In a landmark Institute event next Thursday, CNN’s Christiane Amanpour will debate current global issues with two United Nations High Commissioners.
The annual Sergio Vieira de Mello Debate will bring together António Guterres, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, and Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, to look at leadership challenges in a world in turmoil.
CNN’s Chief International Correspondent, Christiane Amanpour, herself a veteran reporter from conflicts all over the world, will moderate the debate, to be filmed and broadcast on CNN later the same evening.
This annual event has been organised by the Sergio Vieira de Mello Foundation jointly with the Graduate Institute since 2008 to honour the thinking, philosophy and work of Sergio Vieira de Mello.
Sergio’s long and distinguished UN career saw him dealing with refugee and human rights issues in dozens of places around the world: from Bangladesh, Cyprus and Mozambique in the 1970s, through to Peru, Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Timor Leste in the 1990s.
After many years with the High Commissioner for Refugees, he was appointed UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in 2002. One year later, while also acting as the UN Secretary General’s Special Representative in Iraq in 2003, he was tragically killed in a Baghdad terrorist attack.
Sergio had worked with both current UN High Commissioners for Refugees and Human Rights: António Guterres when he was Portuguese Prime Minister (particularly on the Timor Leste issue at the turn of the millennium) and Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein when he worked for the UN in Bosnia in the early-1990s.
In fact it is more than likely that Christiane Amanpour also met Sergio several times during their postings in the Balkans, through the break-up of Yugoslavia.
Bringing them all together now to debate the current state of the world therefore has a special resonance for remembering Sergio’s life and work.
To enable more people to attend this unique event, the United Nations at Geneva have kindly offered to host the debate in their main Assembly Hall.
Dating from 1937 when it first housed the League of Nations Assembly and the largest room in the Palais des nations, the Hall can seat over 2,000 people. It is rarely used for non-official UN events.
For more information, please visit the event page. Note that if you would like to attend but do not have a UN pass, you must register to attend by Tuesday next week to be able to access the Palais des nations on Thursday.