Our Experts Close-Up
Alain Jacques Sigg
There is, it seems to us,
At best, only a limited value
In the knowledge derived from experience.
The knowledge imposes a pattern, and falsifies,
For the pattern is new in every moment
And every moment is a new and shocking
Valuation of all we have been.
.
– T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets
Knowledge ? Experience ? My life has rather embraced serendipity. Or should I say : my several lives ? Peace mediation, university lecturing, setting up dialogues, research, sudden unexpected missions. And – time and again – the Other, who helps changing perspectives.
.
The path to peace: negotiation < - > facilitation < - > mediation < - > arbitration
Political Dialogue – Mediation – Negotiation
Conflict resolution: the dilemma between “linguistic relativity” and “cultural relativism”
Conflict Assessment – Dialogue design and facilitation
Democracy: elections toward peace or elections toward war?
Electoral violence – Observation – Political Analysis
Human Rights and Constitutional Engineering
Human Rights – Constitutional Engineering
Post-conflict Prevention: Remembrance or “Dealing with the Past”
Transitional justice
Teach, train the trainers: knowledge <-> know-how <-> soft skills
Workshop design and facilitation
Alain Jacques Sigg
There is, it seems to us,
At best, only a limited value
In the knowledge derived from experience.
The knowledge imposes a pattern, and falsifies,
For the pattern is new in every moment
And every moment is a new and shocking
Valuation of all we have been.
.
– T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets
Knowledge ? Experience ? My life has rather embraced serendipity. Or should I say : my several lives ? Peace mediation, university lecturing, setting up dialogues, research, sudden unexpected missions. And – time and again – the Other, who helps changing perspectives.
.
The path to peace: negotiation < - > facilitation < - > mediation < - > arbitration
Political Dialogue – Mediation – Negotiation
Conflict resolution: the dilemma between “linguistic relativity” and “cultural relativism”
Conflict Assessment – Dialogue design and facilitation
Democracy: elections toward peace or elections toward war?
Electoral violence – Observation – Political Analysis
Human Rights and Constitutional Engineering
Human Rights – Constitutional Engineering
Post-conflict Prevention: Remembrance or “Dealing with the Past”
Transitional justice
Teach, train the trainers: knowledge <-> know-how <-> soft skills
Workshop design and facilitation
Alain in his own words
As a Swiss citizen, I was brought up in Iran, Brazil, Germany and the United States, drifting along with the unexpected flows of the family of a diplomat. The Other became a friend of mine already in my early youth ; as a native French speaker, my first schoolyears were in Teheran at the German school.
My professional life was marked by some indelible personalities and events. I recall setting up the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda with the courageous South African judge Richard Goldstone in 1994, in the aftermath of the genocide. As T.S. Eliot puts it, an example when “every moment is a new and shocking valuation of all we have been”.
Rwanda in 1994 also happened to enable my first encounter with my dear and estimated friend Katharina, founder of CatImpact.
Shortly after Rwanda I had the huge privilege to work under the charismatic aegis of Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, a pioneering Commission created and chaired with little or no experience. Archbishop Tutu definitely remains my master when it comes to mediation skills.
Then, in 2001, I met my wife in Sarajevo, when I was advising the newly created Office of the High Representative on multicultural education. The innovative ad hoc structure was created after the devastating war years Bosnia-Herzegovina, on European soil, just about an hour’s flight from Geneva. The forces of evil – and of good – do not necessarily tarry that far away…
There are two other mentors in mediation with whom I spent countless enriching “lessons” during my assignment with the Inter-Congolese Dialogue between 2001 and 2005. My thanks and my gratitude go to Sir Katumile Masire, former President of Botswana, and H.E. Mustapha Niasse, former Prime Minister of Senegal, for having included me in their African Union team …where I even forgot the colour of my skin.
Ever since, health and family tend to anchor a major part of my life in Geneva. I have focussed my activities on international mediation and political dialogues. I lecture on this very topic at The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva and I was mandated by the United Nations for trainings on the same topic in Algeria and Saudi Arabia.
I am also chairing the Swiss NGO ae-Centre, specialised in mediation, notably in Northern Africa. We are conducting projects in Tunisia and Morocco.
As a member of the Swiss Expert Pool for Civilian Peacebuilding I was involved in several missions in the Middle East and in sub-Saharan Africa.
Academic background : literature, pedagogy, international law.
Married, father of two children, a girl and a boy.
Alain in his own words
As a Swiss citizen, I was brought up in Iran, Brazil, Germany and the United States, drifting along with the unexpected flows of the family of a diplomat. The Other became a friend of mine already in my early youth ; as a native French speaker, my first schoolyears were in Teheran at the German school.
My professional life was marked by some indelible personalities and events. I recall setting up the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda with the courageous South African judge Richard Goldstone in 1994, in the aftermath of the genocide. As T.S. Eliot puts it, an example when “every moment is a new and shocking valuation of all we have been”.
Rwanda in 1994 also happened to enable my first encounter with my dear and estimated friend Katharina, founder of CatImpact.
Shortly after Rwanda I had the huge privilege to work under the charismatic aegis of Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, a pioneering Commission created and chaired with little or no experience. Archbishop Tutu definitely remains my master when it comes to mediation skills.
Then, in 2001, I met my wife in Sarajevo, when I was advising the newly created Office of the High Representative on multicultural education. The innovative ad hoc structure was created after the devastating war years Bosnia-Herzegovina, on European soil, just about an hour’s flight from Geneva. The forces of evil – and of good – do not necessarily tarry that far away…
There are two other mentors in mediation with whom I spent countless enriching “lessons” during my assignment with the Inter-Congolese Dialogue between 2001 and 2005. My thanks and my gratitude go to Sir Katumile Masire, former President of Botswana, and H.E. Mustapha Niasse, former Prime Minister of Senegal, for having included me in their African Union team …where I even forgot the colour of my skin.
Ever since, health and family tend to anchor a major part of my life in Geneva. I have focussed my activities on international mediation and political dialogues. I lecture on this very topic at The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva and I was mandated by the United Nations for trainings on the same topic in Algeria and Saudi Arabia.
I am also chairing the Swiss NGO ae-Centre, specialised in mediation, notably in Northern Africa. We are conducting projects in Tunisia and Morocco.
As a member of the Swiss Expert Pool for Civilian Peacebuilding I was involved in several missions in the Middle East and in sub-Saharan Africa.
Academic background : literature, pedagogy, international law.
Married, father of two children, a girl and a boy.