James5

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Well I’m now back from Geneva, arriving home at 6am last Thursday after more than 24 hours of travel.

I was doing an awesome subject called Institutions in International Law with Dr Andrew Mitchell and Bruce Oswald from Melbourne University, and had an amazing two weeks visiting institutions and people and also having some great times with friends in Geneva (such as busking on lake Geneva).

The first week we focused on trade, with a bit of development, IP and health mixed in. We visited the WTO, UN, WHO, ACWL, WIPO, UNCTAD and, one of my favourites, the Australian Mission in Geneva. It was fascinating hearing from people who actually work for these institutions about the work they do and how they got to where they are now. Visiting the United Nations building was particularly inspiring, as we walked through rooms and halls where history was made - for example the room where the League of Nations ended and bumping into a diplomat who had worked at the UN for the past 30 years.

The WTO was also a real blast. We heard from an intern working in the Appellate Body and saw the room where the AB Members actually made actual decisions, had a tour of some of the highlights of the building and heard from the Barbados ambassador on what it’s like negotiating for your country at the WTO. Really fascinating insight into a world that is often behind closed doors.

In week two Oz took over and we headed out to the ‘peace & security’ (with some development and environment mixed in) institutions. We visited and heard from the ICRC, UNEP, UNHCR, OHCR, IOM, ILC (we got to see an actual session!) and my absolute favourite for the trip the Humanitarian Dialogue Centre. The presenters gave us a candid insight into their jobs and lives and what it was really like to work in some extremely intense situations. We heard about the challenges facing the institutions and their staff as they dealt with issues of ‘legitimacy, accountability and governance’ and of course the ‘fragmentation of international law’ (the course buzzwords).

The Humanitarian Dialogue Centre was an especially eye-opening experience for me. They are a small organisation on the banks of lake Geneva that do mediation and negotiation work during conflicts. They are often the first in to help set up discussions between warring parties. The also do work on humanitarian mediation to try and get assistance to those that need it. It’s an amazing institution that I’d love to work one day.

So now I’ve got an essay to write - currently percolating through ideas about the UN Security Council as a peace and security dispute settlement mechanism (trying to think about the differences between trade and peace & security and what could be transferred between the two areas), but we’ll see what happens. I’m also preparing applications for the ICTR and SCSL - so if anyone has any contacts that can help me get a placement for next year let me know!

James5 will be back in action from now - some older links will probably pop up as I go through what I’ve missed, and I’ll also hopefully be writing about some things learnt in Geneva, not to mention the usual topics. If there’s any topic in particular that you’d like me to write about let me know!

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