Top diplomat to speak on international crisis management
10. July 2008
Konstanz, 10.7.2008: A lecture by top diplomat Gunter Pleuger on Monday 14 July will round off the “Crisis and Intervention – or Crisis of Interventionism?” lecture series at the University of Konstanz.
Pleuger, ambassador to the German Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York from 2002 to 2006 and German representative at the UN Security Council in 2003 and 2004, will speak on the political and international legal challenges of multilateral crisis management.
International interventions are often the focus of critique. To what extent can and should the international community intervene in zones of crisis? What matters more - the protection of human rights and the prevention of humanitarian catastrophes, such as the 1994 Rwanda genocide or the current crises in Darfur, or the inviolability of national sovereignty? And to what extent are humanitarian crises exploited by countries such as the USA in the pursuit of their own economic and military goals?
Gunter Pleuger explored the latter issue at length during the 2003 Security Council debate on the military intervention in Iraq, in which he expressed Germany's disapproval of the Iraq War. Pleuger’s lecture will offer a thought-provoking glimpse into the “world of the United Nations” and cast a critical light on many of the questions that regularly arise in the debate on international interventions.
The lecture begins at 4.15 pm in auditorium R 611 at the University of Konstanz. Members of the public are warmly invited to attend.
About the lecture series “Crisis and Intervention – or Crisis of Interventionism?”
Top diplomats, politicians, government representatives and journalists will present their views on humanitarian crises, interventions and the role of international unity and its organizations in lecture series at the University of Konstanz from 10 June through to 14 July 2008. The series is organized by the Center of Excellence “Cultural Foundations of Integration” in co-operation with the Department of Politics and Management at the University of Konstanz (in particular the MA program in Public Administration and Conflict Management).
Find out more about these lectures here