Diplomacy in International Geneva: Beyond Business as Usual

Periods of crisis and radical uncertainty, like the one we are currently experiencing, could open up opportunities for profound transformation, provided we anticipate, prepare and mobilise. This projection should guide diplomacy in International Geneva for the years to come. Geneva has the opportunity to seize such moments of change for the reinvention of diplomacy.

This reinvention takes place, however, in an era in which a new mainstream of politics is profoundly sceptical about international cooperation, a trend aggravated by the Trump administration. Yet, global challenges are more intense than ever — from the old global risks of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, unrestrained warfare, and pandemics to the acceleration of climate and environmental threats and of the social disruptions associated with inequalities, and finally to the new challenges of artificial intelligence, disinformation, cyberwars, and new weapons. Given the realities of a “multilateralism in crises” and the admittedly concerning outlook on the funding for international collaboration and solutions, one message is clear: diplomacy needs to go beyond business as usual.

Diplomats in Geneva can play an active part in reinventing the profession of diplomacy by taking and extending the practice outside the boundaries of statecraft. The “new” diplomacy goes beyond the reference to a profession and the activity of a foreign ministry. There is a significant difference between governments engaging in regulatory diplomacy and the diplomatic engagement necessary to solve contemporary global problems. The “new” diplomacy goes beyond the reference to a profession and the activity of a foreign ministry. It implies overcoming zero-sum games and “dealing with people in a sensitive and tactful way”, to use the Oxford Dictionary definition. The diplomacy that solves the complex global problems we currently face implies being able to identify, mobilise, and engage the relevant crosscutting multistakeholder alliances. In the words of Peter Maurer and Mohamed Mahmoud Mohamedou, diplomacy should be a “layered integrator of international interaction” across expertise, science, technology and citizen action, and ultimately constitute a “fluid and plural activity”.

In Geneva, this new brand of diplomacy can thrive on the already existing dense constellation of powerful government, business, finance, academic, scientific, and philanthropic actors concentrated in a small territory. It can leverage a variable geometry of partnerships with many different states, as well as with a variety of stakeholders from academia, science, industry, and civil society. It can draw on the growing diplomatic capacities of large companies and cities as well as on a unique ability to connect with elites, civil society representatives, and many difficult actors across the world — Geneva is after all the only city worldwide with second-degree relations to any armed actor anywhere in the world. The new diplomacy should combine political acumen, a granular understanding of context, funding, and capacities to get things done through dialogue and negotiation. It should also exhibit a strong moral compass grounded in the spirit of Geneva and its characteristic humanist projection.Geneva is after all the only city worldwide with second-degree relations to any armed actor anywhere in the world. 

Such new diplomacy requires courage — diplomats indeed need to be courageous again in shaping responses to global problems in an era of many divisions. Diplomats in this new context cannot satisfy themselves with being good bureaucrats. They have to become real policy entrepreneurs. This feature of the new diplomacy might be particularly attractive for diplomatic establishments with an entrepreneurial foundation — such as in Qatar for instance — more at ease with integrative and adaptive process designs rather than logframes. But it does not mean that older diplomatic traditions cannot transform themselves.

What does the operationalisation of courage mean for a diplomat posted in Geneva? It means being ready for active listening and learning across and beyond all boundaries (organisational, specialisation, disciplinary, thematic, age, and generational). It means taking the risk to foster and nurture out-of-the-box ideas and innovative solutions even under burning daily pressure, giving room to exploration even when exploitation pressure is at its highest. It means being ready to face and overcome inevitable resistance, as the status quo and vested interest dynamics will likely be strong. It means authenticity and coherence, by aligning actions and decisions at all institutional and organisational levels. It means, finally, a degree of selflessness — courageous leadership is often servant leadership where the objective is not personal power but collective transformation.

The good news is that the new diplomacy is already well underway, from the experience of the 2023 Global Refugee Forum — a true multistakeholder process demonstrating the evolution of multilateral meetings — to the ICRC’s global initiative to galvanise political commitment to international humanitarian law, not forgetting the 2022 Black Sea grain Deal, a success of hybrid diplomacy born in Geneva. At regional and subnational levels, in cities or communities, there are dozens of examples of how people find ways to make progress through diplomacy and thus reduce violence and exclusion or mitigate climate impact.

Those wanting to seize the current “moment of change” for reinventing diplomacy in Geneva can draw on the instruments, networks, and expertise of one of the world’s foremost hubs of policy entrepreneurship. But they should really do it now, before institutions are overwhelmed by problems growing faster than our capacity to develop and deploy solutions. Geneva requires “all hands on deck” to pioneer a new diplomacy to prevent the worst and enable the best for humanity and the planet.