6 March 2023, 18:00-20:00
Register start 17 February 2023
Register end 6 March 2023
Event
WILPF
In this Opening Lecture of the Spring Semester, Madeleine Rees, Secretary-General of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), will explore the innumerable fault lines which can lead to violent conflict, how they intersect, deepen and how some will become the main conflict drivers with consequences for outcomes.
In her lecture, Madeleine Rees will draw on the work of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) and its 108 years of opposing militarism and economic systems of oppression. She will share her extensive experience from many years of personal engagement in international law and its practical application in courts and in the multilateral system to ground outcomes. She will argue that the current binary narratives have left us unable to imagine other possibilities and that exploring the application of gender analysis is core to our understanding of how to bring fundamental change to our political economies, how we use the law to bring those changes – and who, when it comes to it, is accountable.
Madeleine Rees is a British lawyer and Secretary-General of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), a role she has held since 2010. For most of her adult life, Rees has worked nationally and internationally to advance human rights, eliminate discrimination, and remove obstacles to justice.
In addition to her work specialising in discrimination law with a major firm in the United Kingdom, she has also held various roles with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) – including as Head of the OHCHR in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where she helped expose human rights abuses and the involvement of UN peacekeepers in sex trafficking. As Secretary-General of WILPF, Rees is leading the organization’s efforts to work through national and international legal frameworks to advance a future of human security and justice for all.
Passionate about connecting women across borders to share experiences and organize for action, she is committed to building a truly global movement for feminist peace. In 2014, Rees was awarded the OBE for her services to human rights, particularly women’s rights and international peace and security.
A reception will follow the Opening Lecture
Geneva Academy
The Geneva Human Rights Platform is launching its 2025 training programme, designed to empower stakeholders engaging with UN human rights system.
Adobe
The Geneva Academy convened an expert consultation on the CESCR’s General Comment on the Application of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in Situations of Armed Conflict.
ICRC
Co-hosted with the ICRC, this event aims to enhance the capacity of academics to teach and research international humanitarian law, while also equipping policymakers with an in-depth understanding of ongoing legal debates.
Participants in this training course will be introduced to the major international and regional instruments for the promotion of human rights, as well as international environmental law and its implementation and enforcement mechanisms.
UNAMID
This project will develop guidance to inform security, human rights and environmental debates on the linkages between environmental rights and conflict, and how their better management can serve as a tool in conflict prevention, resilience and early warning.
Olivier Chamard / Geneva Academy
The Treaty Body Members’ Platform connects experts in UN treaty bodies with each other as well as with Geneva-based practitioners, academics and diplomats to share expertise, exchange views on topical questions and develop synergies.
Geneva Academy
Geneva Academy