At U.N. forum, Swiss promote science and diplomacy for solutions

Switzerland's first-ever presidency of the U.N. Security Council couldn't come at a more striking time as the nation's centuries-old policy of neutrality is challenged by Russia's war in Ukraine and shifting European alliances.

Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis chaired the Alpine nation's first flagship event at the 15-nation council on Wednesday, calling on nations to strengthen the council's confidence-building approaches and instruments for sustainable peace.

Some of the focus turned to the work of a relatively new Swiss independent foundation, the Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator, or GESDA, that operates on a mission to "use the future to build the present."

The council's job is to maintain international peace and security, but with Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States as permanent, veto-wielding members, it is often blocked from taking decisive, consequential action.

The Swiss take over the council just after Russia held the presidency and turned its deliberations into what some Western diplomats described as a mockery of justice and international law. Russia used its bully pulpit to defend its illegal aggression.

Another era

Just last week Thomas Borer, a former Swiss ambassador to Germany whose 1993 white paper on neutrality remains a pillar of swiss foreign policy, argued in a Washington Post op-ed article that neutrality has become obsolete and "no longer fulfills many of its traditional functions and is even harmful to Switzerland."

After gaveling the council into session, Cassis recalled how he'd given a recent talk on foreign policy at his old school and every question was about the Ukraine war.

"I realized how different our questions were when I was a student attending that school myself, 45 years ago, in the late 1970s," he said. "My classmates and I were convinced that there would never be another war in Europe."

Cassis said it's time for the council "to grasp its responsibilities and to reflect on its potential for action in the face of the increasing number of crises."

Putting science diplomacy to use

As a proponent of Geneva's multilateral hub, Cassis, who has been a key participant in GESDA's annual summits in Geneva, emphasized that "trust is built on facts" that can lead to "21st century solutions" through anticipatory science and diplomacy.

"Science and new technologies offer us opportunities to better anticipate and understand the risks of today and the opportunities of tomorrow," he said.

Advances in science and technology are critical drivers of war and peace and need to be part of future policymaking, 'Funmi Olonisakin, a vice president for international, engagement and service at King’s College London, told the council.

"We don't know enough about how the evolution of science and technology in the future will change power and agency," she said. "The sheer speed of breakthroughs in science and technology is matched only by the scale of our inability to anticipate the implications on politics on society and on war and peace."

She pointed to three organizations – GESDA, the Geneva Center for Security Policy and Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs – that are jointly creating a forum to advise policymakers on the future of conflicts.

They "argue for complementing of prediction accessible by scientific means with the use of informed imagination to anticipate a variety of future scenarios," said Olonisakin, "with a view to understanding how better to prepare for change, and, of course, also for black swan events."