School News AGS

Dr. David W. Pike, director of research at AGSIRD, and five AGSIRD students participated in the UNESCO seminar on Holocaust remembrance on June 3rd, 2008. The seminar, entitled "Applying the Lessons of the Holocaust to Combat Contemporary Expressions of Hatred" was presided by Mr Koïchiro Matsuura, the Director-General of UNESCO, and organized by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, the Russian Holocaust Foundation and the French Association Verbe et Lumière-Vigilance.

Being the Paris hosts of five Russian students who had won the Russian Holocaust Foundation prize for their essay on the Holocaust, AGSIRD students had many opportunities for interesting exchanges during and outside of the seminar.

Says Patrick Clairzier, class of 2009: "This experience was very interesting. The fact that we were made aware of the growing anti-Jewish sentiment in Russia via an individual exchange rather than the established international media shows the importance of civil society in international relations." Through this participation, AGSIRD students express their interest and concern for the collective duty of remembrance.

John West received a group of students from both his and Sir Christopher MacRae's classes at the OECD in Paris on April 16th. They had discussions with John, some other permanent staff and national delegation members and got firsthand knowledge of the inner workings of this IGO.

In addition, for the second year, a group of AGSIRD students participated in the OECD Forum. Forum 2008, "Climate Change, Growth, Stability", which took place in June, brought together some 1700 participants from around the world to discuss the hottest issues on the international agenda. Discussions were animated by leaders from government, business, labour and civil society, such as: OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria; Prince Albert II of Monaco; Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary, UNFCCC; Xiqing Gao, President, China Investment Corporation; Anne-Marie Idrac, State Secretary, Foreign Trade, France; James Leape, Director General, WWF International; Doris Leuthard, Minister of Economic Affairs, Switzerland; José Lopez, Executive Vice President, Nestlé; John Sweeney, US trade union leader; and Jean-Claude Trichet, President, European Central Bank.

UK Ambassador to France Sir Peter Westmacott was a guest speaker in Christopher MacRae's class on Foreign Policy Formulation and Diplomacy on February 28th.

Sir Peter Westmacott joined the UK Diplomatic Service in 1972. Following a year in the Middle-East Department, he was posted in Iran, then loaned to the European Commission in Brussels and assigned to Paris. He was Chief of Staff to successive Ministers of State in London, then posted in Turkey. After a few years as Deputy Private Secretary to The Prince of Wales, he went to Washington as Counsellor for Political and Public Affairs, then joined the board of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office before returning to Turkey as Ambassador.

On February 27th, AGSIRD students took a field trip to the Quai d'Orsay, which is the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. They met with some of the actors of French foreign policy and had the opportunity to see where officials from around the world come to discuss world issues with their French counterparts.

This yearly visit is a part of Professor MacRae's required course on foreign policy formulation and diplomacy.

On June 5th, 2008, the annual AGSIRD graduation ceremony will take place in Paris in the French Senate. The commencement speaker this year will be European Deputy and former French Prime Minister Michel Rocard. In the past years, the commencement address has been delivered by the Arab League Ambassador to UNESCO, H.E. Nassif Hitti; Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and editorial page editor for the International Herald Tribune, Serge Schmemann; and former French Prime Minister, Alain Juppé, to name just a few.

Like every year, this year's graduating class is very international, with graduates from the United States, Brazil, Canada, Sweden, Germany, Morocco, and India.

Thirteen AGSIRD students travelled to Berlin on November 24th-26th and visited the Reichstag building, the Brandenburg Gate, the Holocaust Memorial, and remaining parts of the Berlin wall.

This trip was organized by the AGSIRD Student Association under the guidance of Christiane Peuker (class of 2008), an AGSIRD student from Germany.

Regina Coar (class of 2008) comments: "It was a really great chance to spend some time together and get to know each other outside of an academic setting."

Two AGS International Relations students have been interning at UNEP during the Fall 2007 semester. Sarah Pedersen's internship (class of 2008) included the development of an online clearinghouse for national programs on SCP (sustainable consumption and production) and the creation of an online database searchable in several different languages and modalities.

During her current internship, Jennifer Grant is working on projects related to the "Marrakech Process". This program includes regular global and regional meetings, informal expert task forces and other activities to support the change in consumption and production patterns. It was launched in 2003 at the first international expert meeting co-organized by UNEP on the ten-year framework of programs called for by the Johannesburg Declaration.

Sebastien Godinot from Friends of the Earth International was a guest speaker in Dr Ruchi Anand's International Organizations class on November 16th. He shared his experience as part of the Finance Reform Campaign with AGS students.

On September 28^th, 2007, three guest speakers came to Dr. Ruchi Anand's class on International Organizations: Meggan Dissly of the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, Civil Society Coordinator), John West, also of the OECD (Head of Division, Public Affairs), and Rebecca Gaghen of the IEA (International Energy Agency) talked to AGSIRD students about The role of International Organizations in World Affairs.

H.E. Nassif HITTI, Arab League Ambassador to UNESCO, was the commencement speaker at AGSIRD's 2007 graduation ceremony which took place at the French Senate in June. In his commencement speech, H.E. Nassif Hitti offered encouragement to AGSIRD graduates about the future prospects of their choice, emphasizing how diplomatic skills serve many domains and many international careers far beyond that of professional diplomacy alone.