Page 84 - 100 Reflections that Crafted Geneva International_V-Petrovsky_private special edition

100 Reflections that Crafted Geneva International

6. This special political and intellectual climate is probably the main reason
why, at the beginning of the 19th century, Prince Talleyrand named Geneva
“the fifth continent”. A hundred years later, Geneva won the right to be the seat
of the League of Nations in a fierce competition with Paris and Brussels.
Today, it is one of the world's largest centres of international diplomacy. Here
in Geneva, we now have 139 diplomatic missions with ambassadors accredited
not only to UNOG but also to GATT and the Conference on Disarmament. I
hope that Geneva will retain its title of the capital of internationalism, although
competition from other European cities is now particularly strong. Such
competition is, in fact, healthy. It demonstrates the interest of Governments in
UN activities and their willingness to be practically associated with them.

7. Geneva International, like the whole UN system, is now trying to adjust
to the new realities of post-Cold War international politics. In order to better
understand the scope and direction of UN activities in Geneva, a few figures
are worth mentioning.

8. According to some estimates, there are now approximately 100,000
international civil servants in the world. Among them, 60,000 are employed by
the organizations belonging to the UN system and the rest by institutions with
limited membership, such as the European Union, NATO, OPEC, the Arab
League, etc. This figure of 60,000 employees is, in fact, relatively small. It is less
than, for instance, the national civil service of Sweden and constitutes only one-
tenth of the British civil service. However, these 60,000 people take care of
numerous diverse activities over the globe.

9. Among them, about 25,000 are based in Geneva. They work at the
different UN programmes, such as the Centre for Human Rights, Office of the
UN High Commissioner for Refugees, UNCTAD and the Economic
Commission for Europe, and at six specialized agencies: the International
Telecommunications Union, the International Labour Organization, the
World Health Organization, the World Meteorological Organization, the
World Intellectual Property Organization, and GATT, which will soon be
transformed into the World Trade Organization. If we add to this figure the
staff of the diplomatic missions and the representatives of non-governmental
organizations, there are approximately 30,000 people engaged in international
activities in Geneva. And if we also take into account their families, we arrive at
an even more impressive figure of 70,000 people connected with international
organizations in the broad sense. This is the equivalent of a provincial town in
Switzerland or in France. It should be added that the number of delegates
attending meetings is estimated to be 120,000 yearly.

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