The Geneva Debate team is taking part in the Trade Ties Debate with the World Trade Organisation, as part of their Trade for Peace Program — can you tell us more about the debate and what this partnership means for the Geneva Debate?
We chose this motion to interrogate whether the traditional link between trade and peace is valid in a seemingly fragmented world. Historically, economic interdependence has been a cornerstone of peace theories; however, trade conflicts, protectionism, and geopolitical instability cannot guarantee the same. By analysing historical patterns and contemporary challenges, this motion seeks to examine global trade and its implications for security, diplomacy, and peace, as well as explore alternatives for the times geopolitics outgrows commerce.
The partnership was organic as we grew from hosting solely at the Institute, to collaborating with The Geneva Trade Platform at the World Trade Organization, to actually partnering with The Trade For Peace Program of the World Trade Organization. So, for us, this is natural, and a testament to our commitment.
This is not the first time the Geneva Debate has been present at the WTO — can you tell us about your presence at the Public Forum in the past?
The Geneva Debate has grown leaps and bounds from organizing in-house debates at the Institute, to hosting an Invitational Debate with the Oxford Union, to (my personal favorite) stellar debates at the WTO’s Public Forum. The link to the WTO started when Dmitry Grozoubinski, Executive Director of The Geneva Trade Platform, was mulling over having youngsters at the Public Forum and reached out to the debate. I didn’t know tariffs from customs, but when presented with an opportunity to collaborate with such platforms, there is no negativity in my vocabulary. After a stellar first debate about CBAM in 2023, we went back in 2024, debating the moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions. This second stint at the public forum was also an invitational to the World Trade Institute in Bern.
The Geneva Debate is in its fourth year of existence, with the initiative born in the face of all the “radical uncertainties that loom over the futures of today’s youth.” With society in 2025 facing even more division than in 2021, how does the current team feel about the importance of debate as a tool for solving these collective problems?
Debating is not just a skill; it is a creative and fun way of confronting complexity and accepting that disagreement does not mean disconnection. There is a real anxiety about our collective and individual futures, embodied in the way we look towards solutions (if ever we have the bandwidth for it). In such times, we are convinced of the fact that debate is a tool to think intelligently with empathy, that arguments have to be responded to and not neglected, and that there isn't a side that owns a truth.
What’s next for the Geneva Debate?
We will pick the issues that tickle us the most, and keep managing intelligent debates around them, as always.
