ABOUT US

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 a Media and Peace Institute (MPI) within the framework of the university. The Institute came into formal existence on November 7, 2000. It administrative office is in Paris 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 war and peace. It welcomes two kinds of participants: persons from areas of recent, current or potential conflict; and persons from countries strongly concerned with international peace and security. It also plans a research program targeting urgent international peace-related 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, the Institute will contribute to new thinking about how free media can help prevent conflict and alert decision-makers, as well as the general public, to looming risks of war.

Independence and Practicality

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 Organization of African Unity (OAU), 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 serve the development and strengthening of 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 new, small and specialized organization, we intend to work with any other organizations and 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.

Founding Director: Keith Spicer

Keith 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 ethnocultural 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 four books - two on political and international issues, two on communications theory. After moving to Paris in September 1996, he was an Associate of Ernst & Young Canada (1996-2000), specializing in telecommunications and Internet issues.

• Rosenthal Calmon Alves (former executive director of O Globo, Rio de Janeiro, now lecturer at University of Texas on media ethics)
• Uzi Benziman (senior writer, Ha'aretz, Tel Aviv. Also editor of media publication The Seventh Eye, published by the Israel Democracy Institute)
• Sumantra Bose (London School of Economics, author on Kashmir and Sri Lankan conflicts)
• Cheong Yip-Seng (editor-in-chief of the The Straits Times, Singapore)
• Jeff Cole (Director, Center for Communication Policy, UCLA)
• Kathy Eldon (U.S. documentary-maker and author specializing in Africa)
• André Fontaine (former Publisher, Le Monde, Paris)
• Luis Garcia (senior editor of O Globo, Rio de Janeiro, and scholar at various journalism schools
• Theodore L. Glasser (Director, Graduate Program in Journalism, Stanford University)
• Michael Ignatieff (BBC, Harvard University, author of Virtual War: Kosovo and Beyond and other books)
• Cushrow Irani (editor of The Statesman, Calcutta)
• Hisanori Isomura (President, Maison du Japon, Paris; former CEO of NHK-TV)
• Jan Jirak (Vice-Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, Prague)
• Kemal Kurspahic (Editor of Oslobodjenje in Sarajevo during the Bosnian war)
• Alejandra Lajous (CEO of Canal 11 - TV in Mexico City)
• Thomas Loeffelholz (former editor-in-chief of Die Welt)
• Adam Michnik (Editor-in-chief of Gazeta Wyborcza)
• Claude Moisy (Vice-President of Reporters Sans Frontières and chief of media task force for Balkan Stability Pact; ex-CEO of Agence France Presse)
• Bernard Myet (former Director, United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations, New York (until Sept. 2000)
• John Owen (Head of European Office of the Freedom Forum)
• Roger Parkinson (President, World Association of Newspapers; chairman, The Globe and Mail, Toronto)
• William Pfaff (international affairs columnist, Los Angeles Times Syndicate)
• 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 CEO of Open Broadcast Network, Sarajevo
• Jacques Rigaud (former CEO of RTL, Radio-Télévision Luxembourg, France)
• Edward Said (Columbia University, author of Covering Islam and other books)
• Clyde Sanger (Canada correspondent, The Economist; specialist in Third World reporting)
• Daniel Santoro, senior journalist with Clarin (Buenos Aires)
• Paddy Sherman (former President, Southam Newspapers, Canada)
• Veton Surroi (editor of Koha Ditore, Pristina)
• Mark Thompson (Article 19, author of Forging War)
• Keyan Tomaselli (Head, Centre for Cultural & Media Studies, University of Natal)
• Seymour Topping (former managing editor, The New York Times, Professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism)