DAG HAMMARSKJÖLD LECTURE 2008

"Can the International Community Meet the Challenges Ahead of Us?" with
Martti Ahtisaari

After a distinguished career with the United Nations and the Finnish Foreign Ministry, Martti Ahtisaari was elected President of the Republic of Finland in 1994. He held the position until the end of February 2000. After leaving office as President of the Republic of Finland, Mr. Ahtisaari has taken several international tasks to continue his career in international peace-mediation and conflict resolution. His tasks are being assisted by the staff of the Crisis Management Initiative, a Non-Governmental Organisation that Mr. Ahtisaari founded in 2000 and where he acts as the Chairman of the Board.


Mr. Ahtisaari’s post-presidential activities have included facilitating the peace process between the Government of Indonesia and the Free Aceh Movement, chairing an independent panel on the security and safety of UN personnel in Iraq and appointments as the UN Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa and Personal Envoy of the OSCE CiO for Central Asia. Between 14 November 2005 and 29 February 2008, Mr. Ahtisaari acted as the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General of the United Nations for the future status process for Kosovo.

Thursday 18 September
17.15 (seats should be taken at 16.45)
Uppsala University Main Building, Aula Magna

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In cooperation with Uppsala Association of International Affairs, UF 24 September
19.00 Kalmar Nation, Svartmangatan 3 (the street in between S:t Johannesgatan and Skolgatan)


"The Responsibility to Protect - A Double Edged Sword?"

The Responsibility to Protect –now put into the acronym R2P – has emerged as one of the most recent and contentious issues within the United Nations system. The programmatic concept goes back to a report with the same title presented in December 2001 by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty. Its core principles focus on the right to humanitarian intervention. This assumes the implementation of a collective responsibility to intervene in states which fail, or are unwilling or unable to, prevent its population from suffering serious harm as a result of internal war, insurgency, or repression. The decision, if and when the R2P is applicable, relates to the problem of who exercises the power of definition – especially so in the absence of an agreed framework offering clear criteria.

This conversation between the panelists and with the audience seeks to explore the opportunities and limitations of the concept within the United Nations when its member states remain deeply divided and polarised.

with


Phyllis Bennis is is a fellow of both Transnational Institute, TNI, and the Insitute for Policy Studies in Washington DC. She is a journalist specialising in Middle East and United Nations issues. Formerly based at the United Nations, she has worked on US domination of the UN leading up to the Gulf War, economic sanctions on Iraq, international interventions and US foreign policy in the Middle East.

Fiona Dove is the Director of the TNI in Amsterdam. Before this, she worked for the Congress of South African Trade Unions for 10 years. She was also active in feminist and anti-militarist organisations affiliated with the United Democratic Front in South Africa during the 1980s and holds degrees in Industrial Sociology and Development Studies.

Denis Halliday, originally from Ireland, has spent most of his over 30 year career with the United Nations in development and humanitarian assistance-related posts both in New York and overseas, primarily in South-East Asia. From 1997-98, he was the UN Humanitarian Co-ordinator in Iraq, but resigned from this post over the economic sanctions imposed on Iraq. He holds an M.A. in Economics, Geography and Public Administration.

Henning Melber, Executive Director of the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation will chair the meeting.


For questions, please contact secretariat@dhf.uu.se or 018-410 10 00. WELCOME!!




Kajsa Övergaard
Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation
Övre Slottsgatan 2
SE-753 10 Uppsala
Sweden


+46-(0)18-410 10 04 or +46-(0)765-411 004
kajsa.overgaard@dhf.uu.se