International Academic Council meeting successfully held in Geneva
On April 21-22, the Fourth Session of the International Academic Council met in Geneva at the location of the new UPEACE Geneva offices. The session was chaired by Dr. Meenakshi Gopinath, of the Lady Shri Ram College for Women in India. The 12 member IAC serves as the accrediting body of UPEACE and is comprised of academic leaders, usually heads of their own academic institutions, from around the world. Rector Jack Maresca, Dr. Amr Abdalla, Vice Rector for Academic Affairs, Dr. Dina Rodriguez and Dr. Rolain Borel informed the Council on developments since the previous meeting and presented programmes for council approval towards certification. IAC meetings will henceforward be held annually and at the UPEACE campus to allow for members to interact with students during their stay.
On April 21st, Dr. Amr Abdalla, VRA, UPEACE gave a lecture as part of United Nations Office at Geneva cultural events at the Palais des Nations. The lecture, entitled:
Education for Peace in the World: Opportunities, Challenges and Multicultural Diversity, The Leading Role of the University for Peace, established by the UN in 1980, was followed by a s
hort film documenting the background of UPEACE, its development, and some of its activities both on its main campus in Costa Rica and in many regions of the world. On its main campus, the film highlighted the multiculturalism and the unique multidisciplinary approach to peace and conflict studies. In the regions, the film demonstrated how UPEACE contributes to the knowledge and practice of peacemaking and peacebuilding working cooperatively with colleagues in universities, civil society and governments.
mms://media.upeace.org/media/video/amr.wmv
UPEACE Faculty participates in “Migration and Security in the 21st Century” Workshop
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Dr. Victor Valle, Dean attended a 2-day workshop in Lancaster University – United Kingdom, on 1 and 2 May 2008 entitled “Migration and Security in the 21st Century”.
The purpose of this workshop was “…to explore the different roles and impacts of Diaspora communities…and assess whether any patterns are discernable that may have a relevance at the policy level”
The workshop had the participation of ten scholars from Canada, Croatia, El Salvador, Sweden, United Kingdom, and United States.
Four of the ten participants in the workshop also attended the Expert Forum “Capacity Building for Peace and Development: Roles of Diaspora that UPEACE organized in Toronto, Canada, on 19-20 October 2006. They are Dr. Kenneth Bush, Dr. Feargal Cochrane, Dr. Camilla Orjuela and Dr. Ashok Swain.
It was highly satisfactory to verify that for all of them, the UPEACE forum was a high quality event and opened the roads for introducing the topic of Diaspora in the academic debate and production around the world. After Toronto and in some measure as consequence of the Toronto meeting, other meetings have taken place in Sweden (Uppsala) and United States of America (The George Washington University.
Beyond the immediate effect of motivating scholars to network for researching on Diaspora issues, one outcome of the workshop is that the scholars congregated in the Lancaster University have committed themselves to perform applied research oriented to determine the potential of Diaspora communities in actual peace building. The focus now should be how to transform Diasporas in strategic factor for human development, human security and human rights and in the corresponding policy making.
Human Rights Centre Student Executive Committee Organizes Conference on Human Rights and the Global Economy
CIUDAD COLON, Costa Rica — Students and community members gathered for the university’s first annual Human Rights and the Global Economy conference April 25 and 26 on the University for Peace campus. 
The event featured such guest speakers as Antonia Juhasz, author of The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time, and Daniel Redondo, who works for migrants’ rights at the Organización Internacional para las Migraciones (OIM), or International Organization for Migration. Juhasz gave one of the keynote speeches on “The Tyranny of Oil,” where she talked about how the world needs to remove the power of oil and reduce its dependency on oil. 
A number of other speakers gave workshops on health and human rights of banana and sugarcane workers, CAFTA and intellectual property rights, documenting human rights violations, Central American gang warfare, and the global food crisis.
Conference participants were welcomed with a reception Friday evening and an “Africa Night,” hosted by the African UPEACE students. On Saturday, participants enjoyed a picnic in the beautiful Peace Park, and they closed out the conference with a dinner and party Saturday night.
The Human Rights Centre, located at the United Nations–mandated University for Peace, works to promote human rights adherence through education, training, research, and awareness-raising activities.