Senior Leadership for Peace Seminar 2026: Preparing for the Future in Times of Rupture

This report synthesizes the discussions held during the Senior Leadership for Peace Seminar 2026, jointly convened in Geneva by the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP), the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), and the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs of Switzerland (FDFA). The first draft was prepared by Dr Diego Osorio, reviewed and revised by seminar organizers and facilitators Dr Julia Herzog-Schmidt, Ms Annika Hilding Norberg, Ms Svenja Vollmer, and Dr Peter Batchelor.

The synthesis is prepared in strict accordance with the Chatham House Rule. No statement, position, or example in this report is attributed to a named individual or identifiable participant. The report focuses exclusively on the ideas, debates, tensions, and insights that emerged collectively, and organizes them according to the seminar's official programme. Where illustrative cases or quotations are retained, they are presented without reference to the speaker's identity or institutional affiliation, in order to preserve analytical richness while fully protecting the confidentiality of the exchange. The report does not purport to represent the views of the convening organizations, the editors, or any individual participant; rather, it serves as a faithful account of the discussions, outcomes, and recommendations that emerged from the seminar proceedings.

This report was drafted on the basis of session notes and transcripts with the support of artificial intelligence tools. The resulting draft was reviewed and revised further by the seminar organizers and facilitators for accuracy, balance, and fidelity to the discussions as they occurred.