International Relations Students meet with Non-Governmental Organizations and Social Movements

Monday, 9 November 2020. Within the framework of Seminar 3 on Introduction to International Relations, second year Degree in International Relations students from the Blanquerna School of Communication and International Relations-URL received a keynote speech about Non-Governmental Organizations and Social Movements by Nirajan Thapaliya, Director Amnesty International Nepal.

Students made virtual visits to Transparency International, Greenpeace International and Oxfam International and discussed with leading NGO officials: Michiel van Hulten, Director of the Brussels EU Office of Transparency International, José Maria Vera, Executive Director of Oxfam International and Naomi Goodman, Project Manager Political, Business and Peace at Greenpeace International. Upcoming Friday students will interview Fabio Forgione, Advocacy & Public Affairs Advisor of Doctors Without Borders-MSF.

As part of the third year's International Relation course on International Organizations, students focus on contemporary challenges of the currently prevailing multilateral order. Within this context, interviews on Russia’s and China’s views about a new world order were conducted with Dr. Andrey Grachev, spokesperson of former Soviet Union president Mikhail Gorbachov, with Dr. Jean François Huchet, director of the Paris-based Institut de Langues et Civilizations Orientales (INALCO), and Dr. Michael van Walt van Praag, Executive President of Kreddha - International Peace Action Council for States, Peoples & Minorities and legal adviser to the Dalai Lama.

This week the case of Taiwan’s non-participation in UN multilateral diplomacy, and conversations with Dr. Editha Tahiri, former Deputy Prime Minister and Chief Negotiator of Kosovo and with Dr. Fernand de Varennes, UN Special Rapporteur on Minorities, will address the relationship between exclusion from participation in international affairs and international peace & security.