Activities

Events

International Conference on Global Diplomacy

The conference «Global Diplomacy – A Post-Institutional Approach» focused on new and interdisciplinary perspectives of diplomatic research. It has brought together historians as well as researchers from the social sciences and related disciplines with an interest in the history of diplomacy, transnational law, and global governance. A main objective of the conference was to challenge the former Eurocentric diplomatic history in favor of a global history of diplomacy that takes into account border-crossing entanglements and transnational networks.The conference consisted of four panels, two roundtable discussions and a digital humanities session with the presentation of the database «Swiss-Diplo» (see conference program). The participants of the event were affiliated with leading universities around the globe, e.g. Waseda University Tokyo, Columbia University, University of Oxford and the ANU Canberra. Furthermore, experts of Switzerland’s major research institutions were present at the conference.The conference was organized in the course of the research project «A Global History of Swiss Diplomacy», a cooperation between the Institute for European Global Studies of the University of Basel and the research center Diplomatic Documents of Switzerland (Dodis). The conference was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) and the Freiwillige Akademische Gesellschaft (FAG) Basel. It took place on August 30–31, 2018, at the Institute for European Global Studies in Basel.@Europainstitut and @Dodis have been live-tweeting from the conference under the hashtag #globaldiplomacy.Further Information:Conference programConference website on www.swiss-diplo.ch/conference
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The birth of the «International Committee of Editors of Diplomatic Documents»

From 1st to 5th October 2013, delegations from 5 continents came together for the 12th International Conference of Editors of Diplomatic Documents, which took place at the Palais des Nations, in Geneva. The research group of the Diplomatic Documents of Switzerland (DDS) was responsible for organising the event with the collaboration of the United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG) and the support of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA) as well as the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI). Top-flight talksThe Conference opened with an inaugural speech by the Director-General of the UNOG, Mr. Kassym-Jomart Tokayev (left in the photo with Sacha Zala, DDS (middle) and Blandine Blukacz-Louisfert (right)). Peter Maurer, the President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), then spoke on the role of global governance. Other important items on the agenda were the reports given by delegates on their projects’ newest developments, as well as the workshops in which current questions relating to editing – such as the issue of the many languages of diplomatic documents or the role of social media – were discussed. Digital collaboration DDS-FRUSThe workshop entitled «Going Online and Connecting Diplomatic Documents – Possibilities of Digital Collaborations» gave the opportunity to present the new collaborative project between the DDS and the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS). Within the context of this collaboration, the FRUS are making use of a web service developed by the DDS, Metagrid (cf. http://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/people/root-elihu). The birth of an international organisationThe high point of the Conference of Editors was the founding of the «International Committee of Editors of Diplomatic Documents». The Dutch delegate Marc Dierikx was elected founding President of this new organisation, and Sacha Zala, the Director of the DDS, was named Secretary General. Other Board Members come from Belgium, Germany, Ireland and the USA. Public SymposiumThe Conference ended with a public symposium on «Diplomacy and Global Governance». Over 150 participants were present at both panels, in which representatives from publishing projects as well as academics presented papers on diplomacy and global governance in relation to international organisations. The next conference, which will take place in 2015, will be organised by the Office of the Historian of the State Department and will take place in the USA.Conference Proceedings
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