2000 Fellowship Programme
2000 Conference Programme

1. Science, Risk and the Regulation of New Technologies

2. Asia-Pacific: Economic and Security Scenarios for 2020

3. The Knowledge Society
Changing the shape of education for the 21st century

4. Ending Anarchy?
International Rule and Reconstruction After Conflict

1. Science, Risk and the Regulation of New Technologies

Download Professor Heinz Wolff's Introductory Paper

• Merton College, Oxford
  
• 24 March - 1 April 2000

Senior Fellow

Speakers

Advertised Synopsis
With the galloping advance of scientific knowledge, humans have never been so capable of changing their own condition and that of their environment - for good or ill. This has generated debate over a range of policy issues: the safety of genetically-based treatments in medicine and agriculture; the future of nuclear power generation; the international response to global warming; the reaction to health scares such as mad cow disease; even the adverse social implications of technological change. The villains have been variously identified as greedy businessmen, mendacious politicians, venal scientists and neo-Luddite activists with eccentric scientific support. But central to all such debates are attitudes toward risk. Human life has always involved the assessment, taking and minimization of risks. The pursuit of scientific and technological advance is no exception. However, in an age where public trust of society's institutions and their representatives - academic as much as political or religious - has declined markedly, the voice of science lacks the authority it once held to sway public opinion, especially when it speaks in specialist language incomprehensible to the layman. At the same time political discourse has entrenched the concept of universal human rights. Thus, although in the West at least prosperity and life expectancy have reached unprecedented levels, people everywhere seem to be increasingly intolerant of exposure to risk from the activity of others. This conference will look at the processes whereby governments weigh benefits against imponderable risks in making decisions; why even expert committees seem to err so frequently in assessing future dangers; the extent to which the state should take over through regulation the individual's traditional role in assessing personal risk; how and to what degree it should limit what science is allowed to do; and how to raise the level of public understanding so as to permit better informed debate.

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2. Asia-Pacific
Economic and Security Scenarios for 2020
(In Assocation with The Tokyo Foundation)

Download Sir John Boyd's Introductory Paper
Download Professor Heizo Takenaka's Introductory Paper

• Keidanren Guest House, Near Mount Fuji, Japan
  
  
• 12-20 May 2000
  
  
  

Senior Fellows

Speakers

Advertised Synopsis
The former certainties of the Asia-Pacific region - world beating economic growth and the American security umbrella - have been brought increasingly into question in the last decade. The stalling of the Japanese economy and the 1997 financial crisis exposed clear weaknesses in the Asian model. Despite recent progress towards economic recovery and structural reform, the forces of globalization pose continuing challenges which must be mastered if Asia is to achieve lasting stability and prosperity. Progress is also required on the political front. The Taiwan issue and the unpredictability of North Korea are potential threats to regional stability. Can either question be ‘restructured' or can economic levers be used to defuse them? Regional economics and security are inter-related; deterioration in either will affect the other. In particular, the course of economic and social development in China will determine whether it emerges as an even greater power or one increasingly divided. Starting from an economic stock-taking and an analysis of security issues, the conference will explore how the internal shape of regional states and relations between them may have developed by 2020. Economically, will the ‘Asian model' return to full vigour? Can the institutions and social practices of the region accommodate the necessary economic change? Will we see the reassertion of a traditional balance of power, or will new patterns be produced by the globalization process? Finally, what is the role of external powers and organisations in promoting benign change? This conference will be held in association with the Tokyo Foundation.

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3. The Knowledge Society
Changing the shape of education for the 21st century

Download Sir Claus Moser's Introductory Paper

• Klingenthal Castle, near Strasbourg
  
  
• 8-16 September 2000
  
  
  

Senior Fellow

Speakers

Advertised Synopsis
Facing a century in which prosperity will be increasingly determined by control of information rather than natural resources or industrial might, governments throughout the developed world are looking to education as the key to long- term economic success and promoting it to the top of their agendas. In some countries (such as the USA and the UK) there has been a tendency to favour a 'command and control' model of educational reform, while in others (such as Japan) the trend has been towards greater liberalism and flexibility. At this conference we will examine different national solutions to familiar issues in school and post-school education, including teaching methods, curricula and resourcing; but the main focus will be on the 'external' challenges which all educational systems must confront, above all globalization, the communications revolu-tion and the changing nature of work. These challenges require education at successive stages in life and not just for the young; with the increasing rapidity of economic and social change ‘lifelong learning' has become an almost universal slogan. What must governments, corporations and educational institutions do to make lifelong education a reality? There is also the question of education and equity. How far is education in the 21st century going to be elitist and how will it combat social exclusion? In funding, what are the roles of the private and public sectors? In addition, is enough attention paid to concerns other than the economic, in particular the transmission of values? In an era of expanding choice and risk how can students be best equipped to lead the good life and the life of a citizen as well as that of a worker?

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4. Ending Anarchy?
International Rule and Reconstruction After Conflict

Download Dr Michael Williams' Introductory Paper

• Madingley Hall, Cambridge
  
• 5-13 October 2000

Senior Fellow

Speakers

Advertised Synopsis
On top of the many peacekeeping and peacemaking operations which the United Nations and other international organizations have conducted, a new challenge has arisen over the last decade which - with its colonial echoes - they have only reluctantly begun to address: how to help states or territories emerging from civil conflict to make the transition to a normal society, a task which may entail undertaking temporary responsibility for civil administration or even formal UN trusteeship. This conference will draw on numerous examples from Bosnia and Kosovo through Somalia to Cambodia and East Timor to look at the complicated issues involved. These include practical questions - how to establish the trust of the governed; how to establish authority and introduce law and order into a war-torn society; how to minimize the role of neighbouring powers seeking influence in a future regime while finding countries willing to provide resources for the project; and how to arrange an "exit strategy". More theoretical concerns also arise - what legal basis exists for such an arrangement and how much domestic opposition would make it untenable; what are the implications for sovereignty, especially as there is rarely time for an interim administration to be democratically ratified; and whether organizations other than the United Nations should be allowed - either at the request of the parties involved or of the Security Council - to undertake these activities. Finally there is the moral question of the extent to which outsiders should undertake responsibility for helping with a society's problems when its members may not be ready to live together, but the only alternative seems to be continued bloodshed.

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Summary of all Conferences

2000 Fellowship Programme

1. The role of the media and the international community in incipient and unfashionable conflicts

2.The Global Compact: where do the limits of corporate responsibility lie?

Between the Wars: The role of the media and the international community in incipient and unfashionable conflicts
(In Cooperation with Conflict and Peace Forums)

• Taplow Court, near Maidenhead
  
• 3-5 March 2000

Speakers

Brief Description
This conference, run in conjunction with Conflict and Peace Forums, looked at the role of the media in incipient and unfashionable conflicts, including how the media affects or does not affect the international community's response to such situations; how the actors in a conflict seek to influence the media, and through them perhaps a wider audience; and how journalists might best cover conflicts, not only when fighting is taking place but also before it breaks out.

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The Global Compact: where do the limits of corporate responsibility lie?
(In Cooperation with The Prince of Wales Business Leaders Forum)

• United Nations Headquarters
  
• 17-19 November 2000

Speakers

Brief Description
This summer the UN launched its Global Compact with business, laying down standards for human rights, labour and environmental practices. Kofi Annan said '... let us choose to unite the power of markets with the authority of universal ideals. Let us choose to reconcile the creative forces of private entrepreneurship with the needs of the disadvantaged and the requirements of future generations.' This Fellowship seminar will explore how progress can be made towards these goals, examine the standards laid down in the Global Compact and debate the diverse issues involved.

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