Inside Geneva

Send us Fan Mail By the end of this month, the UN will have a new human rights chief. It’s sometimes called the UN’s toughest job. Inside Geneva host Imogen Foulkes talks exclusively to the leaders of the world’s top human rights groups, and asks them how they see the job.    Ken Roth, Executive Director, Human Rights Watch: "The High Commissioner has no aid budget, they have no army, they ha...

Send us Fan Mail UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet will leave office at the end of August. The hunt is on for the world’s new human rights leader. Podcast host Imogen Foulkes asks former United Nations human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein what it is like to do the job. “Most of my time I was writing to governments, talking to them, calling them, but I had no hesitation of...

Send us Fan Mail Millions of people are going hungry due to severe droughts in the Sahel and in East Africa. The Inside Geneva podcast looks at how the international community should help, now and in the future. Podcast host Imogen Foulkes is joined in this episode by climate and humanitarian experts. “Two boys, twins, they’re one year old. They’re severely malnourished, the children and the mothe...

Send us Fan Mail Europe has shown a big welcome to refugees from Ukraine. The Inside Geneva podcast asks whether this generosity will be extended to others. Podcast host Imogen Foulkes is joined in this episode by refugee policy experts. “The Ukraine crisis has really humanised the refugee issue, people have been able to see women, children, men in extremely difficult circumstances,” says Jeff Cri...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Inside Geneva host Imogen Foulkes discusses NATO, neutrality, and the new world order. Is neutrality even possible in response to the invasion of Ukraine? Sara Hellmüller, Geneva Graduate Institute: "The law of neutrality is very clear, so the law of neutrality applies to the military domain and says that a country is not allowed to participate in an armed confli...

Send us Fan Mail Podcast host Imogen Foulkes is joined in this episode by global health experts. “We should look at why zoonotic events happen, and maybe start banning wildlife trading. A new pandemic treaty should address the way we grow food and breed animals,” says Nicoletta Dentico, head of the global health programme at the Society for International Development (SID). Zoonotic diseases involv...

Send us Fan Mail May 3rd is Press Freedom Day, but around the world, journalists are being harassed, oppressed, even attacked. This Inside Geneve podcast looks how at what more can be done to better journalists.  Podcast host Imogen Foulkes is joined in this by episode by journalists and NGOs that defend press freedom.  “We need to work on ending the culture of impunity that governments seem to en...

Send us Fan Mail Evidence of atrocities in Ukraine has been met with accusations of war crimes and tougher sanctions against Russia. The Inside Geneva podcast looks at what this means. Podcast host Imogen Foulkes is joined in this episode by human rights and sanctions experts. “Putin has made Russia a pariah, we have to deal with that at this moment. There are no humanitarian or human rights laws...

Send us Fan Mail In a few short weeks, a quarter of Ukraine’s population has been displaced. The Inside Geneva podcast asks what this means for other refugee crises. Podcast host Imogen Foulkes is joined in this episode by humanitarian experts.    “We will respond wherever there are humanitarian needs, regardless of where they are, and we urge that this compassion really be extended to all people...

Send us Fan Mail The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights will visit China, but can she get an accurate picture of the situation? Podcast host Imogen Foulkes is joined in this episode by experts on China and human rights. Rights groups accuse Beijing of having interned over a million Uyghurs in so-called “re-education camps” in Xinjiang. “Michelle Bachelet will be the first UN High Commissioner f...

Send us Fan Mail Podcast host Imogen Foulkes is joined in this episode by international history and human rights experts. “If Russia tries to occupy all of Ukraine, that’s going to end up in a total disaster, and an ongoing civil conflict for years on end. If they divide the country, that’s just going to breed new conflict,” says Jussi Hanhimäki, professor of international history and politics at...

Send us Fan Mail Podcast host Imogen Foulkes is joined in this episode by human rights defenders and investigators. Human rights advocates bring their testimonies of atrocities to the UN – often at great risk to themselves – because it often is their last and only hope. “I survived, I was able to finally leave the country, but if I hadn’t been able to do that, I would have ended up in jail, or tor...

Send us Fan Mail In January the ICRC was hacked, compromising the data of half a million vulnerable people. But how vulnerable are aid agencies themselves to cyber-attacks? Podcast host Imogen Foulkes is joined in this episode by cybersecurity and humanitarian experts. “It’s an attack on people who are already living in the anxiety of being separated from their family members and their loved ones....

Send us Fan Mail Henry Dunant witnessed the horrors of the battle of Solferino in 1859. This gave birth to his vision for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the first Geneva Convention. But how relevant is his vision in the 21st century? Podcast host Imogen Foulkes is joined in this episode by humanitarian and international law experts. “Outer space, cyberspace and information...

Send us Fan Mail Millions of Afghans have not been paid for months as foreign aid – which used to fund 75% of Afghanistan’s public spending – was frozen following the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021. Podcast host Imogen Foulkes is joined in this episode by humanitarian aid workers. “You see girls being essentially sold, girls as young as six, seven, eight. You see children being s...

Send us Fan Mail It’s been a tough year: Covid as well as crises in Afghanistan and in Myanmar, to name but three. "You see the kind of populist rhetoric, and the xenophobia and racism and so on infecting what were supposedly advanced democracies," Rupert Colville of UN Human Rights tells host Imogen Foulkes. Despite the grim events of the past year, Geneva-based aid agencies do have hop...

Send us Fan Mail The Covid-19 pandemic, a Biden-Putin face-to-face summit and record humanitarian crises: Geneva-based journalists reflect on a busy year and offer a glimpse into the future. Podcast host Imogen Foulkes is joined in this episode by fellow Geneva-based correspondents who work for international news outlets. Covid-19 dominated the news for the second year in a row. As the world prepa...

Send us Fan Mail Covid-19 has dominated our lives for almost two years. Vaccines have been developed in record time, yet nearly half the world’s population has not received a single dose. What has gone wrong? Imogen Foulkes is joined in this podcast episode by global health and policy experts. “How do you solve this in the longer term? You don’t want to be in this situation when this happens again...

Send us Fan Mail Decolonization has become a buzzword of late, especially in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement and the toppling of statues of figures tied to a nation's colonial past.  Humanitarian work is also being more closely scrutinized. What does it tell us about our colonial history? Imogen Foulkes is joined in this episode by policy experts and aid workers.  "If we were...

Send us Fan Mail The increase in extreme weather events worldwide is evidence that climate change is already impacting our lives. The hardest hit of the global population are people in developing countries. Host Imogen Foulkes puts the spotlight in this episode on what humanitarian agencies are expecting from leaders at COP26, the UN Climate Change conference taking place in Glasgow.  "Ninety...

Send us Fan Mail In 2015 the world set itself 17 very ambitious targets: the Sustainable Development Goals. To end hunger, eradicate poverty, ensure health and education for all. But are the SDGs over ambitious? And who decides who is meeting them, and who is backsliding? These are just two of the questions that host Imogen Foulkes puts to: Martin Gutmann , Editor of a multi-author research projec...

Send us Fan Mail Diplomats and scientists often live in different worlds and don’t have open access to each other’s community. A new foundation known as the Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator (GESDA) hopes to bring the two sides together. It took a first step by holding its first summit in the Swiss city from October 7-9. Host Imogen Foulkes went to the event and spoke to Peter Brabeck-Letma...

Send us Fan Mail Covid 19 has changed the way we work. But has it changed how we value work? Host Imogen Foulkes asks if our old workplace habits and hierarchies are about to become extinct. She speaks to Chidi King, head of gender diversity and inclusion at the International Labour Organisation.   "Re-examining what we deem as a true value of a job has to be one of the outcomes of this pande...

Send us Fan Mail In Geneva, complex negotiations are underway to decide if a treaty is needed to control, or even ban, lethal autonomous weapons – or killer robots. Imogen Foulkes talks to experts, lawyers, and campaigners. "It’s about the risk of leaving life and death decisions to a machine process. An algorithm shouldn’t decide who lives or dies," says Neil Davison, Senior Policy Advi...

Send us Fan Mail How have our attitudes to human rights changed since 9/11? What about our laws? Imogen Foulkes is joined by Fionnuala Ni Aolain, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Counterterrorism, and Gerald Staberock, Secretary-General of the World Organisation Against Torture.  Has it become harder to defend human rights? Fionnuala Ni Aolain: The criminalisation of lawful acts: speech,...