Building sustainable peace
Switzerland has many years of experience and a strong track record in promoting peace and helping to prevent armed conflicts. As part of its peace policy, Switzerland provides its good offices in conflict situations, including mediation services and protecting power mandates. For example, it supports peaceful electoral processes in countries emerging from conflict. This may involve the drafting of common codes of conduct banning hate speech, religious symbols and excessively confrontational language in election campaigns in order to build trust between political parties, promote democratic compromise and ensure that election results are accepted by all parties.
Switzerland regularly hosts peace conferences and peace negotiations. Switzerland's flexibility, professionalism and discretion are widely acknowledged in UN peace processes and by parties to conflict. For example: at the request of the then UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, since 2013 Switzerland has facilitated a series of peace talks on Syria in Geneva on the basis of a roadmap endorsed in a Security Council resolution. Seven rounds have taken place in Geneva since then, and Switzerland has also facilitated the continuation of the dialogue during the COVID-19 pandemic.
As a member of the Security Council, Switzerland would strive to ensure, among others, that the following issues are addressed:
- Confidence building and continued cooperation among states within the Security Council
- Effective UN peacebuilding
- Respect for human rights
- Protection of minorities
- Equal Women's participation in peace processes and UN peacekeeping missions able to tackle problems in affected countries