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It’s three years since the Taliban took back control in Afghanistan. Inside Geneva talks to an Afghan human rights defender.

“I was scared and I could see it coming. Yes, I mean, I think for the women of Afghanistan, we knew that the Taliban taking over would mean a dark future for women,” says Fereshta Abbasi from Human Rights Watch.

In three years, women’s rights have been steadily, and brutally, repressed.

“No matter what we have done in the past three years, we haven’t been able to reverse a single decree of the Taliban that is restricting women’s rights,” continues Abbasi.

“In 2024, Afghanistan remains the only country in the world where women do not have access to education beyond the sixth grade. Women do not have the right to most employment. Women do not have the right to freedom of movement. Women do not have the right to protest and assemble. So, I think we need to speak about it,” says Abbasi.

What can we do to support Afghan women?

“I think it’s very important to stand with them, to listen to them, and to amplify their voices. It’s very difficult to think of a better Afghanistan, a brighter future for women under Taliban rule. And I don’t want to think about that. I want to believe and hold my strength together, that this madness cannot last.”

Join host Imogen Foulkes on Inside Geneva.

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Join us for a special extra edition of Inside Geneva to mark World Humanitarian Day, with testimonies from aid workers who have given their all – and who have often lost a great deal.

“So I had taken him to the airport together with our child, and, yes, it took me in fact many years to be able to use the same elevator in the airport where I last kissed him,” says Laura Dolci. 

Dolci’s young husband Jean-Selim was killed, just weeks after the birth of their son, in the bombing of the UN’s headquarters in Baghdad in 2003.

Twenty years on, WHO cameraman Chris Black was sent to Gaza, to support, and document, medical care there.

“Something I really will never forget is a woman, with a young child, saying to me: ‘Are we safe here?’ And I wanted to say: ‘Yes, you're in the grounds of a hospital, under international humanitarian law this is a protected space, you should be safe here.’ But I couldn't say to her: ‘You're safe here,’” says Black.  

More than 200 aid workers have been killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023.

 “People have told me oh you must be very brave for going to Gaza. And I don't think so. I think what's brave is the people who have been doing this work since early October and who go back every day to do it again and again and again,” continues Black.  

“The aid worker, the humanitarian worker, the peacekeeper; ultimately it's a human being that decides to put its own being to the service of humanity,” says Dolci.  

Join host Imogen Foulkes on Inside Geneva for an inspiring listen.

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In the fourth episode of our summer profile series on Inside Geneva, we talk to a Geneva career woman and a Geneva asylum-seeker about a project to unite communities through sport. Surely the world’s humanitarian capital is good at welcoming refugees and immigrants?

“We have all these international organisations working on various global challenges. But when you talk to people from Geneva, they don’t really know what’s happening in this bubble,” says Lena Menge, from the Geneva Graduate Institute and co-founder of Flag 21.

For asylum-seekers, arriving in a new country, even a safe one, can be hard.

“I was very lonely. It wasn’t easy. You feel lost and don’t really know what’s happening or where you are. It takes time to realise where you are and what you are supposed to do,” says Mahdie Alinejad, an asylum-seeker from Iran and a coach with Flag 21.

Flag 21 is a project that brings locals and asylum-seekers together – to run, swim, do yoga, and much more.

“Sport was actually a meaningful tool to include people in need, people that needed a community around them as well,” continues Menge.

The project benefits everyone.

“It’s not easy to have this confidence and grow in society as an immigrant. So this is a very good thing that they’re doing, giving opportunities to people who really need it, to find themselves, their space, their place and their confidence,” says Alinejad.

“They have such resilience and so much strength to share that you come away thinking ‘my God, my little problems are really nothing’,” concludes Menge.

Join host Imogen Foulkes on Inside Geneva to listen to the full interview.

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On Inside Geneva, we bring you part three of our summer profile series. This week we talk to a doctor looking for treatments for some of the world’s most neglected diseases.

“Neglect means that there are diseases that affect an important proportion of humanity but for which no new drugs have been developed because there is no money in it. Because they affect very poor populations in remote rural areas,” explains Olaf Valverde, clinical project leader at Drugs for Neglected Diseases (DNDi).

Valverde is the clinical lead on a project looking for treatments for sleeping sickness.

“It’s a disease caused by a small parasite that almost always kills if untreated. During the first half of the 20th century there were huge epidemics. It not only destroyed communities but also caused the desertification of entire regions of Africa,” he adds.

Cases of sleeping sickness with no effective treatment had been rising again until DNDi began combing medical trials – some abandoned by big drug companies as not profitable – for other options. They found one promising lead and began testing in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

“The motivation, concentration and interest shown by our doctors in the DRC who were developing the clinical trial, were totally amazing. For them it was an opportunity to serve their people. And that was absolutely beautiful,” says Valverde.

The drug worked and sleeping sickness is on the way to being eradicated.

“I think this is what I always wanted to do; to do something that could be helpful to others. And this is what satisfies me. Just seeing that people have opportunities.”

Join host Imogen Foulkes on Inside Geneva to listen to the full interview. 

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Here’s episode two of our summer profiles series on the Inside Geneva podcast. We talk to the head of one of the world’s leading humanitarian agencies. We start with his first assignment in Darfur, in western Sudan.

“As I was one day building the shelter I realised for the first time in many years I hadn't thought of what’s next? I wasn’t thinking everyday where do I go from here, what do I do, what’s my plan? I’d just been so absorbed in the work,” Chris Lockyear, Secretary General of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) told host Imogen Foulkes. 

We also discuss the current crisis in Gaza,  where, amid terrible destruction, MSF is providing medical care.

"What are we [on] now 37,000 people killed? It’s astonishing. Neighbourhood after neighbourhood after neighbourhood which has been completely flattened,” continues Lockyear.  

In Gaza, MSF staff have met children as young as five, who said they wished to die.

“They've been going through this for months and months and months, and the brutality of what is happening, what they’re living through, yes, people are saying that they would rather end it than continue. And that can't be a surprise to us.”

MSF has been outspoken when it believes international law has been violated: 

“What does it mean elsewhere? How could this be translated into other countries? Into Sudan, into the future if we can operate as a world with such impunity? Where does that leave us?” says Lockyear. 

Join host Imogen Foulkes on our Inside Geneva podcast to listen to the full interview. 

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On Inside Geneva, we’re bringing you a series of summer profiles, from doctors in war zones to researchers into the diseases that affect the world’s poorest.

Today, we talk to international human rights lawyer Antonia Mulvey, who devotes herself to defending women.

“With many of those that we work with, who have been subjected to sexual violence, part of it is listening to them, hearing them, acknowledging what has happened,” Mulvey says. 

From Somalia, to Sudan, or Lebanon, Mulvey and her colleagues offer support and advice, but the women affected are always in control.

“Some have the courage and bravery to step forward, and we represent them in legal cases. But they have to lead the way,” she adds. 

Mulvey also hopes to inspire other women.

“Let’s step up, let’s work with women, let’s work with women’s groups, to take more cases, to keep challenging it, to keep pushing that door open,” Mulvey concludes. 

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Geneva is the home of international law, the rules that are supposed to stop the worst violations in war. But does anyone respect it anymore?

Please watch the video version of this episode on YouTube.

Andrew Clapham, Professor of International Law at the Geneva Graduate Institute, says: “It’s quite blatant that when we like what the International Criminal Court is doing we will support it, but as soon as it steps out of line we will call it a ridiculous institution. So, it is a bit of a crossroads for international law.” 

The Geneva Conventions are 75 years old – are young people even aware of them? 

“We have the law, and at least my generation or younger generations tolerate much less those types of violations, and we are reporting more,” says Cristina Figueira Shah, international law student and co-President of the Human Rights, Conflict and Peace Initiative. 

Are there any rules of war that work? 

Laurent Gisel, Head of the Arms and Conduct of Hostilities Unit at the Legal Division of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), explains that “far fewer people know about the prohibition of blinding laser weapons than the mine ban treaty. Why? Because it has been prohibited before they were developed. And it was prohibited 50 years ago.” 

Does indicting a political leader achieve more than headlines? 

“Naming somebody as a potential war criminal has a huge effect because if the leader is named as a war criminal, like President Putin or Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, that means that assisting them to do what they are doing means that you are aiding and assisting, potentially, in a war crime,” says Clapham. 

How can we encourage more respect? 

“I think we should go back and understand all the reasons why we got to this point in the first place. How we wrote all the international treaties and understand from that what our generation can do to improve it,” says Shah.

“Violation of international humanitarian law creates even more hatred. And if you want to live in peace afterwards, it helps to respect international humanitarian law during the conflict,” says Gisel. 

Join Imogen Foulkes for an Inside Geneva special from Geneva’s Graduate Institute where experts and audience ask: “Is international law dead”? 

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Save the Date for a live recording

We’d like to invite you to a live recording session of our Inside Geneva podcast about the role of the Geneva Conventions and international law.

Mark your calendars – June 5, 2024, from 12:30 to 1:30 pm – at the Geneva Graduate Institute. Registration is required to secure your spot here.

If you have any questions, please email us at [email protected].

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In this week’s episode of our Inside Geneva podcast, we revisit our coverage of laws that changed the world.

Save the Date for a live recording

We’d like to invite you to a live recording session of our Inside Geneva podcast about the role of the Geneva Conventions and international law. Mark your calendars - June 5, 2024, from 12:30am to 13:30pm - at the Geneva Graduate Institute. Registration is required to secure your spot here. If you have any questions, please email us at [email protected].

From the Convention against Landmines: 

"The very day that I entered the hospital for war victims, I realised that all these patients were without one or two legs," said Dr Alberto Cairo from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). 

"Every day, just about, somebody was injured by a landmine, and they were rushed off to Khao-I-Dang hospital to have their legs amputated," said nurse Denise Coghlan, in Cambodia.

The convention was adopted in 1997. 

Steve Goose, from Human Rights Watch, says: "This has been an extremely successful treaty, because it has saved so many lives, and so many limbs, and so many livelihoods."

But landmines still cause huge harm.

"Every morning when I get up in the morning I put on my artificial leg. That’s something that I will do every day for the rest of my life," said Stuart Hughes, a landmine survivor.

We have a convention against genocide, but is it enough?

Ken Roth, human rights expert, says: "People feel like, if you don’t call it genocide, then it’s not serious. And that’s a mistake."

"We have a genocide convention, and we don’t have a crimes against humanity convention, at least not yet," said Paola Gaeta, professor at the Geneva Graduate Institute. 

And the Convention against Enforced Disappearances – a protection for families as well as the disappeared.

Cordula Droege, from the ICRC, says: "Victims of enforced disappearances are not only those who are disappeared but also those who suffer directly from it, such as the relatives."

"He was taken by armed men, and taken to a car, a red car without a plate number, and he disappeared," said Aileen Bacalso. 

Olivier de Frouville, UN expert on enforced disappearances, adds: "That’s why we describe also for the relatives, who are victims of enforced disappearances, we describe it as torture, because this is real torture."

Inside Geneva hears from the people who campaigned to make our world safer, and asks, are we honouring their laws and their sacrifices?

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Four years ago, our lives were upended by the Covid-19 pandemic. Countries locked down, millions became ill, millions died. And when the vaccine finally arrived, it was not fairly distributed. Rich countries bought too many, poor countries waited, with nothing. 

“What we saw during the Covid-19 pandemic was collapse. Basically, a complete failure of international cooperation,” says Suerie Moon of Geneva Graduate Institute’s Global Health Centre. 

Surely we can do better? Countries are gathering in Geneva to try to hammer out a pandemic treaty. Do they have the vision? And the courage? 

“There’s been so much lip service paid to equity, but when it actually comes to nailing down what that means, and how to avoid a repeat, it seems like governments are struggling,” says Kerry Cullinan, deputy editor of Health Policy Watch.  

What about the vaccine manufacturers? Are they ready to share? 

Thomas Cueni former head of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers told us in 2023: “I’ve always been of the view that no treaty is better than a bad treaty. Have a good treaty, I think it would be great.”

David Reddy, the new director-general of IFPMA, adds that they “remain committed to providing the expertise and know-how of our companies to global efforts to prepare for and respond to future pandemics.”

Are we going to be better equipped for the next pandemic? 

“I think it would be an insult to the seven million people plus who died during the pandemic for there not to be a historic agreement,” says Cullinan.  

Join host Imogen Foulkes on our Inside Geneva podcast to learn more about this treaty.

This text was updated on May 16, 2024, to mention that Thomas Cueni is now the former head of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers. The interview mentioned in the podcast was recorded in 2023.  

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Host: Imogen Foulkes
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