Founded by two senior League of Nations officials,[10] the Geneva Graduate Institute maintains strong links with the League of Nations's successor, the United Nations,[11] and many alumni have gone on to work at UN agencies.
Founded in 1927, the Geneva Graduate Institute is the world's first graduate school dedicated solely to the study of international affairs.[12][13] It offered one of the first doctoral programmes in international relations in the world.
Today the school enrolls close to a thousand postgraduate students from over 100 countries. Foreign students make up nearly 90% of the student body and the school is officially a bilingual English-French institution, although most classes are in English.[14]
The Villa Barton campus on the shores of Lake GenevaThe Villa Moynier campus
The Graduate Institute of International Studies was co-founded in 1927 by two scholar-diplomats working for the League of Nations Geneva secretariat: the Swiss-American William Rappard, director of the Mandates Section, and the Frenchman Paul Mantoux, director of the Political Section.[10][20][21] Rappard conceived the Graduate Institute as a way to draw on the deep pool of expertise in Geneva and to cement transatlantic ties. With the notion that it might be named the Wilson Institute, after U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, Rappard saw it as a school for future American diplomats.[22] Initial funding was provided by the U.S.-based Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Fund, which viewed the school as an "international economic observation post."[23] The Swiss government and Canton of Geneva provided matching contributions.[24] The school was affiliated to the University of Geneva, though independent in its program of studies and personnel.[25] Funding from American philanthropic organizations, primarily the Rockefeller Foundation as part of its initiative to promote a scientific approach to international relations, continued until 1954.[26][27]
The Geneva Graduate Institute's original mandate was based on a close working relationship with both the League of Nations and the International Labour Organization. It was agreed that in exchange for training staff and delegates, the school would receive intellectual resources and diplomatic expertise (guest lecturers, etc.) from the aforementioned organisations. According to its statutes, the Geneva Graduate Institute was "an institution intended to provide students of all nations the means of undertaking and pursuing international studies, most notably of a historic, judicial, economic, political and social nature."[10]
The Geneva Graduate Institute had become known in the 1930s as a rallying point for neoliberal scholars, with economist Lionel Robbins calling it an "oasis of sanity" amid the rise of totalitarianism in Europe.[42][43][38][44][45][46] It attracted leading neoliberal economists including Ludwig Von Mises, Wilhelm Röpke and Michael A. Heilperin, who formed an intellectual community with employees of the nearby General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and League of Nations secretariats, such as Gottfried Haberler, and with academics who presented key research at the Geneva Graduate Institute, including Friedrich Hayek and Lionel Robbins.[47][48] Historian Quinn Slobodian proposed in 2018 the existence of a so-called Geneva School of economics to describe this group of economists and political economists, whom he characterizes as "ordo-globalists" who promoted the creation of global institutions to safeguard the unimpeded movement of capital across borders.[49][50] The Geneva School combined the "Austrian emphasis on the limits of knowledge and the global scale with the German ordoliberal emphasis on institutions and the moment of the political decision."[51][52][53][54] Geneva School economists were instrumental in organizing the Mont Pelerin Society, a neoliberal academic society of economists and political philosophers that assembled in nearby Mont Pèlerin.[55]
Other faculty fleeing countries with Nazi regimes also included Hans Wehberg [de] and Georges Scelle for law, Maurice Bourquin for diplomatic history, and Swiss jurist Paul Guggenheim. Subsequently, more scholars would join the Institute's faculty. Hans Kelsen, theorist and philosopher of law, Guglielmo Ferrero, Italian historian, and Carl Burckhardt, scholar and diplomat were employed at the Geneva Graduate Institute.[56]
With the Rockefeller Foundation ending its funding in 1954, the Canton of Geneva and the Swiss government began to bear most of the costs associated with the school. This transfer of financial responsibility coincided with the arrival of Rappard's successor as the school's director, historian Jacques Freymond in 1955. Freymond inaugurated a period of great expansion, increasing the range of subjects taught and the number of both students and faculty. Under his tenure, the Geneva Graduate Institute hosted many international colloquia that discussed preconditions for East–West negotiations, relations with China and its rising influence in world affairs, European integration, techniques and results of politico-socioeconomic forecasting (the early Club of Rome reports, and the Futuribles project led by Bertrand de Jouvenel), the causes and possible antidotes to terrorism, Pugwash Conference concerns and much more. Freymond's term also saw many landmark publications, including the Treatise on international law by Paul Guggenheim and the six-volume compilation of historical documents relating to the Communist International.[57]
Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Library
Nevertheless, the Geneva Graduate Institute remained small during that period. Before the 1980s, the faculty never exceeded 25 members.
In 2008, the Graduate Institute of International Studies absorbed the Graduate Institute of Development Studies (IUED), and was thereby renamed as Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies.[58] IUED was founded by historian Jacques Freymond in 1961 as the Centre genevois pour la formation des cadres africains, later renamed Institut Africain de Genève, or African Institute of Geneva.[59] It was among the first institutions in Europe to develop the scholarly field of sustainable development. The school was also known for the critical view of many of its professors on development aid, as well as for its journal, the Cahiers de l'IUED.[60]
In 2009, the Geneva Graduate Institute's previous affiliation with the University of Geneva ended when the Swiss government accredited it as a university independently, rather than through the University of Geneva.[61][62]
The Geneva Graduate Institute has nearly 1,100 students. Of these, about a third are PhD students, and two thirds are master's students. Fourteen percent come from Switzerland. The remainder come from more than 100 other countries. Around 63% are women.[63]
The Geneva Graduate Institute maintains five academic departments each headed by a faculty chair. They are the departments of international law; international relations & political science; international history & politics; international economics; and anthropology and sociology.[64]
The Institute only offers master- and PhD-level programmes.[67] The Geneva Graduate Institute offers six master programmes, four executive master programmes, and five PhD programmes. They include:
Master of International and Development Studies (MINT);
LLM in International Law;
Masters of International Law; International Relations/Political Science; International History and Politics; International Economics; and Anthropology and Sociology;
PhD programme in International Law; International Relations/Political Science; International History and Politics; International Economics; and Anthropology and Sociology.[68][69]
Admission to the Geneva Graduate Institute's study programmes is highly competitive, with only 14% of applicants attending the school in 2014.[70]
As a small institution offering exclusively graduate programmes, the Geneva Graduate Institute does not participate in university rankings of comprehensive universities.[71] However, It has been ranked by a handful of rankings for specialized universities. In 2012, The Geneva Graduate Institute was listed among the Foreign Policy Association's "Top 50 International Affairs Graduate Programs."[72]
In Foreign Policy's 2024 Inside the Ivory Tower ranking of best international relations schools wordlwide, both U.S. international relations faculty and U.S. think tank staffers ranked the Geneva Graduate Institute's master's programs 20th. In Europe, only the master's programs of the London School of Economics and Political Science and Sciences Po also ranked in the master's top 20. Meanwhile, the PhD programs for policymakers ranked 20th worldwide when assessed by U.S. international relations faculty, 23th when ranked by U.S. policymakers, and 26th when ranked by U.S. think tank staffers. The other Europe-based PhD programs for policymakers listed in the top 20 by U.S. international relations faculty were at Oxford, Cambridge, the London School of Economics, and Sciences Po.[73]
The LL.M. in international dispute settlement, offered jointly with the University of Geneva by the Geneva Center for International Dispute Settlement, was ranked 2nd worldwide according to a 2012 survey of law firms conducted by the Global Arbitration Review.[74] This same LL.M. also consistently featured in the top 10 LL.M. for alternative dispute resolution by the specialised website LL.M.-guide.[75][76] The Graduate Institute's LL.M. in international law also featured in the top 10 LL.M. for public international law compiled by LLM-guide.[77] The Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights' LL.M. in international humanitarian law and human rights, a joint programme between the Geneva Graduate Institute and the University of Geneva, also featured in LLM-guide's top 10 LL.M. programmes for human rights law.[78]
The Campus de la paix is a network of buildings extending from Place des Nations (the United Nations Headquarters in Geneva) to the shores of Lake Geneva, spanning two public parks: Parc Barton and Parc Moynier.[79]
The Graduate Institute's main campus is the Maison de la paix (lit. "House of Peace"), which opened in 2013.[80] The Maison de la Paix is a 38,000 meter-square glass building distributed into six connected sections. It contains the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Library, which holds 350,000 books about social sciences, journals and annual publications, making it one of Europe's richest libraries in the fields of development and international relations. It is named after two Institute alumni, Ambassador Shelby Cullom Davis and his wife Kathryn Davis, following the Davis' $10 million donation to the Institute.[81]
Another section of the campus are two historic villas situated by Lake Geneva, Villa Barton and Villa Moynier. Villa Barton served as the institute's main campus from 1937 to 2007.[82] It now mostly houses administrative staff. Adjacent to Villa Barton, the World Trade Organization's headquarters, known as the Centre William Rappard, housed the Geneva Graduate Institute's library during that period.[83]
The Geneva Graduate Institute owns and operates two halls of residence in Geneva. The Edgar and Danièle de Picciotto Student Residence neighbors the main campus, Maison de la paix. It was completed in 2012 and provides 135 apartments for students and visiting professors. The Grand Morillon Student Residence opened to students in 2021 and accommodates 678 residents. It was designed by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma.[85][86]
The founding directors of the Graduate Institute of International Studies were Paul Mantoux (1927-1951) and William Rappard (1928-1955). The school was then headed by Jacques Freymond (1955-1978), Christian Dominicé (1978-1984), Lucius Caflisch (1984-1990), Alexandre Swoboda (1990-1998), Peter Tschopp (de) (1998-2002), Jean-Michel Jacquet (2002-2004) and Philippe Burrin (2004-2020). Its current director is Marie-Laure Salles.[87]
The Graduate Institute is a hybrid, public and private institution. It is constituted as a Swiss private law foundation, namely the Fondation pour les hautes études internationales et du développement, that fulfills a public purpose. The political responsibility for the Graduate Institute is shared between the Swiss Confederation and the canton of Geneva. The arrangement is unusual in Switzerland, where the cantons usually run public universities, with the exception of the federally-run ETH Zurich and École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne.[88]
Journal of International Dispute Settlement – Established by the Geneva Graduate Institute and the University of Geneva in 2010, the JIDS is dedicated to international law with commercial, economic and financial implications. It is published by Oxford University Press.[90]
International Development Policy – A peer-reviewed e-journal edited by the Geneva Graduate Institute that promotes research and policy debates on global development.[91]
The Paul Guggenheim Prize in International Law was created in 1979 and is awarded to young practitioners of international law on a biannual basis.[101][102] The Edgar de Picciotto International Prize is awarded every two years and worth 100,000 Swiss Francs. It rewards an internationally renowned academic whose research has contributed to enhancing the understanding of global challenges and whose work has influenced policy-makers.[103]
The Graduate Institute has more than 24,000 alumni working around the world. Notable alumni and faculty include one UN Secretary-General (Kofi Annan), seven Nobel Prize recipients, one Pulitzer Prize winner, and numerous ambassadors, foreign ministers, and heads of state.[121]
^"Mission Statement"(PDF). Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies. Archived from the original(PDF) on 26 August 2013. Retrieved 27 October 2012.
^ abcPeter, Ania (1983). "William E. Rappard and the League of Nations: A Swiss contribution to international organization". The League of Nations in Retrospect: Proceedings of the Symposium. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 221–222. ISBN3-11-008733-2.
^jam, Journal des arts et métiers (9 May 2019). "Ces libéraux qui vécurent à Genève". Journal des arts et métiers jam (in French). Retrieved 17 December 2023.
The Graduate Institute of International Studies Geneva: 75 years of service towards peace through learning and research in the field of international relations, The Graduate Institute, 2002.