Peace and human rights

The knowledge and skills of international Geneva in peacebuilding will be showcased next week. At this year's Geneva Peace Week, which will take place for the tenth time in 2023, the focus will be on building mutual trust for sustainable peace. In view of numerous conflicts around the world, this is more important than ever.

As part of its peace policy, Switzerland is committed to identifying and finding missing persons. The missing persons programmes run by the FDFA's Peace and Human Rights Division (PHRD) prioritise Ukraine, the Caucasus, Kosovo and the Middle East. Switzerland also supports the ICRC's Central Tracing Agency – a cornerstone of the Swiss humanitarian tradition – and co-founded the Global Alliance for the Missing.

As part of its long-standing peace policy in Colombia, on 16 October 2023 Switzerland took on an official mandate at the request of the Colombian government and the rebel group EMC (Estado Mayor Central de las FARC-EP) as guarantor of the peace negotiations. We interviewed Ambassador Simon Geissbühler, head of the FDFA's Peace and Human Rights Division (PHRD), to find out more.

On 13 October, the UN Human Rights Council adopted a resolution on the death penalty. The resolution, introduced by Switzerland together with a group of other countries, aims to develop international standards to remedy the human rights violations associated with this practice. What is this resolution about, and how does it fit into Switzerland's work towards the universal abolition of the death penalty?

The word 'mediation' is often used in connection with Switzerland's 'good offices'. And rightly so. But that is not the whole picture: facilitating a peace process also entails creating spaces for dialogue between conflicting parties, often including armed groups, or involving the local community. We delve into the subject starting in Africa, where Switzerland's engagement on the ground enables us to discover more regions and more ways of offering good offices.

On 18 September 2023, the USA and Iran finalised the exchange of five Iranian and American prisoners in the Qatari capital Doha. Switzerland was involved with its good offices in the run-up to and during the prisoner exchange itself.