At a symposium organized by ACUNS and held in the Library Hall of the UN Office in Geneva on 15 June 2015, Chinese Ambassador WU Hailong, Korean Ambassador CHOI Seokyoung and Japanese Ambassador Misako Kaji presented overviews of their countries’ contributions to UN peace operations.
A substantive discussion was then held under the chairmanship of Mr. David Chikvaidze, Chef de Cabinet participated by Professor Guihong Zhang, Executive Director of the Center for UN Studies, Fudan University, Professor Shin-wha Lee of Korea University and Professor Sukehiro Hasegawa, Former Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Timor-Leste. Professor Guihong Zhang made a power point presentation providing a detailed historical development of China’s involvement in the UN peace operations. Professor Shin-wha Lee explained Korea’s engagement in multinational forces as well as UN peacekeeping forces. Professor Hasegawa suggested that Japan can make more use its comparative advantage and expand its training activities for human resources development in peacebuilding.
In a panel discussion session, Dr. Achim Wennmann, Executive Coordinator of the Geneva Peacebuilding Platform, stressed the relevance of human security as a guiding paradigm in peacebuilding, while Dr. Carl Ungerer, Director of the Leadership, Crisis and Conflict Management Programme of the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, found the need to rectify the anomaly of having just two countries, the United States and Japan, paying for the bulk of UN peace operations and a few South Asian countries providing most of the troops. Professor Katsumi Ishizuka of Kyoei University pointed out that European countries had participated actively in UN peace operations during the Cold War but their commitment has since evaporated. In concluding the symposium, Mr. Alistair Edgar, ACUNS Executive Director, informed the participants that ACUNS intended hold library talks, seminars and symposiums in Geneva as well as New York.
