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...

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...

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...

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 &...

Israel has accused the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) of being involved in the October 7th attacks.  “October 7th was a game-changer. 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.  For more stories on the international Geneva please...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

On Inside Geneva this week: part five of our series marking the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  Imogen Foulkes talks to Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein, who served as UN Human Rights Commissioner from 2014 to 2018.  He became the first Asian, Muslim and Arab to hold the position. But did he plan a career in human rights from an early age? "No, I was far too immature and delinquent to be thinking lofty ideas and profound thoughts," he said.   But two years in the former...

Inside Geneva is marking its 100th podcast episode this week. In this episode host Imogen Foulkes looks back at some of the podcast highlights. This episode starts with an assessment of how humanitarians coped with the war in Syria.  Jan Egeland, former head of the United Nations humanitarian taskforce for Syria says: "Syria was a real setback where these besiegements, the bombing of hospitals, the bombing of schools, the bombing of bread lines, it was horrific." Inside Geneva also looks at...

On Inside Geneva this week: part four of our series marking the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Imogen Foulkes talks to Navi Pillay, she served as UN Human Rights Commissioner from 2008 to 2014, she started life in racially segregated South Africa.   "We grew up under apartheid and we’re realised there’s something very unfair here. Our teachers were afraid to talk about…you know they would teach us democracy in Greece, but not why don’t we have democracy in...

August marks two important days in the humanitarian calendar  First, the International day of the disappeared. Fabrizio Carboni, ICRC: ‘I look at my kids, I look at my family, and I say ‘imagine now there is a frontline between us and my son, my brother, my mother, my father, are captured and I can't see them for a year, two, three, four.’’   Inside Geneva hears how the ICRC reunites those divided by conflict, and visits the Red Cross Central Tracing Agency.   Anastasia Kushleyko,...

On Inside Geneva this week: part three of our series marking the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Host Imogen Foulkes talks to Louise Arbour, who served as UN Human Rights Commissioner from 2004 to 2008. She arrived in Geneva with a formidable track record. As a prosecutor for the former Yugoslavia, she had indicted Slobodan Milosevic for war crimes. In Rwanda, she secured convictions of rape as crimes against humanity. "The work I did both with the tribunal...

On Inside Geneva this week we take a deep dive into the pros and cons of artificial intelligence. Should the United Nations (UN) help to regulate it? Could it even do that? Across the UN there are different views.  Tomas Lamanauskas, deputy secretary general of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) says that "the technology in itself has a huge potential to help us resolve a lot of challenges of today, from climate change, to helping education to, helping in the health sector. It’s...

On Inside Geneva this week: part two of our series marking the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Imogen Foulkes talks to Mary Robinson, the second person to serve as UN Human Rights Commissioner. Even as a schoolgirl in Ireland, she was already passionate about human rights.  ‘I was a bit of a bookworm, and I found a book with a photograph of Eleanor Roosevelt holding the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. That iconic photo.’ She became a campaigning lawyer,...

On Inside Geneva this week, host Imogen Foulkes asks if the United Nations (UN) should still work in Afghanistan, now the Taliban are banning women from work, and girls from secondary school?  Karima Bennoune, professor of International Law: ‘Anyone who believed in something called Taliban 2.0, had never actually spoken to an Afghan woman human rights defender. Because the Afghan women human rights defenders, they knew what was going to happen. They did their best without a loud microphone to...