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Contents
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1. Introduction

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2. Veto vs. We The People: The Time for Change

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3. Politics in the Olympics: Sports, States, and the IOC, and How We Are Related

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4. Cultural Heritage, Peace Education, and Climate Change from an Institutional
Perspective

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4.1. International Organisations and Non-Governmental Stakeholders

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4.2. Limitations and Barriers to International Cooperation

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4.3. The Future of International Cooperation

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4.4. Implications

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5. Conclusion

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Conference Networking and Cultural Events

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PCE/PCAH2024 Key Statistics

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Conference Photographs

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1. Introduction
In 2024, all eyes are on Paris. For one, the greatest sports event on the planet will beheld there in July and August, offering a celebration of multiculturalism and humandiversity. The Olympics are a testament to how competing national representatives
can effectively engage in healthy rivalry while respecting each other’s differences.
Since ancient times, warmongering nation-cities would cease their fire temporarily tofind the Olympian champions to bring honour to their nation. In modern times, withthe help of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the Olympic Games werereintroduced in the 19th century, promising the same peace-building effects.
Peacebuilding and international cooperation have firm roots in Paris. This is where
the headquarters of UNESCO, the United Nations organisation, whose mission is
to bring peace through education and scientific cooperation, were established. Its
predecessor, the International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation, was a groupof intellectuals, notably including Albert Einstein and Marie Curie, whose discussions
in Paris were to inform and balance out national interests in the League of Nations.
The Paris Agreement, an international treaty on climate change, was also negotiatedand adopted here by the international community in 2015, marking a tremendous
achievement in international cooperation to tackle the climate crisis.
However, in the case of the IOC, an international organisation that prides itself
on apoliticism and international cooperation, some questionable politics cause
concern. Without solid democratic procedures and a history of following exclusionary
methods, the IOC gets to decide on the participation eligibility of nation-states. For
example, the exclusion of Russian athletes in the Olympics stands in stark contrast to
the continued inclusion of Israeli athletes, when it comes to national representation.
Russian athletes are not able to compete under their national flag, due to theongoing war against Ukraine and several doping scandals, most notably the statesponsored doping allegations at Sochi in 2014. On the other hand, Israel, anothercountry engaged in a war against Palestine, is allowed to send athletes to represent
its nation.

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There are political reasons and national interests behind these questionable
processes, which the IOC cannot escape without losing its credibility. Due tobeing indirectly tied to the United Nations and the Security Council, it follows
the decisions of the world’s nations, despite claiming apolitical views itself. In thecase of Russia and Israel, the difference in participatory eligibility is that Ukraine isinternationally recognised as a sovereign state, whereas Palestine is not. Despite the
IOC recognising Palestine’s rights since the 1980s, it is regrettably still a hostage tonational interests.
The same may be true for international institutions such as UNESCO, who are tied
to the United Nations. Despite being a supranational institution, it is still linked to an
institution that favours national representation and allows for its members to exercise
vetoes. This means that, even though it may have aspirational goals that transcend
national boundaries as an institution, UNESCO’s aspirations remain just an ideal in
the face of conflicting national interests that block any meaningful change. Withdecisions and policies seemingly being irrelevant or tone-deaf to ordinary people
on the ground, some question whether international institutions represent people
effectively. The attention towards Paris and the Olympic Games may arguably be
one directed at international institutions, their role, and their limitations as a force forgood in the modern world.
Today, many people feel alienated from the political discourse of national
governments and international institutions. Discussions on global citizenship,sustainability, social cohesion, and peace lack practical context and insights into
the lived experiences of those on the ground. These insights and plentiful creative
solutions can be accessed by including ordinary people in the discussion process.
IAFOR had the privilege of inviting two senior diplomatic figures associated with
UNESCO, His Excellency Federico Mayor Zaragoza, former Spanish Minister of
Education and two-term Director-General (1987-1999); and Ambassador Takehiro
Kano, the sitting Japanese ambassador to UNESCO, to speak at our Parisconference. Both of them underlined that the cooperative and multistakeholder
approach now employed by the UN and its agencies reflects this need to involve civilsociety and people on the ground in discussions and negotiations for a better future.
Where UNESCO’s actions are limited, intellectual and independent institutions,such as IAFOR, may be more successful in ensuring that inclusive and equitablediscussions assist in giving all voices decision-making power and a platform to beheard. Much like UNESCO’s predecessor, the International Committee on Intellectual
Cooperation (ICIC), IAFOR is able to leverage its wide and diverse network within
academia, industry, politics, and civil society, thereby representing people on the
ground, whose insights are ignored otherwise. Constantly striving to be international,
intercultural, and interdisciplinary, IAFOR is capable of breaking free from nationalboundaries and interests, as our community represents diverse cultures, educational
institutions, businesses, and nonprofit organisations unbound to nations. IAFOR isdeveloping into one of the organisations that, according to our guest speakers andpanellists, will help define the future of multilateral and multisectoral cooperation inwhat Ambassador Kano terms the ‘new post-post-Cold War’ era.
Harnessing this geographical, political, and contemporary context of Paris, our IAFOR
community engaged intellectually and interculturally to discuss how international
institutions, envisioned as beacons of global cooperation and peace, frequently fallshort of their lofty aspirations to truly represent and act for the people they serve.

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2. Veto vs. We The People: The Time for Change‘Unanimity is the antithesis of democracy’ and exactly where the problem lies withmultilateral cooperation since the end of WWI, highlighted His Excellency Federico
Mayor Zaragoza in his keynote presentation, titled Educating for Peace: A Call to
Action for We the People. According to him, collective action of the people against
what United States President Eisenhower saw as a ‘plutocratic government led byindustry’ is the way to move from a governance based on armament to a governancebased on peaceful mediation.
The United Nations’ preamble proudly proclaims that ‘We the People of the United
Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war’.
According to Ambassador Zaragoza, this is ‘an excellent design of democratic
multilateralism’ but that first phrase of the charter ‘for 78 years has not been able tobe put into practice’. ‘We the people’ has never held any true power in multilateral
cooperation. Ambassador Zaragoza attributes this failure to the introduction of vetorights and a governance based on force.
To make his point, Ambassador Zaragoza laid out the history of international
collaborative efforts towards world peace, highlighting the role of the United Nations
and its predecessor, the League of Nations. In the wake of World War I, a historicalmoment for world peace took place in Paris in 1919 at the Paris Peace Conference,
resulting in the establishment of the League of Nations. With the endorsement of
United States President Woodrow Wilson, a euphoria around multilateral cooperation
arose, seemingly ending a period of conflict between nations by creating ‘thepossibility for mediation and negotiation’.
The ambitious project never served its intended purpose. Ironically, the United States
as the advocate for the League of Nations never joined the organisation it initiated.
The global mindset since the dawn of time has been one of ‘if you want peace,
prepare for war’, said Ambassador Zaragoza. This kind of governance was, and still is,a governance based on armament. When world nations want to resolve a war, they
send troops to counter an invader. It’s impossible to talk about peace without using
methods of force. Maintaining this mindset then is what eventually led to WWII.

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The United Nations, the League of Nations’ successor institution, was created after
the end of World War II in pursuit of world peace. Under United States President
Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Declaration on Human Rights to be adopted by the UN
was drafted, creating another moment of hope. However, the democratic structure
it set was undermined from the beginning by allowing five countries (United
Kingdom, United States, France, China, and the USSR - later Russia), the winnersof WWII, permanent seats on the security council and outsize influence, mostparticularly exercised through the power of the veto. This meant that any prospectof change that did not conform to the national interests of the victors of WWII could
immediately be disregarded. ‘We had a perfect design of democratic governance’
said Ambassador Zaragoza, ‘but we have never been able to apply this first phrase‘We the people’. We have failed to apply it because of the implementation of vetosince day one’. The United Nations, hence, never actually represented the ‘We The
People’ to which it referred to in the preamble of its charter, nor did it lead to a path
for world peace.
Today, the people have more power than ever, owing to the advancement oftechnology and the internet. It is much easier for ordinary people to report theirsituation from isolated parts of the world, to spread information, rally others to acause, and raise awareness. Marginalised people are given a platform to express
themselves and, in many cases, hold their leaders accountable. What President
Eisenhower saw as a plutocratic government led by industry, in which he had
no power to enact any change, today can be challenged by the people, said
Ambassador Zaragoza. He advocated for us to take advantage of today’s technology
to join and express our voices, decisions, and knowledge, and to say no to veto. It
is a way to express the immense force of human creativity to create a ‘new way of
governance, understanding, and solidarity’, he said in his call for action.

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To start acting, we need to focus on the delivery of quality education—a kind of
education as it is stated in the Constitution of the United Nations Educational,
Scientific, and Cultural Organization. The UNESCO Constitution states that ‘theeducated are those that are free and responsible’ Ambassador Zaragoza stated that
only those who are free and responsible can become acting citizens. Education, heargued, should not only focus on generating and reproducing knowledge but should
aim to transform people from spectators to actors. The immense force at the global
level is not armament, but the capacity of human beings that are unique and able tocreate a different world through ways of action.
It is ‘We the People’ against the ‘Veto.’ ‘We The People’ is a collective attempt torecognise equal human dignity for all human beings, regardless of gender, colour,
or ideology. Without realising that all human beings are equal in dignity, ‘We The
People’ cannot exist in serenity and solidarity. Ambassador Zaragoza highlighted
that veto power has brought about irreversible, terrible consequences in the paston issues relating to the environment, disease, and habitability of the planet. He
concluded by reaffirming that we are in a pivotal moment where we can change
and redress the global situation, but that in order to do this, world governance must
become truly democratic and abolish the veto. Our global mindset should also shift
from solving conflict through armament to solving it with mediation. ​​The slogan of‘if you want peace, prepare for war’ must shift to ‘if you want peace, prepare for ‘theword’, meaning mediation. That is how we can establish a governance based onpeaceful negotiation.

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3. Politics in the Olympics: Sports, States, andthe IOC, and How We Are RelatedProfessor Patrick Clastres gave a timely presentation titled Olympism andInternational Relations from Pierre de Coubertin to the Present Day, highlighting
the highly political nature of the Olympic games. Sports competitions, such as the
Olympic games, were envisioned as one of the tools to bring world peace, and theworld of sports was meant to be separate from the world of nation-states. As the
co-founder of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Pierre de Coubertin put
in place the ‘opening ceremony’ of the Olympic games to manage possible tensions
based on different ideologies and religions of the represented nations. However, theproblem of world peace through sport lies in the nature of the athletes themselves
being the representation of the nations. The sense of politics of states in the worldof sports was brought about by the introduction of the national uniform in the 1908
Olympics. Some countries were banned from having athletes and their national
identities, including uniforms, flags, and anthems, shown in the Olympic games due
to international politics, such as Serbia and Montenegro in the diplomatic boycott in
1976.
In addition to national identity, it is important to balance the sense of patriotism
and internationalism in the nature of international sports competitions such as the
Olympics. Responding to the changes in the ideal nature of the Olympics, Professor
Clastres raised a thought-provoking question about whether it was worth the money
for France to spend 10 billion USD to organise the Olympics, given the Olympics islargely used by the state to reinforce a country’s presence in the world, but not topromote peace.
In fact, the notion of nationalism was included within the Olympics concept only
a few years before the First World War, as mounting nationalist sentiments spreadthroughout Europe. National representation of athletes was the product of its timeand may not serve in the best interest of the current political landscape of today,
said Professor Clastres in an interview with IAFOR. ‘Before WWI, athletes competed
as individual agents. Today, they have become hostages to national politics’ he said
while urging the IOC to revert to its previous individual or club representation model.

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Professor Clastres argues that the problem of inclusivity has existed throughout
the history of the Olympics due to the nature of what he termed ‘authoritarianism’in the sports world. At the beginning of the Olympics, amateurism was used to
exclude people based on their gender and social backgrounds, preventing a broader
participation in the Olympics. Within the IOC, although women represent about
46% of the people working in the committee, they do not hold high positions within
the organisation; the IOC did not include women on the committee until as late as
1981. Women athletes are asked to go through physical checks to prove that they
are biologically women and to take medicines to naturalise their testosterone levels,
while men with naturally different testosterone levels are not required to do thesame. Sports represented in the Olympics are also predominantly Western sports, set
by the IOC for particular audiences and news media outlets. In its history, there were
only three non-Western sports introduced to the Olympics: Judo in the 1960 Tokyo
Summer Olympics, Taekwondo in the 1988 Seoul Summer Olympics, and Karate in
the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics.
Professor Clastres focused intensely on the political aspects of the IOC in his talk.
The IOC, he argues, has created a ‘parallel world,’ where it manages politics within
the Olympics through its international connections. The IOC shapes the narrativesof the Olympics through its allied connections with ‘official’ artists, journalists, andhistorians. Professor Clastres states that the IOC has created ‘pseudo historians’,
where they write only a part of ‘the truth’ about the Olympics with the influence of
the IOC. Moreover, the politics within the IOC are less than democratic: compared tothe one-nation-one-vote system utilised by the Fédération Internationale de Football
Association (FIFA), the IOC has 106 sitting members representing 70 countries outof the 206 countries it recognises. The IOC operated figuratively on a ‘gentlemen’s
agreement’, representative of the agreements of the upper classes, without formal
statute until 1981, the year when a few women were first appointed to the IOC.
The IOC is very protective of its institution, which has had just eight presidents
throughout its 130 year history. The IOC maintains its power in the international
arena through the funds it had given back to international federations and National
Olympic Committees. To make the IOC more accountable and transparent, Professor
Clastres urged ‘the citizens of the world’ to first look into how their National Olympic
Committees budget the funding they receive from the IOC, so as to encourage
accountability and towards a more transparent ecosystem and better governancestructure of the Olympics.

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People are and should be at the heart of the Olympics, Professor Clastres argues.
People are enthusiastic about the Olympics because they want peace, justice, andliberty, and the IOC should assume its mission to defend ‘peace, freedom, andfraternity’. Only by reforming its roles and missions will the IOC be able to represent
the motto of the Olympics: Faster, Higher, Stronger – Together.
In an interview later on, albeit the criticism towards the IOC, Professor Clastres also
shared some positive aspects and outlooks on the future of the institution and the
Olympics. It is worth noting that the IOC has, in some cases, been ahead of theUnited Nations’ political decisions on inclusion and acknowledgement. For example,
the IOC has recognised Palestine as an independent country since the 1980s,
whereas the UN still struggles with this issue. Echoing Ambassador Zaragoza’s point
about the veto within the UN, Professor Clastres also cites the process of veto within
the IOC as a major obstacle to inclusive and effective decision-making.
Unfortunately, the IOC cannot challenge the status quo on its own, Professor Clastresargues. As an institution, it still needs to fall in line with the decisions and view of
the United Nations, otherwise it risks losing its credibility. ‘IOC members must be
protected, not controlled, by international institutions such as the United Nations.
They should be regarded as ambassadors of the UN and the athletes as messengers
of peace’.
‘We must be confident in the future’, said Professor Clastres. ‘With the emergence of
new economies and the rise of developing countries, favourable developments may
be on the horizon. The IOC will change its president in 2027. It may well be that the
new president could come from the Global South. The best way to move forward isto think in terms of human rights and freedom. If we can move beyond the conceptof nationalism and think of athletes as independent agents, it would be a great step
forward’.

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4. Cultural Heritage, Peace Education, andClimate Change from an Institutional Perspective
The confidence and rules-based order of political and economic liberalism and liberalinternationalism of the Global North has been quite shaken and destabilised, as
previously marginalised groups present new concepts and perspectives and bringnew voices to the idea of peace, climate emergency, and how we may consider our
heritage and what we do with it. International institutions are particularly feeling thischange, while citizens all over the world look at political decisions with apprehension.
The paradoxical nature of international institutions is questioned by the global
community: they are envisioned as beacons of global cooperation and peace, yetfrequently fall short of their lofty aspirations to truly represent and act for the people
they serve.
In 2023, UN Secretary-General António Guterres proclaimed that we have exited thepost-Cold War era and entered a new one, coined by Ambassador Kano as the postpost-Cold War period. What this period looks like is still unclear, but one thing seems
to be gaining momentum: multilateral cooperation between varied stakeholders
is changing, including, among others, industries, civil society, and political andeducational institutions. During the post-Cold War period, there was a euphoria
about multilateralism. However, the world has shifted from this trajectory. We areliving in a completely different world than from 30 years ago. Different countries are
now recognising the increasing importance of the Global South, and the need toinclude them in making decisions.
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The panel on International and Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Global Citizenshipin Times of Change and Crisis, moderated by Professor Anne Boddington, focusedon how international institutions attempt to harness the insights of these different
stakeholders to enact positive change where institutions fail to operate effectively
and ethically. Three panellists who are engaged in three different international
institutions shared their insights on how international institutions work and how theirrole will change: Ambassador Takehiro Kano, the current Japanese Ambassador to
UNESCO in Paris; Professor Ljiljana Marković, a professor and academic director
at the United Nations University for Peace’s European Center for Peace andDevelopment (ECPD), Serbia; and Professor Jun Arima from the University of Tokyo,
Japan, a chief negotiator at the COP, the UN’s Convention on Climate Change. The
three panellists discussed how their respective institutions go about cultural heritage,education, and climate change, each highlighting the need for a different kind of
multilateral cooperation to achieve all those aspirational goals for a better future.

4.1. International Organisations and NonGovernmental Stakeholders
The three panellists were called to first introduce their respective organisations
and reflect on what and how they engage and harness stakeholders outside ofgovernments for positive change. All three panellists observed changes in how
multilateral cooperation is currently unfolding, but refrained from defining it asa clear way of moving forward. There is much more diversity within international
cooperation, but it is still unclear how current power vacuums will be filled, and how
willing government sectors are in accepting intersectoral and international input.
Introducing her institution and its mission, Professor Marković said that the main
focus of the European Center for Peace and Development is educating graduate
students on the importance of peace. Professor Marković raised the issue of an
existing vicious circle, wherein the role of education as an enabler of economic
growth and development needs peace and good education to be achieved, and this,in turn, needs financial support. ‘Without economic growth, quality education andpeace cannot be achieved, and without quality education and peace, no economic
growth can be attained’.

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Quality education, research, and interdisciplinarity are the foundation of allinternational cooperation, as Professor Arima highlighted. In the case of cooperation
on climate change, education plays an essential role in convincing people of their
responsibilities toward the planet and engaging them in debates and decisionmaking processes. Until 2015, discussions were mainly intergovernmental, said
Professor Arima. However, particularly after 2020, the focus has shifted to broader
participation of stakeholders from various sectors and industries, acknowledging thelimits of national government power. Academia is needed to discover and discuss
the cause and impact of climate change, as well as the socio-economic implications.
Industry is the powerhouse of new, eco-friendly technologies. Civil society plays
a role in raising awareness for environmental issues, while indigenous people andother minorities enrich the discussions considering all perspectives. Finally, cities –the epicentre of emissions and urbanisation – and their councils are great vehicles
of implementing policies in their communities. Professor Arima observed that the
number of participants from non-governmental entities is increasing each year.
Reflecting on what UNESCO does and how it engages and harnesses stakeholders
outside of governments for positive change, Ambassador Kano said that theinstitution’s mission is to promote peace and security through education, science,
sports, and culture. The core is intellectual cooperation, which can be achieved
through educational initiatives. The precursor of UNESCO, the International
Committee for International Cooperation (ICIC) that was established in Paris before
WWII, was made up of committee members from different countries who acted as
representatives of those countries, and did not speak on behalf of their national
governments. They instead discussed important matters through their professional or
private capacity, in much the same way as delegates at IAFOR conferences engage
today.
However, while UNESCO’s representatives now represent member countries, unlike
other international organisations, such as The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), UNESCO has kept its precursor’s tradition by
involving all sorts of stakeholders outside of the government, including journalists,
academics, business leaders, and artists. With 194 member states, it is one of themost inclusive international institutions regarding education, science, sports, andculture.

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4.2. Limitations and Barriers to International
Cooperation
Inclusiveness is usually seen as a positive characteristic of democratic decisionmaking. However, how the myriad of opinions and positions is processed canhinder the possibility of reaching a consensus. As a former Director-General of
UNESCO, Ambassador Zaragoza mentioned in his opening speech that, in the caseof UNESCO, a major hindrance to reaching a consensus is the exercise of eachmember state’s veto. Decision-making within UNESCO has to be unanimously made,which limits the capability of the institution to move forward quickly and make any
meaningful decisions. Ambassador Kano agrees that even after decades, this is still aproblem.
According to Ambassador Kano, a more crucial problem is the dysfunction ofinternational institutions we have witnessed since 9/11. The international community
has since started to crumble, and this is reflected within international institutions as
well. There is a cause-and-effect question of whether dysfunctional institutions are theproduct or the cause of war. Did the world become so polarised because institutions
were dysfunctional, or has 9/11 destabilised world politics to such a degree that
institutions could not operate efficiently? Whatever the case may be, not being
able to maintain international and intra-state peace and harmony is a problem tointernational cooperation.
At this point, Ambassador Kano recalled UNESCO’s motto: ‘Since wars begin in theminds of men and women, it is in the minds of men and women that the defence ofpeace must be constructed’. Although it is hard to find a solution to this complex
issue, he urges the people to try and reconstruct multilateralism in international
institutions. He asserted that we are entering the ‘post-post-Cold War period’,and that now is the time to define what this means and what this period looks like.
Institutions should ask themselves what multilateral cooperation looks like within thisnew era, but he said that ‘perhaps, it is up to us [the people] to define this’.
The people have to play a much more prominent role and take on more
responsibilities when it comes to creating a peaceful and sustainable community.
For this, education plays an important role. Within the debate on climate change
and greenhouse gas emissions, Professor Arima stated that its mitigation is a shared
responsibility between all members of the global community. However, the mitigation
costs and their proportion to national GDPs are different for each nation-state. Who isgoing to bear the cost of global market failure? Professor Arima worries that people
will not be willing to pay for higher climate change mitigation costs amidst a risingcost of living. Cleaner and greener energy would inevitably mean higher energy
consumption cost, which people can barely afford. This is reflected in the fact thatgreen parties have lost a lot of seats in the European parliament in recent elections.
With rising energy and living costs, people’s attention seems to be shifting to more
everyday life problems. The general public needs to endorse climate change policies
before these can be implemented. Without this endorsement, climate change
mitigation becomes a difficult issue.

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Political decision-making due to global geopolitical tensions and national priorities
is another obstacle to international cooperation on climate change mitigation.
Climate change mitigation requires enormous financial support. However, with thecurrent violent geopolitical situation globally, many countries are giving budgeting
priorities to military expansion. This could potentially crowd out finances for climatechange, warned Professor Arima. There is also a clear difference in priorities indeveloped countries (climate crisis mitigation) and developing countries (economic
growth, education, and job opportunities). Unless both sides are on the same page,international endeavours for combating climate change will be futile.
Professor Arima mentioned that one of the remedies to these limitations is education.
People need to be educated about responsibilities and solutions, and about how
imminent the threat of climate change is. This requires a higher quality education,
but the question again becomes one of whether people will be willing to pay for ahigher quality education. Just like Professor Arima, Professor Marković worries thatthe current economic situation will discourage people from wanting to spend moreon aspirational, global goals. Instead, the majority of people would probably opt tofulfil their everyday life needs.
With these higher costs for quality education, international institutions are becoming
increasingly unable to shoulder all this financial burden by themselves. The United
Nations, the mother institution of the ECPD, has felt this need for years to move into
multilateral cooperation with stakeholders from various industries and sectors.
The limitation of the ECPD is that it is a graduate school and, as such, has a limited
range of people and it can reach and educate. Professor Marković commended
IAFOR for its ability to reach wider and more diverse audiences, and promptededucational institutions worldwide to collaborate with NGOs like IAFOR. By creating
courses, or holding conferences and roundtables, such diverse stakeholders can fill in
the gaps that educational institutions are unable to. Professor Marković recalled thevision of the United World Colleges, where even 16-18 year old students could bereached and educated on peace. She also urged educational institutions to attempt
reaching students in the kindergarten, primary, and secondary education levels.
These children are currently under attack from violent video games and cartoons,
which teach them that it is acceptable to use violence, or that violence is normal.
More levels of education should include peace education in their curricula in order
to sensitise students on global issues and promote active participation in decisionmaking processes.

4.3. The Future of International Cooperation
From who and where should we anticipate change and new ideas in this new postpost-Cold War era? All panellists agreed that for international cooperation to beeffective in the near future, it must give more power to developing countries fromthe Global South. This is currently not the case in reality, but it may well be one of
the reasons why international institutions have become dysfunctional in the face ofincreased geopolitical tension.
Agenda-setting is an area in which we are likely to see a change, according to
Ambassador Kano. Which countries have the power to decide or judge what iswrong or more important? The Global North used to have this power, but this has
recently shifted. From the 1990s onwards, power has diversified. Asia, Africa, andLatin America are also rising on the political and economic scenes. Their capabilities
are growing, thereby changing who judges and sets the agenda. Intergovernmental
agenda-setting may also change as it is currently undemocratic and dysfunctional.
Ambassador Kano pointed out that ‘a great example of this is how conflict and war
in different parts of the world receives a different level of coverage and importanceat the moment. The war in Gaza and Ukraine has received great attention, whereas
the exodus of the Rohingya in Myanmar has been quietly buried. In the case of
Israel, international institutions acknowledge Israel’s right to defend itself, but wantto hold the government accountable for not adhering to international law. However,individual nation-states’ governments do not follow this reasoning, Ambassador Kanoargued. Instead, they each have their own views, which are shaped by the interestsand diplomatic relations they have with countries of the Global North. This is likely tochange with multilateral cooperation increasingly involving stakeholders other thannation-states.
The same development is desired for multilateral cooperation on climate change
mitigation. Professor Arima urged institutions to become more pragmatic.
Developing countries are currently forced to shut down their industrial operations. At
their current stages, these newly emerging economies are dependent on economic
growth, and shutting down their operations will be fatal. More importantly, this
imposition may be seen as eco-colonialism. We should avoid this situation, said
Professor Arima.

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While it would be more democratic to allow developing countries to define theirown course of action regarding climate change, there is also a gap between how
developing and developed countries approach the issue. Climate change mitigation
involves high financial costs. Developing countries tend to focus on mitigation, basedon evasion of financial debates. Professor Arima noted that we should shift from more
mitigation-oriented debate to adaptation-oriented debate. The international financial
debate should change its mode.
The international climate change debate used to be characterised by sensationalism.
However, nowadays, the narrative has changed to ‘do not overpanic’. By engaging
the Global South and developing countries, we can prevent the adverse effects ofclimate change. By continuing to exclude them from the debate, the goal of climate
mitigation will be unattainable.
This goal will also be unattainable if we continue applying current technologies.
Professor Arima highlighted the role of technology and especially innovation in
combating climate change. Futuristic technologies, even if incomplete at the
moment, should become more affordable. In order for this to happen, more researchand innovation is needed to convince industries and decision-makers of newtechnologies’ effectiveness. To this, Professor Marković asserted that innovation andresearch is exactly what high-quality education can produce. However, we shouldbear in mind that education is a generation- and decade-long investment, and its
effects are not immediately observable.
Reflecting on differences between the education systems in Japan and European
countries, both Ambassador Kano and Professor Arima, who have experienced both
systems, highlighted why education is important for future international cooperation
negotiations. While Japanese students are brought up in a system that values
the reproduction of knowledge accurately, their European counterparts are being
educated on how to communicate such knowledge effectively. This often translates
into European students being more outspoken and opinionated, and with better
negotiation and debate skills than their Japanese counterparts. Ambassador Kano
observed that, when negotiators come together within international institutions,
often it is the Japanese ones that are taken aback by the strong argumentative
expression of Europeans, who are highly skilled in making their voices heard theloudest. Professor Arima suggested that if we teach young people how to negotiate
and debate, they will eventually become strong debaters and representatives of theircountries’ interests. To make the Global South’s voices be heard, one of education’sfoci should be the building of negotiation and argumentation skills. Of course, thisbrings with it an awareness of global issues and a sensitivity to global crises.

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4.4. Implications
Inevitably, education, climate change, peace, and cultural heritage preservation
are intertwined. According to the panellists, education holds the key to moredemocratic and informed decision-making, allowing for marginalised voices tobe heard. Although inclusive on the surface, international institutions have far too
long placed little importance on the opinion of developing countries, while also
limiting the debate to inter-governmental parties. The recent trend in involving more
stakeholders, such as academics, the media, industries, civil society, and artists, isshaping the future of multilateral cooperation, but much more has to be done interms of considering whose opinions have more or less weight.
Giving the Global South, up to now mere bystanders, more power in the decisionmaking process would mean that the Global North would have to change its roleand priorities on the international scene. Can the Global North allow the Global
South to take over? Perhaps, this will be an inevitable outcome of the current state ofaffairs, forcing developed countries to take a step back. In the worst-case scenario,
the Global North’s inflexibility could lead to much more polarisation and irreversible
damage to nature, cultural heritage, and peace.
Later this year at the UN Summit of the Future in New York, the post-2030 SDGs will
be discussed. A document called the ‘Pact for the Future’ will show the vision for the
post-2030 agenda, and whether developed countries will become more flexible inaccommodating voices from the Global South in a more constructive way.

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5. Conclusion
The current contentious global political landscape has weakened the international
community’s capability of reaching a consensus on many global issues. International
institutions are increasingly faced with public apprehension, as citizens do not
feel represented by national interests, and are alienated from institutions’ lofty
aspirations. Institutions are called upon to change their modus operandi and redefine
multilateral cooperation.
We are currently in a transitional period, presented with an enormous opportunityfor ‘we, the people’ to reshape and be part of the global community’s decisionmaking process. Not only is the political power landscape becoming multi-polar withthe emergence of the Global South, but various non-governmental stakeholders
are also gaining decision-making power. These exciting developments present an
opening for more inclusiveness and potential innovation through different channelsof cooperation. It also allows for more action, while also holding international
institutions and governments accountable; something that was at the centre of thisconference’s debates. All speakers and panellists have urged for more action fromthe people. It looks like the current political landscape is conducive to allowing
civil society, academia, the media, and industrial sectors alike to redefine what
international cooperation looks like.
So, how do we act? And how do we act as a community in this new era? Our
speakers and panellists at The Paris Conference on Education (PCE2024) and The
Paris Conference on Arts & Humanities (PCAH2024) foresee that this will be one of
the turning points of international cooperation and development in the 21st century.
Our ultimate goal should be fostering peace and prosperity throughout the world.
This can only be achieved if international cooperation becomes inclusive, ethical,
and representative of the global community of citizens. The UNESCO motto fromdecades ago still echoes true today: ‘Since wars begin in the minds of men andwomen, it is in the minds of men and women that the defence of peace must be
constructed’. The question remains who decides who these men and women are, andhow much power they are given to make their voices heard.

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Conference Networking and Cultural Events
Networking events within our conference programmes provide designated spaces foropen discussion, forming professional connections, and inspiring collaboration within
and outside the conference venue. The PCE/PCAH2024 itinerary featured a variety ofsuch spaces, sharing them alongside returning delegates and new members alike, as
well as local artisans and cultural practitioners.
An afternoon tour of Musée Rodin served as the Paris programme’s Cultural Event,and an exceptional prelude to the conference on Thursday, June 13. The guided tour
brought delegates through the century-old estate dedicated to preserving the works
of famed Parisian sculptor Auguste Rodin, where delegates were given intimate
knowledge of his life and his work.
The PCE/PCAH2024 Welcome Reception capped off the conference plenaries at
the Maison de la Chimie, on Friday, June 14. Delegates both familiar and new to
the IAFOR network were welcomed to carry on discussions prompted by this year’s
keynote presentations with the speakers themselves. IAFOR’s 2024 Paris programme
was heavily influenced by key individuals active in UNESCO, as well as renowned
scholars in the field of peacebuilding and global events, who joined delegates to
speak one-on-one about their work, research, and ideas. The Welcome Reception
is always free for all registered delegates to attend, where they are encouraged to
expand upon the programme and their network.
The Conference Dinner followed the reception, leading delegates to Brasserie
Bofinger, one of Paris’ more renowned brasserie in the city centre. Like the reception
before it, the Conference Dinner provides a more relaxed space for delegates todiscuss programme topics as well as get to know other researchers in their respective
fields over the classic combination of good conversation over an exemplary meal.
Professor Grant Black, a member of IAFOR’s Board of Directors, welcomed delegatesto Paris and gave a congratulatory message in regards to a successful plenary
programme.

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Conference
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ISSN: 2759-4939