Institute for Media, Peace and Security

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FOUNDING PRINCIPLES

Paris meeting focuses IMPS

STUDENT COMMENTS

ABOUT IMPS

History

In late June 2000, the Executive Committee of the Council of the University for Peace (UPEACE), headquartered in San José , Costa Rica , authorized the Rector to set up an Institute for Media, Peace and Security (IMPS) within the framework of the university. The Institute came into formal existence on November 7, 2000. Its administrative office is in Geneva as one of several offices that will eventually operate under the Council's authority.

Mandate

The Institute – "an intellectual tool for preventive diplomacy" -- aims to educate people in the many ways the media interact with issues of conflict, peace and security. It welcomes two kinds of participants: persons from areas of recent, current or potential conflict; and persons from countries or organizations strongly concerned with international peace and security. Its research program feeds directly into the classroom, targeting international questions in which the media play a significant role. By its education and research programs, and by its day-to-day contacts with UN and regional peacekeeping bodies and partner organizations, the Institute hopes to contribute to new thinking about how free media can help prevent conflict – and to alert decision-makers, as well as the general public, to looming risks of war.

Independence and Practicality

Kofi Annan UN Secretary General Honorary President, University for Peace

Like the University for Peace as a whole, the Institute is independent of day-to-day policy or administrative control by the United Nations. But because the University was created in 1980 by Resolution of the UN General Assembly, the Institute will try to make its work as useful as possible to the UN, especially for peacekeeping and conflict prevention. It will also work with regional peace and security organizations such as the OSCE, NATO, the African Union, the Organization of American States (OAS), and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). It will keep aware of the challenges they face and adapt its teaching and research to help them develop practical solutions.

Values: Free Media, Democracy

The Institute's courses, research and other activities will aim to develop and strengthen free media worldwide. Free media being an indispensable foundation of democracy, and democracy tending more often than not to serve peace, our action ultimately aims to help prevent international conflict. As a small, specialized organization, we intend to work with any other organizations or groups pursuing similar goals.

Personnel

The Institute is an integral part of the University for Peace, and it operates under the university's Council and Rector.

Director: Keith Spicer

Keith SpicerKeith Spicer is former chairman (1989-96) of Canada 's broadcasting and telecommunications regulatory body (the CRTC, informally known as the "Canadian FCC"). Before occupying that post, Mr. Spicer was editor-in-chief of the daily newspaper The Ottawa Citizen, a television public affairs host, syndicated columnist, editorial-writer at the Toronto Globe and Mail, and professor of political and international relations at several Canadian and U.S. universities (University of Ottawa, University of Toronto, Dartmouth College (New Hampshire), York University, University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, and the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA, 1997, teaching Internet issues in an international context and the role of media in ethno-cultural wars). In 1990-91, on leave of absence from the CRTC, he was chairman of a government-appointed constitutional enquiry commission called the Citizens' Forum on Canada 's Future. Between 1970 and 1977 he was Canada 's first Commissioner of Official Languages, a national ombudsman post for English and French language rights. In the 1980s he ran a communications seminar company called the Spicer Communications Group Inc. He has written five books – one on international development aid, one on Canadian politics, two on communications theory, and Life Sentences: Memoirs of an Incorrigible Canadian. After moving to Paris in September 1996, he was an Associate of Ernst & Young Canada (1996-2000), specializing in telecommunications and Internet issues. From 1996 to 2004, he led a seminar on national Internet strategies at the Sorbonne (Paris III).

Current activities: Director, Institute for Media, Peace and Security, University for Peace ( Geneva , and San José , Costa Rica ); Member of the editorial board of Ilissos: Lettre de la liberté en action . Member of the Haut Conseil de la Francophonie.

Degrees: Honours B.A. in modern languages and literatures (French and Spanish, University of Toronto ); the Diplôme de l'Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris; and a Ph.D. in political science ( University of Toronto ; thesis on Canada 's development aid program overseas).

Program Assistant/Coordinator: Sophie Hemne

Sophie Hemne holds an M.A. in Political Science with a minor in Economics /Business from the University of Lund, Sweden. She has also studied Political Science and Spanish at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, and interned at the embassy of Sweden in Washington, D.C. Sophie initially joined IMPS-UPEACE as an intern in 2002, later working for Euromonitor, a U.K. business analysis/intelligence company. She rejoined the Institute in 2004 as program assistant/coordinator. She speaks Swedish, English and French.

People

Management Committee

• Maurice F. Strong (Ex officio: President, University for Peace)
• Julia Marton Lefèvre (Ex officio: Rector, University for Peace)
• Keith Spicer (Director, Institute for Media, Peace and Security, University for Peace)
• Henri Pigeat (former CEO of Agence France Presse; immediate past president of International Institute of Communications, London ; current head of French IIC chapter, publisher and media consultant)
• John Owen (former Director of European Office of the Freedom Forum, London ; former chief news editor and chief of foreign bureaus, CBC-TV.)
• Fred M'Membe (Editor, The Post , Zambia )
• Owais Aslam Ali (President of Pakistan Press International (PPI) and Secretary-General of Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF))
• Rosental Calmon Alves (former executive director of O Globo , Brazil , now professor of media ethics at University of Texas )

Advisory Board

• Owais Aslam Ali (President of Pakistan Press International (PPI) and Secretary-General of Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF)
• Rosental Calmon Alves (former Executive Director of O Globo , Rio de Janeiro, now lecturer at University of Texas on media ethics)
• Jeff Cole (Director, Center for the Digital Future, USC Annenberg School , University of Southern California )
• Kathy Eldon ( U.S. documentary-maker and author specializing in Africa )
• Theodore L. Glasser (Director, Graduate Program in Journalism, Stanford University )
• Michael Ignatieff ( Director, Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, author of Virtual War: Kosovo and Beyond, The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror, and other books)
• Cushrow Irani (Editor of The Statesman , Calcutta )
• Jan Jirak (Vice-Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University , Prague )
• Alejandra Lajous (CEO of Canal 11 - TV in Mexico City )
• Fred M'Membe (Editor, The Post , Zambia )
• John Owen Executive Producer of NewsXchange
• Dimitri Panitza (Chairman, Free and Democratic Bulgaria Foundation; former managing editor of Reader's Digest )
• Roger Parkinson (former President, World Association of Newspapers, former chairman, The Globe and Mail , Toronto )
• Henri Pigeat (former CEO of Agence France Presse, ex-president of International Institute of Communications, London )
• N. Ram (editor of newsmagazine Frontline and other publications of The Hindu , Chennai, Madras )
• Jenny Ranson (former Head of Communication, UK Cabinet Office, former CEO of Open Broadcast Network, Sarajevo, Chief of Press Department, International Commission on Missing Persons, Bosnia)
• Jacques Rigaud (former CEO of RTL, Radio-Télévision Luxembourg, France, author, columnist)
• Hazem Saghiyeh (editor, Tayyarat ('Trends') section, Al-Hayat newspaper, London )
• Clyde Sanger ( Canada correspondent, The Economist ; specialist in Third World reporting)
• Robert Stephane (former President and CEO of the Belgian French Public Television Network (RTBF))
• Gadi Wolfsfeld (Associate Professor, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, author of Media and Political Conflict: News from the Middle East )

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