Podcast
Inside Geneva
Hosted by SWI swissinfo.ch · EN
Inside Geneva is a podcast about global politics, humanitarian issues, and international aid, hosted by journalist Imogen Foulkes. It is produced by SWI swissinfo.ch, a multilingual international public service media company from Switzerland.
47episodes
Episodes
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Who controls landmines and drones?
1w ago00:32:22Summary readySend us Fan MailOn Inside Geneva, we look at weapons contamination and the harm it causes.“We have at least one casualty every single day in Afghanistan – someone killed or injured –and it is most likely a child,” says Nick Pond, from the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan. From old conflicts to new.“Ukraine is the breadbasket of Europe and billions of square metres of land are suspected to be contaminated, which means they can’t be farmed,” says Paul Heslop, from the UN Mine Action, Ukraine. And from old weapons to new.“This is proliferating well beyond Ukraine. Ukraine and Russia are the two leaders in drone technology, but the level of proliferation is scary,” says Sean Moorhouse, from Mine Action, UN Development Programme. In response to Russian aggression, the Baltic states are pulling out of the landmine convention.“We did not say yes to landmines; we said no to unilateral disarmament constructs,” says Jonatan Vseviov, Secretary General, Estonian Foreign Ministry. But others are joining.“We heard that Lebanon will be joining the convention. This is a massive achievement and a massive push for the convention itself,” says Rana Elias, from the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining. As warfare changes, weapons contamination becomes more complicated. Who is responsible when a weapon fails to hit its target and harms someone years later? Who should pay for the clean‑up? And are we turning away from our opposition to indiscriminate weapons?Join host Imogen Foulkes on Inside Geneva to listen to the full episode. Get in touch!Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.chTwitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_enThank 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
SummaryChallenges to press freedom
3w ago00:46:06Summary readySend us Fan MailOn Inside Geneva this week, we mark Press Freedom Day. Is there anything to celebrate?Irene Khan, UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression: “The role of journalists has never been under such pressure, and the sector itself is suffering. So these are very, very important times to take a deep breath and make sure that freedom of expression, and media freedom as part of that, is protected, because it is an extremely important pillar of democracy.”Increasingly, journalists are being attacked simply for reporting the facts.Antoine Bernard, Reporters Without Borders: “We are in times where facts have become a target; hence, journalists have become more of a target, and this means that they are the ones who are suffering most from the growing polarisation of the public debate.”And are people manipulating press freedom and freedom of expression?Chris Morris, CEO, Full Fact: “Regulating information is a really difficult thing to do well. Getting the right balance between the absolute need to protect freedom of expression and the need to protect people from harm online is really difficult.”Irene Khan, UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression: “You have the First Amendment warriors talking about freedom of speech without any limit. But what they actually mean is freedom of speech for me, but not for you. Because when that happens, when you have freedom of speech without any barriers, then what happens is that we’ve seen a surge of hate speech, attacks against migrants, and terrible misogynist attacks against women politicians.”Join host Imogen Foulkes on Inside Geneva.Get in touch!Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.chTwitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_enThank 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
SummaryCan the UN survive?
Apr 1400:39:51Summary readySend us Fan MailOn Inside Geneva this week, we ask: in a world of violent conflict, is the UN – which was founded to keep the peace – doing its job?“On many fronts the UN is doing indispensable work every day, bringing food to hungry people and ensuring practical standards for how we cooperate on the planet. Most countries follow the UN’s rules and principles on an everyday basis, so not too bad. [Former UN Secretary-General] Dag Hammarskjöld said that the UN was not made to take us to heaven, but to prevent us from going to hell, and that’s still true: after 1945 there have been no new world wars,” says Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide. But with the big powers causing conflict, does the UN need a different structure?“It’s worth remembering that when the UN Charter was adopted in 1945, 50 countries were present at the table, and today there are 193 member states. So almost three‑quarters of the UN’s membership have not had a say in the rules of the game that they are now bound by, and they are very frustrated by that lack of voice and representation,” says Heba Aly, director of Article 109.Can a new, reformed UN restore some peace in the world before it’s too late?“History shows that after every severe crisis we come together and try to create a better system, which is what happened after the two world wars. First we had the not‑so‑successful attempt of the League of Nations, but then the much more successful UN, learning from what had gone wrong with the League of Nations. I hope we don’t need to relearn this through a third world war or anything like that,” says Eide. “For the UN overall, I think it’s going to go through a very difficult and dark period. You know, sometimes you just have to hit rock bottom. I hope that, coming out of that, we can emerge with a new global social contract. And if that difficult period leads us to something better, then that is something worth fighting for,” says Aly. Join host Imogen Foulkes on Inside Geneva.Get in touch!Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.chTwitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_enThank 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
SummaryInside Geneva: women in peace
Mar 3100:24:32Summary readySend us Fan MailOn Inside Geneva this week: who are the peacemakers?“Women are completely absent in high-level politics and from high-level peacemaking at the moment. However, this is only the visible part. Our focus has been so much on US President Donald Trump,” says Sara Hellmüller, professor of International Relations at the Geneva Graduate Institute. Two peace experts, both women, give us their take.“Traditionally, we have seen a low representation of women as mediators. There is a systemic issue inherent in how we understand peace processes, in which women are excluded,” says Hiba Qasas, executive director of the Principles for Peace organisation. Can a few men in suits create real sustainable peace? Is there a role for women?“Women are still working for peace every day in different conflict contexts. They are still involved in peace processes. Maybenot at the kind of transactional, deal‑making level that Trump is engaged in, and that the media mostly focuses on, but these activities have not simply stopped,” says Hellmüller. So is there a recipe for peacemaking?“It is very hard to say there is a blueprint. I don’t believe in blueprints. I don’t believe in toolboxes. I believe that peace is a much broader concept than political peace, and that it needs to be felt and experienced by people,” says Qasas.Join host Imogen Foulkes on Inside Geneva to listen to the full interview. Get in touch!Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.chTwitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_enThank 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
SummaryInside Geneva: Myanmar, women and justice
Mar 1700:30:44Summary readySend us Fan MailOn Inside Geneva this week, we look at women fighting for justice.In 2017, Myanmar’s military launched an assault on the Rohingya population. Almost a million were displaced, there were reports of horrific violations: rape, the murder of children, including babies.“The accounts that affected me most are those of children. Now I’m a grandfather, I sit there and listen and I think of my own kids when they were young and my grandkids now. How can you not?,” says Chris Sidoti from the Myanmar fact-finding mission.The UN investigators who documented the evidence were shocked, but feared there would be no accountability.“They asked me for justice and when I asked them 'why are you here, why have you been waiting all day in the camps', many of them were not able to walk, they had not eaten and they wanted justice. And at that time, I really thought it would not be possible for justice to come,” says Antonia Mulvey from Legal Action Worldwide.But now, almost a decade later, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) is hearing a case of genocide against Myanmar.“To see now, action in the ICJ: I still know how many years it’s going to take. I still know that the Myanmar butchers who are responsible for what happened may never individually be brought to justice. But I certainly live in hope that one day they will,” says Sidoti.Mulvey is at the ICJ, supporting women who are testifying about what happened. “If you were in that court, I can assure you, international law is alive and it is fighting very hard,” she says.Join host Imogen Foulkes on Inside Geneva.Get in touch!Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.chTwitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_enThank 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
SummaryInside Geneva: what justice means for women in Afghanistan
Mar 300:30:17Summary readySend us Fan MailIn August 2021, the Taliban took back control in Afghanistan. Women face unprecedented repression. They can’t go to school or work; public parks are banned to them; they are not allowed to speak or sing too loudly. Are we turning away?“This is the time for the international community and for other countries, especially the EU, to step in and to make sure they respond to the crisis in Afghanistan and stand with the women of Afghanistan and to do everything they can to protect their rights,” says Fereshta Abbasi, from Human Rights Watch.Diplomats in Geneva have backed a powerful UN fact-finding mission for Afghanistan.“As an ambassador, and as a woman, [I know that] women have fought for decades if not centuries for their rights, and I also personally do not want to see a back-peddling on those rights that we, and generations of brave women before us, have fought for for so long,” says Deike Potzel, EU Ambassador to the UN in Geneva. Women inside Afghanistan need to know there is support.“Women and girls in Afghanistan resist in ways that don’t form a single movement. It’s about 1,000 quiet and important uprisings and day-to-day revolutions: a resistance that is fierce and creative to show that they exist and that they will never accept that kind of domination,” says Sahar Fetrat, an Afghan campaigner for women’s rights.The fact-finding mission can gather evidence and hold Afghanistan’s government and individual Taliban leaders to account. But ordinary women across Europe can help too.“Here in Europe, in Geneva, we have the wonderful opportunity to actually make our voices heard and to be heard. So use that chance, get engaged. Open your eyes and then do something,” says Potzel. Join some inspiring women talking to Imogen Foulkes on Inside Geneva.Get in touch!Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.chTwitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_enThank 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
SummaryWhat’s our problem with immigration?
Feb 1700:32:26Summary readySend us Fan MailOn Inside Geneva this week, we unpick the divisive topic of migration and asylum. Why are some countries closing their doors?“In Europe we are seeing one country after another erect barbed wire around their country and around a continent,” says Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council.When does restricting immigration turn into human rights violation?“We believe it’s within the rights of any government to set immigration policies that they believe make sense for their country and electorate. But setting lawful immigration policies does not mean that you have the right to mistreat migrants,” says Philippe Bolopion, executive director at Human Rights Watch.Is immigration really a threat to our jobs or services?“Overall, most studies are clear that migrant workers are not in competition with national workers in the labour market. [...] In Western countries, the medical sector depends on migrant workers,” says Vincent Chetail from the Global Migration Centre at the Geneva Graduate Institute.Why are some of us so angry about immigration?“We are reaching a peak in violent anti‑migrant rhetoric, which has nothing to do with reality,” continues Chetail.Many countries are cutting foreign aid and limiting immigration. A recipe for disaster? “If you want to live in a stable world without uncontrolled migration, pandemics and insecurity, then you invest in hope for people who have been displaced,” says Egeland.Join host Imogen Foulkes on Inside Geneva for the full interview.Get in touch!Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.chTwitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_enThank 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
SummaryThe Board of Peace, war and impunity
Feb 300:39:57Summary readySend us Fan MailOn Inside Geneva this week, we take an in-depth look at US President Donald Trump’s new ‘Board of Peace’. Experts on conflict resolution are sceptical.“The US circulated an invitation to about 60 countries to join a new board of peace that would not just focus on Gaza but would instead be a global conflict prevention organisation, complete with a pre-baked charter that looks a bit like President Trump took the protocols for a golf club in New Jersey,” says Richard Gowan from the International Crisis Group.Still, the new board could be a challenge to the United Nations (UN).“I don’t really think this is a credible international institution that will have the capacities of the UN, but I do think that it is a very worrying signal for the UN,” Gowan says.We also hear about a new report on growing disrespect for international law.“People only have to look around at the conflicts that they’re seeing today, and the extent of devastation both of civilian life and of civilian property, to know that we are in very bleak times. Disregard of international law is not new. What I think is new is the extent to which it’s being flouted,” says Stuart Casey-Maslen from the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law.Are governments swapping international obligations for short-term political gain?“We look at what’s happened in Gaza. We see the destruction of hospitals in Sudan. We see that people do this and are not held to account. We have institutions, we have the International Criminal Court, but even there, there’s an attempt to undermine it. It becomes a political decision rather than simply a legal one: respect for the law,” says Casey-Maslen.Join host Imogen Foulkes on Inside Geneva to listen to the full episode.Get in touch!Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.chTwitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_enThank 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
SummaryCan a science and diplomacy partnership save the world?
Jan 2000:32:05Summary readySend us Fan MailOn Inside Geneva this week: world leaders are gathering in the Swiss mountain resort of Davos, but do they have any answers?“I think we are at an amazing moment in history. We have in our hands the opportunity to do well, to save our own environment, the planet, to take the right decisions to bring humanity onto a good path,” says Marilyne Andersen, Director General of the Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator (GESDA).But will they take that path? Technology is racing ahead.“Human rights, like every other field, are very much under the influence now of what’s happening in technology and science. It’s one of the destabilising factors right now,” says Jürg Lauber, Swiss ambassador to the United Nations (UN) in Geneva.“I was absolutely sure that a robot can kill a human. We are living in a situation where we don’t even have these AI ethics,” says Tatiana Valovaya, Director-General of the UN Office at Geneva.“If we just do things when they have already happened, then it’s too late and technology has already evolved to the next stage,” says Sylvie Briand, Chief Scientist at the World Health Organization (WHO).International law is being abandoned.“War is a terrible thing, but at some stage in the past, human beings decided to write the Geneva Conventions to at least reduce a little bit the horror of war,” adds Sami Kanaan, former mayor of Geneva.In Geneva, a group is pushing for partnerships between science and politics, so we’re ready for the challenges ahead.“Let’s take advantage of knowing what is coming to act on it now and not be in reactive mode, not in catch‑up mode,” says Andersen.Join host Imogen Foulkes on Inside Geneva.Get in touch!Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.chTwitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_enThank 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
SummaryInside Geneva Special: A bonfire of international law
Jan 1300:32:35Summary readySend us Fan Mail2026 has started with some momentous events. Israel has banned dozens of aid agencies. What are the consequences?“We’re supporting one in five of the hospitals in the Gaza Strip, and one in three babies that are born in Gaza are assisted by our staff on the ground. We’re doing surgical support, wound care, physiotherapy, maternity and paediatric care,” says Chris Lockyear, Secretary General of Medecins sans Frontieres.The US cut billions from foreign aid, then announced $2 billion for selected projects.“[We saw] Tom Fletcher next to Jeremy Lewin, a 28-year-old with no experience in the humanitarian sector, who said, ‘Well, the humanitarian organisations have to adapt or die,’” adds Dorian Burkhalter, Swissinfo journalist.The money has strings attached, humanitarian crises in Afghanistan or Yemen get nothing.“There was talk about the radical ideologies perpetrated by some of the UN agencies, which had undermined American interests and peace, bizarrely enough,” continues Nick Cumming-Bruce, contributor for The New York Times.Part of that $2 billion goes to several Latin American countries, meanwhile the US says it’s now “running” Venezuela.“Central and South America, obviously Washington views as its domain. And we’re all here in Geneva muttering to ourselves ‘but you just violated international law’. Does it matter to anyone?” says Inside Geneva host Imogen Foulkes. Are we seeing a bonfire of international laws?“The fundamental commitments to some form of international law that have underpinned western security since the Second World War are being completely abandoned by an administration that doesn't acknowledge any accountability to anyone except itself,” says Cumming-Bruce. And what does it mean for the world’s most vulnerable?“All around the world, whether they’re in Gaza, in Sudan, in Ukraine or Venezuela, there are real people who are living through the consequences of these decisions that are made in places like Washington DC and New York or in Geneva,” says Lockyear. Join host Imogen Foulkes on Inside Geneva. Get in touch!Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.chTwitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_enThank 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
Summary