| Date: Saturday, 16 September 2017 | |
| Venue: The Elizabeth Fry Room, Westminster Quaker Meeting House, 8 Hop Gardens, WC2N 4EH. | |
| Programme: | |
| 10am | Registration and Coffee |
| 11am | Alberto Portugheis, HUFUD Founder and President |
| 11:30am | Azadeh Chahvie Education: A Road to Peace, followed by Q&A |
| 12pm | Christophe Barbey, Irenist, Poet, and Lawyer Going Beyond War through Non-militarisation *Due to unexpected circumstances, Professor Alicia Cabezudo cannot be with us. We are delighted that Christophe Barbey has kindly accepted to replace Ms Cabezudo on such short notice. |
| 1pm | Lunch |
| 2pm | John Leech, MBE PEACE By PIECE: Five Propositions Before We Shoot |
| 3pm | Stefan Ziegler, Humanitarian Practitioner, Lecturer and Film Producer Film showing: Broken |
| 4pm | Stefan Ziegler International Law as a Tool to Lasting Peace: a film-inspired discussion |
| 4:30pm | Tea Break |
| 5pm | Debate |
| 6pm—8pm | PEACE MARCH to Whitehall, Downing Street, and Houses of Parliament |
Speakers
A unique lecture and workshop with the great and incomparable JOHN LEECH.
John Leech is a senior member of organisations specialising in international affairs, including the Federal Trust for Education and Research, and of bodies involved in the Arts. He was European Co-ordinator of the European-American political and security circle West-West Agenda and is the author of books on the NATO Parliamentarians Conference, whose Deputy Director he was during the formative period of the Atlantic Congress, on the future of NATO (Halt! Who Goes Where?, 1991), on alternatives to warfare (Asymmetries of Conflict: War Without Death, 2002) and on European integration (Whole and Free: NATO, EU Enlargement and Transatlantic Relations (Ed), 2002 and earlier works). He is a member of the IISS and of Chatham House.
Born in Potsdam, he came to Britain in 1939. As a civil engineer, he spent some years in India before entering a long association with the Commonwealth Development Corporation, serving in East Africa, on missions to the Caribbean and responsible for the extension of operations to much of Asia and Africa.
Christophe Barbey is an Irenist (peace activator), Poet (smile cultivator) and Lawyer (prevention and solutions). He is the Coordinator of APRED, (participative institute for the progress of peace).
“Be the change you want to see in the world„
Are we peaceful? Can we design and establish infrastructures, institutions enabling us to become and remain more peaceful?
Christophe is the Coordinator of APRED, participative institute for the progress of peace. He runs the only legal consultancy for soldiers and conscientious objectors in French speaking Switzerland and is, at the United Nations, the main representative of the Center for Global Nonkilling and for Conscience and Peace Tax International.
As a researcher and an activist, and as an artist, his fields of research and action have covered a vast array of topics and practices. The study and monitoring of the twenty six countries having no national armies—non-militarisation—has started in 1989 while running a campaign on a constitutional referendum meant to abolish the Swiss Army. These army-less countries will gather in the near future as new forces acting towards the regress of war. Peace zones brought him to inner and outer zones peace. Working for human rights, he highlights the importance of peaceful and preventive mechanisms to address daily life as well as competing interests and conflicts, thus enabling peace to be considered as a human right and a human rights tool, not the least at the United Nations. By enshrining the principles and tools of peace in constitutions and while serving as a consultant for the re-writing of the constitutions of the Swiss Cantons of Vaud (1999–2002) and Geneva (2008–2012), he has demonstrated that public institutions can become non-violent and peace prone, thus opening new fields towards public and private peace policies. Working with conscientious objectors to military budgets and with actors of the new “sustainable economy”, he shows that we need new means to raise and use “money for peace”. Finally, celebrating life and promoting to right to life in all its dimensions at the United Nations, through the new human rights procedure of the Universal Periodic Review, he has completed his cycles and visions of peace and equipped himself with a full toolbox enabling him to say: “Universal peace is possible. Let’s do it!”
Christophe Barbey holds a master in Law (Fribourg, Switzerland, 1999) with majors in international law and in criminology. He has written many publications mainly on countries without armies, peace zones, peace in constitutions, the human right to peace and new forms of democracy. He regularly participates in political campaigns in Switzerland and peacefully lives in the Swiss Alps.
Alberto Portugheis, HUFUD Founder and President
Alberto Portugheis is an international concert pianist, dedicated like his colleague Daniel Barenboim, to the pursuit of Peace, not only in the Middle East but on the entire planet. Portugheis was born in Argentina and lived for seven years in Geneva, Switzerland, before settling in the UK. Geneva being the European Headquarters of the United Nations, Portugheis experienced first-hand the workings of this complex and powerful organization. This prompted Alberto to study and analyse all wars in history and in present times and to write down his findings.
Portugheis’ writings earned him a nomination to the Nobel Peace Prize 2008. As a result of this nomination, in 2009, his first book—”Dear Ahed….. The Game of War and a Path to Peace“—was published. A second book “$$$$$s In Their Hearts” came out in 2014.
The following year, in 2015, Alberto Portugheis launched the Movement he presides, HUFUD (Humanity United for Universal Demilitarisation).
Stefan G. Ziegler, Humanitarian Practitioner, Lecturer and Film Producer—a presentation about two journeys through international law. One, the film Broken, is a journey through courtrooms, judges’ chambers and diplomats’ halls. The other, the genesis in fact of the first, is Ziegler’s personal journey in how international law can be used as an instrument for peaceful solutions.
Stefan is a Swiss national with over 17 years of experience in the fields of research and advocacy related to humanitarian action. He currently works as an independent trainer and facilitator. Recent training venues include: the Kofi Annan Peacekeeping Training Centre in Accra, Ghana and the UAE diplomatic academy in Abu Dhabi. He designed training courses for IFRC and UNDP. In spring 2015 he returned from a mission to eastern Ukraine with the OSCE. Until 2013 he managed the Barrier Monitoring Unit (BMU) a research unit of UNRWA in the West Bank where he researched the humanitarian impacts of the Wall on Palestinian communities directly affected by its route.
Prior to the UN, he worked for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), where he developed on-the-ground humanitarian aid experience and promoted sustainable handover of development projects. Stefan is also an Affiliate Trainer with RedR in London. He is a member of the Irish and Swiss Emergency Response Teams. He previously held the position of Strategic Planning Associate at the Irish Peace Institute in Limerick, Ireland where he had lived for over ten years prior to his career in humanitarianism.
He is a guest lecturer at a number of universities, among them EPFL in Lausanne, the Politecnico di Milano and is a faculty member of the Geneva School of Diplomacy. Stefan has given presentations at the EU Parliament, the UN Headquarters in New York and Geneva.
Stefan holds a Masters in International Studies from the University of Limerick, a B.A. in Sociology of Development from University College Cork, both in Ireland and a Postgraduate Diploma in Humanitarian Assistance from Fordham University in New York. His latest publication, “Communicating the Community” appeared in the journal Humanitarian Assistance in West Africa and Beyond.
His latest project is the production of a feature-length documentary about International Law’s broken promises at the example of the Wall in Palestine.
Azadeh Chahvie‘s presentation will address education as a way to integration, sustainability and prospect for peace, and her experience as a teacher of refugee children.
Azadeh Chahvie has eight years of work experience as a teacher and volunteer for NGOs in Iran. She was influenced by the Iran-Iraq war; her family having had to abandon their home and live in a camp as IDPs. The war profoundly shaped her thinking and worldview. When Azadeh held the position of Head of Research and Development in 2016, she undertook to study the significance of quality education by the NGOs working with the children of refugees, mainly Afghans, who were formally and informally deprived of it.
Azadeh had already pursued a M.A. in Indian Subcontinent Studies, in which she decided to focus on contemporary nonviolent movements. She concentrated on theories of nonviolence and peace, shaped by Gandhian thought, and how they could be tested in a world of real politics. It is therefore that later, took up volunteering for Afghan refugees, particularly children whom I try to give some basic education. in her current position, she was cooperating with governmental and nongovernmental institutions, supporting the children to have access to free basic education. She also took ups carrying out field research to probe into the phenomenon.
Currently, Azadeh is studying toward a Masters of International Relations at the Geneva School of Diplomacy and International Relations. Her main research interest is the protection of refugee children’s rights, particularly those of Afghan origin stranded in her country in significant numbers. Azadeh is keenly aware of the importance nongovernmental organisations afford those marginalised groups. For her studies of humanitarian contexts she intends to apply action research theory. She believes this will make visible the relations between organisations and beneficiaries, ultimately paving the road to peace.
HUFUD’s banner at Stop the Arms Fair! on 9 September, 2017
(Photos courtesy of Ronald Stein.)
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