Increasing geopolitical competition is amplifying international conflict and diminishing the global community’s ability to respond to rising distributed threats like extremism and post-authoritarian chaos. The international community needs to get back to basics: supporting the long, hard slog of institution-building in transitional countries; addressing the social and political problems that provide the fertiliser for radical movements; and recognising that we are unlikely to solve conflicts if we only talk to people who agree with us.

Prior to his post as President of the International Crisis Group, Jean-Marie Guéhenno was the Arnold Saltzman Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia University and the director of its Center for International Conflict Resolution (School of International and Public Affairs). He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution.

In 2012, he was appointed deputy joint special envoy of the United Nations and the Arab League for Syria. He left that position to chair the commission appointed by President François Hollande to review the French Defense and national security posture. Between 2000 and 2008, he served as the United Nations’ Under Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations.

This lecture will be chaired by Professor the Hon Gareth Evans AC QC, Chancellor, ANU.