MARPE Talk Lisbon

Wilfried Bolewski is professor of international law and diplomacy at Sciences Po Paris, The American University of Paris and Free University Berlin and a former German diplomat who has served in Italy, Poland, Australia, Pakistan, the Cameroons and was Ambassador to Jamaica, Belize and the Commonwealth of the Bahamas. He participated in the NATO Nuclear Planning Group and the United Nations Conference on Disarmament. Mr. Bolewski has served as the deputy chief of protocol for German Chancellors Gerhard Schroeder and Angela Merkel. He publishes and lectures on new dimensions of diplomacy, including the role of multinational corporations and non-state actors.

“In the 21st Century, our universal community of fate is characterized by grand challenges, external shocks and global fragilities in crisis context, such as economic volatility and societal upheaval. These destabilizing turbulences reveal a paradigmatic shift in the global system with its dysfunctional multilateral organizations towards an era of fragmented and disintegrated international (dis-)order”. This is the starting point proposed by Professor Wilfried Bolweski for this talk. Advancing that “International society is in demand of content-sensitive orientation knowledge to reassess, adjust and accommodate diplomacy’s essentials (human factor interdependency and interactions: diplomacy for good) to new expectations of the public sphere”. And “Confronted with social and environmental demands international business enterprises seen as “private public entities” are requested to get involved in issues of public concern by providing public goods and co-creating more just and peaceful co-existing societies. International diplomacy provides the tools for corporate conflict management.  In tackling grand challenges, corporations are becoming diplomatic co-actors in the trade of diplomacy and acquiring access to the diplomatic arena. (…) Today’s societal purpose of international management is not merely business, and business is not an end in itself, but its social impact should also serve a common good purpose. (…) In tackling grand challenges, corporations are becoming diplomatic co-actors in the trade of diplomacy and acquiring access to the diplomatic arena.”

These are some of the contexts defined by the key speaker of this talk – Professor Wilfried Bolewski. His extensive experience as a career diplomat, as well as an academic allows him to bring very rich contributions to the reflection on the concept of corporate diplomacy.

Between 4:00 pm and 5:30 pm (London time) on December 10, the challenge is to listen to this professor and reflect with him on what international contexts, increasingly characterized by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA World), bring in terms of challenges for States, companies, but also non-profit organizations, foundations and associations, as well as international institutions in their interrelationships and in the construction of more just and peaceful societies.