Black, World Health Organisation: ‘People have told me oh you must be very brave for going to Gaza. I don't think so, I think what's brave is the people who have been doing this work since early October, and who go back every day, to do it again and again and again.' Aid agencies say nowhere is safe in Gaza Chris Black, World Health Organisation: ‘A woman with her young child saying to me, are we safe here? And I wanted to say to her ‘You're in the grounds a hospital, this is a protected space, you should be safe here'.  But I couldn't say to her ‘you're safe here.''And we hear from human rights defenders who have come to Geneva, hoping for support. Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, human rights defender, Belarus: ‘I really believe that the democratic, powerful world will its teeth and will show to dictators that they will not prevail. We are not asking you to fight instead of us, we are asking you to help us fight the dictators.' Are democracies letting human rights defenders in autocratic states down?Host: Imogen FoulkesProduction Assistant: Claire-Marie GermainDistribution: Sara PasinoMarketing: Xin ZhangGet in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter.

In 2024, four billion of us can vote in elections. Can democracy survive artificial intelligence (AI)? Can the UN, or national governments, ensure the votes are fair? “Propaganda has always been there since the Romans. Manipulation has always been there, or plain lies by not very ethical politicians have always been there. The problem now is that with the power of these technologies, the capacity for harm can be massive,” says Gabriela Ramos, Assistant Director-General for Social & Human Sciences & AI Ethics at UNESCO.Analyst Daniel Warner continues: “I'm worried about who's going to win. But I'm also worried about whether my vote will count, and I'm worried about all kinds of disinformation that we see out there now. More than I've ever seen before.” Are deep fakes the biggest dangers? Or just not knowing what to believe? “I think the problem is not going to be the content created, the problem is going to be the liar's dividend. The thing that everything can be denied, and that anything can be questioned, and that people will not trust anything,” said Alberto Fernandez Gibaja, Head of Digitalisation and Democracy at the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA). Laws to regulate AI are lagging behind the technology. So how can voters protect themselves?  Host: Imogen FoulkesProduction assitant: Claire-Marie GermainDistribution: Sara PasinoMarketing: Xin ZhangGet in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter.

Israel has accused the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) of being involved in the October 7th attacks. “October 7th was a gamechanger. Because the involvement, direct involvement, of those 13 UNRWA employees in the October 7th attacks on Israel changed everything,” said Nina Ben-Ami, Head of Bureau, International Organizations and UN Division, Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Inside Geneva looks at what's at stake.  UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini says: “Today the needs are absolutely staggering in the Gaza Strip."UNRWA has fired the employees under suspicion, but its major donors have cut funding, even before the formal UN investigation into Israel's allegations is completed. UNRWA has 13,000 staff in Gaza, providing schools and clinics.  “Even if the allegations are true, that's no justification for cutting off funding for the most important aid and relief agency in the Gaza Strip,” says Louis Charbonneau, UN Director at Human Rights Watch. Can other aid agencies step up if UNRWA has to stop? Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council: “All of the non-governmental organisations, all of the Red Cross, Red Crescent organisations, all of the UN agencies combined, we're not even half of what UNRWA is for Gazan society.” Where does this leave the 1.5 million Gazans now crammed into Rafah? Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council, explains that “Israel is thinking of going in with a bloody ground offensive. We would hold the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and all of these other countries providing the arms to this…we will hold them accountable for what is going to happen in Rafah.”“UNRWA remains the only lifeline in a region full of despair. A region which now deserves that we collectively look at promoting a proper genuine peaceful political solution,” concludes Lazzarini.  Join host Imogen Foulkes on our Inside Geneva podcast to learn more about the allegations and possible outcomes for UNRWA.   Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review.

The war in Ukraine is two years old. Inside Geneva discusses the latest military developments in Ukraine, the chances of peace and where the war will go from here.“Isn't there a limit when there are so many civilian deaths so you as a state have a responsibility to stop?” asks journalist Gunilla van Hall. How will this war end? Ukraine, with the West's support, is fighting a regime that poisons, imprisons, and kills its political opponents.Inside Geneva host Imogen Foulkes says: “Putin's dream of getting the whole country, if that's what he wanted, doesn't seem that achievable, and yet Ukraine getting its entire country back doesn't seem achievable either.”What chance is there of a peace agreement? Does the United Nations have any role to play?“With this particular cast of characters, it's not going to happen. With Putin on the one side and [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky and his entourage. They're committed to victory whatever that is,” says Jussi Hanhimäki, professor of international history at the Geneva Graduate Institute. Is the West's support for Ukraine waning? What could that mean for international stability?“Russia is basically independent as far as acting in this war, whereas Ukraine is dependent. And I think of the question of Western fatigue and the radar now is on the Middle East,” concludes analyst Daniel Warner. Join host Imogen Foulkes on the Inside Geneva podcast for the answers.Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review.

It's one year since devastating earthquakes hit Turkey and Syria. Inside Geneva talks to search and rescue teams who were there: Filip Kirazov, from Search and Rescue Assistance in Disasters (SARAID) says: “Every member of SARAID is a volunteer. So no one gets paid for any of the work we do. Our sole aim is to minimize human suffering, due to the impact of natural or manmade disasters.” And to local business leaders who had tried to prepare for such a disaster. “We were expecting a big earthquake in Istanbul, and we were calculating the number of people that were going to lose their lives, and the number of economic losses. The role of businesses there was to be prepared before, and help the economic recovery afterwards,” says Erhan Arslan, Turkonfed (Turkisn Enterprise and Business Confederation).  Can humanitarian organisations and business work together to respond? The United Nations (UN) have an initiative that tries to do just that.  Florian Rhiza Nery, Connecting Business Initiative says: “We often times see the challenges that come from the differences, between the business community, the private sector, and humanitarian organisations, not just the UN.” Can it work? Humanitarians and entrepreneurs don't always think the same way… “When I hear about private public partnerships, I always say about in terms of the private ‘what's in it for them?' And the question of a private company being totally neutral or altruistic, I still have my doubts,” concludes Daniel Warner, political analyst.  Join host Imogen Foulkes on Inside GenevaGet in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review.

The International Court of Justice (the United Nations' top court) is considering charges of genocide against Israel. The case was brought by South Africa.Adila Hassim, the lawyer for South Africa, says: “Palestinians are subjected to relentless bombing. They are killed in their homes, in places where they seek shelter, in hospitals, in schools, in mosques, in churches and as they try to find food and water for their families."Israel is defending itself with vigour.“What Israel seeks by operating in Gaza is not to destroy people but to protect people, its people. In these circumstances there can hardly be a charge more false and more malevolent than the accusation against Israel of genocide,” says Tal Becker, a lawyer for Israel. Inside Geneva asks if this is really a case for the UN's top court.Margaret Satterthwaite, UN special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers: “This is a case about asserting humanity, and in fact asserting law over war. The purpose of the UN is to prevent disputes from turning into armed conflict. […] And the ICJ is there to help resolve disputes and to prevent war.”Can that really work? Or will this high-profile case simply distract from other human rights violations?“People feel like if you don't call it genocide then it's not serious and that's a mistake. Crimes against humanity are incredibly severe,” says Ken Roth of the Harvard Carr Centre for Human Rights Policy.The ICJ's final verdict will take years. There is no right of appeal, and member states are obliged to comply. But the ICJ has no power to enforce.“There's not a UN police force running around making sure that states comply with their international law obligations,” concludes Satterthwaite. Join host Imogen Foulkes on our Inside Geneva podcast to learn more about the case. Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review.

The bitter conflict in Gaza has polarised opinions. Aid agencies are caught in the middle.Fabrizio Carboni, Regional Director of the Near and Middle East division of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC): “People tend to believe we can do things that actually we can't. I mean we have no army, we have no weapons.”Some say the ICRC hasn't done enough to help Israeli hostages.“If we could release them all we would do it as soon as possible. If we could visit them we would visit them. And at the same time it takes place in an environment which is Gaza,” says Carboni.Other aid agencies have described their shock at the destruction in Gaza.James Elder, a spokesperson  for UNICEF said: “The level of bombardments, and the deprivation of food and water and medicines, that's made that situation as desperate as I've ever seen.”This has fuelled anger on the ground.“I could objectively see that many attacks were indiscriminate, and safe zones had nothing to do with legal or moral safety. Those things created anger,” continues Elder. How can aid agencies persuade the warring parties that the only side they take is humanity?“I care about the families of the people who are taken hostages. I care about the civilians in Israel who regularly have to go in the basement, and I also care about the Palestinians. One does not exclude the other. We're not doing accounting,” concludes Carboni. Listen to the latest episode of our Inside Geneva podcast and join host Imogen Foulkes to find out more about the situation in Gaza.Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review.

In the last Inside Geneva of 2023, UN correspondents look back at the year..and what a year it's been.Emma Farge, Reuters: ‘This year has felt like lurching from one catastrophe to another.'Earthquakes, climate change, or war –the UN is always expected to step in.Nick Cumming-Bruce, contributor, New York Times: ‘This is a multilateral system that is absolutely falling apart under the strain of all the extreme events it's having to deal with.'Aid agencies have struggled to cope.Imogen Foulkes, host, Inside Geneva: ‘You feel like they're being squeezed and squeezed and squeezed between the warring parties, and the Security Council which will just never agree.' And now, war, again, in the middle east.Dorian Burkhalter, Swissinfo: ‘The UN has never lost that many humanitarian workers, and just seeing their helplessness you can really tell that they've lost their protection, and they're totally desperate.'Emma Farge: ‘It's been personal for everyone, and it;s been difficult for journalists to navigate this information war and to really navigate it with your composure.'What will 2024 bring?Nick Cumming-Bruce: ‘We still have potentially months of conflict, and we then have the whole issue of post conflict. Well, 2024 is really going to be where we see where the rubber hits the road on that one.'Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review.

The world is marking an important anniversary: the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. After the Second World War, this was supposed to be our "never again" moment. The  Universal Declaration of Human Rights promises us the right to live, to freedom of expression, the right not to be tortured, to equality regardless of gender, race or religion. So how's that working out? Throughout 2023 SWI swissinfo.ch has been talking to the men and women who have led the United Nations' human rights work. In this edition of Inside Geneva, we highlight those exclusive interviews.Please have a look at this video interview of  Volker Türk, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.  Why does protecting human rights matter more than ever?Please sign up for our newsletter for Swiss Democracy. Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review.

This week Inside Geneva sits down for the last in our series of exclusive interviews with UN human rights commissioners.Volker Türk has a copy of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that he was given at school more than 40 years ago. Growing up in his native Austria, he focused his mind on human rights."In light of the history of my own country, Holocaust, its own atrocities committed by Austrians during the Second World War, it was very formative for me to actually really say OK what has to happen in this world so that we come to this never again attitude," he told host Imogen Foulkes. Today, there are 55 conflicts worldwide – not the best atmosphere to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the universal declaration. But Volker Türk has a compelling analogy of why it is still important."We actually have traffic regulations, and they exist because otherwise people would get killed. That's the same on the human rights front, and that's why the Universal Declaration of human rights is so important. Yes there are people who are violating traffic regulations, as there are people who violate human rights law, sometimes egregiously, as we see now. It doesn't mean that this takes away the fundamental centrality of the norms."He also believes that if warring parties could really see the suffering they cause each other, peace might be easier to achieve."I was at the border to Gaza in Rafah, on north Sinai. I met Palestinian children, who had injuries that I have rarely seen in my life. Spine injuries, some of them couldn't even talk, because they were in such deep trauma and shock. I also met families of hostages, Israeli hostages and I saw their pain, and I can see that there is immense suffering out there and that suffering is created from humans to humans."Is there anything to celebrate on this 75th anniversary? Perhaps not, but we can learn."We cannot afford just to stay in the present. We need to learn from our crisis today to make it better in the future, and I hope that if there's one single message that comes across: that the centrality of human rights has to be much more pronounced than ever before."Join host Imogen Foulkes on the Inside Geneva to listen to the full episode. Please sign up for our newsletter for Swiss Democracy. Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review.

Geneva recently hosted the Peace Week annual forum. Inside Geneva asks what's the point, especially when there seems to be so much conflict still going on.“What we have to deal with is the immense stupidity of the wars that currently are in place. And here we are having to deal with wars of a sort that were better found in the history books devoted to the 20th century and ought not to have a place in the 21st,” says Zeid Ra'ad al Hussein, former United Nations Human Rights Commissioner. The UN is supposed to be able to prevent, and end conflict. How is it doing?Richard Gowan, UN director at the International Crisis Group: “I think the UN high command on the one hand, and the Israelis on the other hand, have just decided that in rhetorical terms their relationship cannot be saved. And they are laying into each other in very firm language.”What about individual governments, including Switzerland's?“Now is simply not the time to be further suffocating the human rights community in Israel and Palestine. The presence of armed conflict makes human rights defenders work more, not less, important. This is the exact wrong moment to stop supporting civil society,” says Erin Kilbride, a researcherat Human Rights Watch. Are politics getting in the way of humanity?“There are two problems here: the first is the difference between humanitarian and political. And in a situation of war, which we're in now, it's very difficult to make that distinction,” adds Daniel Warner, a political analyst. Join host Imogen Foulkes on the Inside Geneva podcast to listen to the full interviews. Please sign up for our newsletter for Swiss Democracy. Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review.

On Inside Geneva this week: part six of our series marking the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Imogen Foulkes talks to Michelle Bachelet, who served as UN Human Rights Commissioner from 2018 to 2022. She was a young woman during Chile's military dictatorship, and experienced human rights violations first hand.“You needed to be as strong as possible, and not to fail and not to... how could I say confess things that could harm other people.”When democracy returned to Chile, Bachelet served as her country's president twice. Valuable experience, she believes, for later, persuading world leaders to respect human rights.“I could put myself in the shoes of that person who was making those decisions, and tried to think which could be the arguments that would convince them to respect human rights. That it's not only the right thing to do but also the smart thing.”She came under huge pressure for a much delayed but hard-hitting report on human rights in China.“I used to tell them look if you ask me not to publish this then tomorrow, another big country will call me and say don't publish this. And then another big country will come so then the only thing I can do is to go back home. Because I have to do my job. So there was lots of pressure, lots of criticism.”Now, she feels the world has failed civilians in Gaza. “You have people there that need a humanitarian corridor, so they can get food, medicines, water, electricity and I feel that the international community has been slow to respond. Slow and weak.”And what about the Universal Declaration at 75?“The Universal Declaration is still valid. Because it gives sort of a minimal, I would say, standard of how we can live together.”Please sign up for our newsletter for Swiss Democracy. Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review.

The current conflict in the Middle East is the most violent in decades. An Inside Geneva special asks what the rules of law allow, and what they forbid. Marco Sassòli, Professor of International Law at the University of Geneva, says: “the massacre Hamas committed among those festival visitors are clear violations of international humanitarian law. [...] The entire northern Gaza Strip is not a military objective. So, an attack is a specific act of violence against one target, and the entire northern Gaza Strip is not possibly a target.”What are the challenges for aid workers? “We need to ensure safety of civilians and safety of health workers, humanitarian workers on the ground. Our colleagues from the Palestine Red Crescent were telling us, yes we have no food, yes we have no water, yes we have none of these. But we don't even know if we'll be alive tomorrow,” says Benoit Carpentier from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. Can anything prevent a humanitarian disaster in Gaza? “We've heard about 20 or 30 trucks only being allowed in, which obviously for a population of 2 million people is a drop in the ocean,” says Carpentier.  Do we expect too much of humanitarian law? “We shouldn't misunderstand humanitarian law, for instance humanitarian law does not prohibit Hamas to attack Israel, and does not prohibit Israel to attack Hamas fighters, military objectives and so on in the Gaza Strip, and other cities. And humanitarian law was never meant as saying wars are wonderful. No, wars are terrible, but they are much less terrible if the parties make an effort to comply with humanitarian law,” concludes Sassòli.  Join host Imogen Foulkes on the Inside Geneva podcast. Please sign up for our newsletter for Swiss Democracy. Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review.

It's more than a year and a half since Russia invaded Ukraine. The war shows no sign of ending, and Moscow is cracking down on all opposition. This week, Inside Geneva asks how we can support human rights inside Russia."Since the full scale invasion of Ukraine had been launched in February of last year, the regime has brought back the entire arsenal of Soviet style repressive techniques, used to eradicate all dissent within the country, and scare people into silence," says Evgenia Kara-Murza, Russian human rights defender. Supporting dissent in Russia is important for all of us.Host Imogen Foulkes also talkes to Mariana Katzarova, UN special rapporteur for Russia. She said: "I do care what kind of Russia will be there next to our borders of Europe and of Eastern Europe. Whether it will be a black hole where people will be disappearing, being tortured. being arbitrarily detained." "I have a message for the international community: please see us as your partners. We want a different Russia, a Russia based on the rule of law and respect for human rights. That is our goal," concludes Evgenia Kara-Murza. But how far away is that goal? How long will it take to reach it?Louis Charbonneau, United Nations director at Human Rights Watch says: "It takes a lot of effort to suppress the truth, to destroy and muzzle every possible critic, and to circulate absurd propaganda the way the Russian government does. It takes a lot of energy. Time is against the oppressors like Vladimir Putin, like Xi Jinping, and others. They will not last, but that doesn't mean that we're not in store for a rough ride."Please sign up for our newsletter for Swiss Democracy. Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review.