During the summer of 2024, our colleague Professor Mahmoud Mohamedou taught a module of our Summer Programme entitled “From Diplomacy to New Diplomacies”. It was his last teaching contribution to the academic, intellectual life of the Institute. Sadly, he passed away on 17 September 2024. That module’s first edition was memorable and attracted the highest number of participants in the history of our Summer Programme. As Mahmoud had said for many years, there was an eager, genuine interest for this subject matter.

In 1927, the newly created Institut universitaire de hautes études internationales’s remit was to educate a new generation of international civil servants, of new diplomats and new diplomacies. Since the early 2020s, the Institute and its director Marie-Laure Salles devoted renewed energy and resources — human, financial and structural — to teaching and researching initiatives on new diplomacies.

“From Diplomacy to New Diplomacies” focuses on the transformations of contemporary diplomacy. A renowned group of academics and practitioners offers a combination of conceptual and practical, historical and contemporary, thematic and geographical multidisciplinary perspectives. The module examines issues such as global health, environment, finance, technology diplomacies, civil society, the comparison and contrast of advocacy and diplomacies, and sport diplomacy. It takes a critical look at the adequacy of diplomatic careers, at the resilience and the design of international institutions and their ability to adapt (or not) to our times.

What Professor Mohamedou wrote last year remains topical in 2025. Multiple global challenges engulf our world. They are deep and ramified, multifaceted and interrelated; some of them are old, others are recent. Political leaders, in the West as in the East, in the North as in the South, choose to address these problems sidelining diplomacy. Despite their promises of a rapid solution to these challenges, we witness the perpetuation and multiplication of crises. As my predecessor put it: “The role of diplomacy remains however crucial more than ever — in mapping a comprehensive outlook, outlining collaborative resolution options and in contributing to a peace- oriented, rather than war-dominated, international scene.” I intend not to deviate from the spirit, contents, and pedagogical approach of my predecessor. Mahmoud’s brio, passion, elegance and unchallenged competence will be my compass. We believe it is important for a new generation of students to acquire the necessary knowledge and skills to make sense of diplomacy in the world today to promote peace, international cooperation, and the respect of international law.
 

This article was published in Globe #35, the Graduate Institute Review.