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In 2015 the world set itself 17 very ambitious targets: the Sustainable Development Goals. To end hunger, eradicate poverty, ensure health and education for all.

But are the SDGs over ambitious? And who decides who is meeting them, and who is backsliding? These are just two of the questions that host Imogen Foulkes puts to:

Martin Gutmann, Editor of a multi-author research project on the history of the SDGs, and lecture at the Lucerne University of Applied Arts. Claire Somerville, Lecturer and Executive Director of the Gender Centre at the Graduate Institute Geneva. Frederic Perron-Welch, a Junior Visiting Fellow in International Law at the Graduate Institute, and Mukta Dhere, Alumna and Project Coordinator of the Advancing Development Goals Contest at the institute.

"If nothing else, the SDGs have given us a common vocabulary, and a common framework, and I think that is very powerful in its own right," says Gutmann.

"They are ambitious and clearly unachievable in terms of the framing of the wording in the targets. I don’t think that’s necessarily a problem," adds Somerville.

"If everyone is in the tent now, because the SDGs are universal, is everyone being held to the same standards?" asks Perron-Welch.

Dhere adds a note of optimism: "We all have this incessant desire to make this world a better place, and I think the SDGs are exactly the tools that we need to do that."

This episode was recorded on October 19 in front of a live audience at the Graduate Institute Geneva. The institute is a partner of SWI swissinfo.ch and the Inside Geneva podcast.

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For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/

Host: Imogen Foulkes
Production assitant: Claire-Marie Germain
Distribution: Sara Pasino
Marketing: Xin Zhang

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Diplomats and scientists often live in different worlds and don’t have open access to each other’s community.

A new foundation known as the Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator (GESDA) hopes to bring the two sides together. It took a first step by holding its first summit in the Swiss city from October 7-9.

Host Imogen Foulkes went to the event and spoke to Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, former Nestlé CEO, and chairman of GESDA, as well as Fabiola Gianotti, Director-General of CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research.

"Perhaps GESDA is an honest broker between science and politics.  If you look at the declaration of world leaders, you will hear that some of them clearly state that they want their country to be the technology leader worldwide. And the next step is that if two countries want to be the world development leaders in technology and science, there's a certain confrontation," says Brabeck.

"I think we must really do more and become more collaborative in all fields of society. The challenges are daunting - societal challenges, planetary challenges, technological challenges - so working together is a must. Science and technology should become tools to reduce the inequities across the world," explains Gianotti.

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Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. 

For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/

Host: Imogen Foulkes
Production assitant: Claire-Marie Germain
Distribution: Sara Pasino
Marketing: Xin Zhang

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Covid 19 has changed the way we work. But has it changed how we value work?

Host Imogen Foulkes asks if our old workplace habits and hierarchies are about to become extinct. She speaks to Chidi King, head of gender diversity and inclusion at the International Labour Organisation.  

"Re-examining what we deem as a true value of a job has to be one of the outcomes of this pandemic," says King.

Cedric Dupont, Professor of International Relations at the Graduate Institute in Geneva, believes "teleworking is challenging the very mode of hierarchy" we are used to, while analyst Daniel Warner wonders who will want "to go back to the office and who would prefer to stay home?"

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Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. 

For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/

Host: Imogen Foulkes
Production assitant: Claire-Marie Germain
Distribution: Sara Pasino
Marketing: Xin Zhang

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In Geneva, complex negotiations are underway to decide if a treaty is needed to control, or even ban, lethal autonomous weapons – or killer robots. Imogen Foulkes talks to experts, lawyers, and campaigners.

"It’s about the risk of leaving life and death decisions to a machine process. An algorithm shouldn’t decide who lives or dies," says Neil Davison, Senior Policy Adviser at the International Committee of the Red Cross. 

"Do you hold the commander responsible, who activated the weapons system?" asks Mary Wareham of Human Rights Watch. 

"What if a weapon is used and developed without meaningful human control, what are the consequences of it? How do you ascribe responsibility?" ponders Paola Gaeta, an international law expert at Geneva's Graduate Institute.

"If we don’t have a treaty within two years we will be too late. Technology is progressing at a much faster pace than diplomacy is doing, and I fear the worst," warns Frank Slijper of Pax, a Dutch peace organization.

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Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. 

For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/

Host: Imogen Foulkes
Production assitant: Claire-Marie Germain
Distribution: Sara Pasino
Marketing: Xin Zhang

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How have our attitudes to human rights changed since 9/11? What about our laws?

Imogen Foulkes is joined by Fionnuala Ni Aolain, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Counterterrorism, and Gerald Staberock, Secretary-General of the World Organisation Against Torture. 

Has it become harder to defend human rights?

Fionnuala Ni Aolain: The criminalisation of lawful acts: speech, assembly, political participation, those are all defined, by multiple governments, as terrorism.

Gerald Staberock: 9/11 was like an earthquake to human rights. The house and the façade still look good, legally speaking we still have an absolute prohibition on torture. The façade is there, but the cracks in the houses are there.

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Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. 

For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/

Host: Imogen Foulkes
Production assitant: Claire-Marie Germain
Distribution: Sara Pasino
Marketing: Xin Zhang

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The troops have left Afghanistan but aid agencies say they’re staying. How will that work, with the Taliban back in control?

Join host Imogen Foulkes and regular analyst Daniel Warner who are joined by Marie Lequin of Geneva Call, an NGO that works to protect civilians caught up in armed conflicts, Ken Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch, and Irwin Loy, Asia Editor of The New Humanitarian, a non-profit newsroom that reports from conflict and crisis-hit areas.

"The Taliban has had a game plan, they know how aid agencies operate, they know that they need a certain level of aid to continue," says Loy. Listen in to hear more.

Get in touch!

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Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. 

For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/

Host: Imogen Foulkes
Production assitant: Claire-Marie Germain
Distribution: Sara Pasino
Marketing: Xin Zhang

Send us Fan Mail

In this episode Imogen Foulkes is joined by Susan Misicka, host of sister podcast The Swiss Connection. We take a deep dive into what one country – Switzerland – is doing to honour the United Nations principles on business respecting human rights. How much child labour is used to produce Swiss chocolate?  Why is so much gold refined in Switzerland? And what happens to that gold before it ends up on your finger?

Get in touch!

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• Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en

Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. 

For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/

Host: Imogen Foulkes
Production assitant: Claire-Marie Germain
Distribution: Sara Pasino
Marketing: Xin Zhang

Send us Fan Mail

Some call the war in Afghanistan "the forever war". But now the US and NATO are leaving. The conflict is escalating. Inside Geneva tries to figure out what the future might look like.

In this episode, host Imogen Foulkes talks to Firouzeh Mitchell, acting head of mission in Afghanistan for Geneva Call; Forozan Rasooli, Deputy Director of Equality for Peace and Democracy; and Vicki Aken, Afghanistan Country Director, International Rescue Committee.

Get in touch!

• Email us at [email protected]
• Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en

Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. 

For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/

Host: Imogen Foulkes
Production assitant: Claire-Marie Germain
Distribution: Sara Pasino
Marketing: Xin Zhang

Send us Fan Mail

Ten years ago, the United Nations adopted a landmark set of guiding principles on business and human rights.

"Those who have been harmed by business activity have a right to seek effective remedy through effective process." (Lene Wendland, Chief, Business and Human Rights Section, UN Human Rights Office)

But how can we make sure guiding principles are followed?

"The UN cannot regulate things at an international level that states already haven’t agreed to regulate at a national level." (Arvind Ganesan, director, Business and Human Rights Division, Human Rights Watch)

So how do we really ensure big businesses take responsibility for their actions?

Join host Imogen Foulkes to find out who really holds big business to account: the shareholders? The consumers? The workers? Or all of us? 

Get in touch!

• Email us at [email protected]
• Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en

Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. 

For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/

Host: Imogen Foulkes
Production assitant: Claire-Marie Germain
Distribution: Sara Pasino
Marketing: Xin Zhang

Send us Fan Mail

How do we bring war criminals to justice? Who can bring prosecutions? The country where the crimes took place? The International Criminal Court? Or anyone?

In this week's episode, Imogen Foulkes talks to Philip Grant, executive director of Trial International, Gerald Staberock, secretary-general of the World Organisation against Torture, and swissinfo.ch journalist, Julia Crawford.

Get in touch!

• Email us at [email protected]
• Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en

Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. 

For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/

Host: Imogen Foulkes
Production assitant: Claire-Marie Germain
Distribution: Sara Pasino
Marketing: Xin Zhang