Stefan Ziegler is a Swiss national with 25 years of experience in the fields of research and advocacy related to humanitarian action. He has been lecturing and publishing at the Geneva School of Diplomacy and International Relations as Associate Professor since 2014.
Currently Mr. Ziegler is producing documentary films about international law (www.broken-the-film.com) with which he also lectures demonstrating the power of film in humanitarian diplomacy and other fields. His Geneva-based company, AdvocacyProductions (www.advocacyproductions.ch), has showcased and debated his award-winning film “BROKEN – A Palestinian Journey Through International Law” at events worldwide and integrated the film into numerous leading universities’ curricula.
His most recent activities in conjunction with his film work are a ten-day tour of Armenia, exposing his film to populations in conflict zones. He created an interactive presentation for stakeholders at the 2021 Cameroon Peace Summit. Global Human Right Defenders (GHRD), a Hague-based Human Rights organisation, appointed him ‘permanent jury member’ for their Film Festivals.
He continues working in the humanitarian and development domains. Since 2016 he has taken part in over 16 election observation missions for the OSCE and the EU as part of the Swiss Foreign Ministry’s Pool of Human Security Experts, most recently in Kenya, Kazakhstan and Montenegro. Previously he worked for nine years for UNRWA in Palestine. Before that he was on mission with ICRC in numerous conflict zones. He also served as Head of Reporting at OSCE’s eastern Ukraine office in Donetsk in 2014/15.
Stefan Ziegler is an Affiliate Trainer with RedR Training Consultancy in London. He is a member of the Irish and Swiss Emergency Response Teams. He figures on the rosters of the German Development Agency (GIZ) and UNDP’s Early Recovery Advisors. He previously held the position of Strategic Planning Associate at the Irish Peace Institute in Limerick, Ireland where he had lived for over ten years prior to his career in humanitarian action. Recently, PeaceHumanity, a Bratislava based international law NGO appointed him “Patron of Youth Ambassadors for the Right to Peace Movement”, where he lectures and facilitates training events.
Notable teaching and training assignments include communications training at the ECOWAS Kofi Annan Peacekeeping Training Centre in Accra, Ghana, Humanitarian Diplomacy at Abu Dhabi’s Academy of Diplomacy as well as the Ministry of Social Welfare in Iraq. He designed training courses for IFRC and UNDP. He is a guest lecturer at several universities, among them EPFL in Lausanne, the Politecnico di Milano, Lyon 3, the University and the Graduate Institute in Geneva. He has given presentations at the EU Parliament, the UN Headquarters in New York and Geneva and various other international fora.
Mr. Ziegler holds a Masters in International Studies from the University of Limerick, a B.A. in Sociology of Development from the University College Cork, both in Ireland and a Postgraduate Diploma in Humanitarian Assistance from Fordham University in New York.
Stefan G. Ziegler published widely. Among his publications, are articles on filmmaking, international law, and education for the Ecuadorian journal NAWI “Culture, Design and Arts”, where he figured as guest editor and author in their Special Issue on International Relations and Cinematography. Geneva’s Graduate Institute recently published three articles entitled “Advocacy, what’s in a name?”.
“Communicating the Community” appeared in the journal Humanitarian Assistance in West Africa and Beyond. The “West Bank Wall – Impacts on the environment, agriculture, water supply and waste management” was published in the Swiss Urban Landscape and Architecture Magazine, Athos.
He co-authored the chapter “Academic Cooperation to Foster Research and Advocacy Competences in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (West Bank)” published by Springer in 2013. Many of his writings are found in publications by the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and UNRWA on issues of advocacy in relation to the West Bank Wall.
In 2014 he started his first film BROKEN based on his experience with International Law in the field.
In 2022 he started researching for the film “The Mandate” which is his first feature documentary as director/producer. It is the result of over 25 years of humanitarian practice in conflict zones the world over and is based on his Action Advocacy to strengthen International Law, telling stories to create a shared awareness. He believes firmly that International Law is a language for Peace which he feels compelled to reveal to all those for whom it matters. Only a language in use has relevance and can be understood and communicated, such is International Law.
“The Mandate” is thus the continuation of employing film in education, learning and sharing value.