Former Irish PM to speak at conference

Former Irish Prime Minister Garret FitzGerald is to address an international conference on The Diplomacy of Small States at the Coastline Hotel on Thursday and Friday.

Mr FitzGerald was Prime Minister from July 1981 to February 1982 and from December 1982 to March 1987, as well as the leader of the Fine Gael party (Christian Democrat) between 1977 and 1987.

He will talk about How Small And Big States Negotiate.

The conference is being organised by the DiploFoundation in partnership with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Commonwealth Secretariat and the Swiss Agency for Development and Co-operation.

Other international speakers include Alan Henrikson from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, who will discuss The Large Diplomacy Of Small States, and Mathhias Maass from the National University of Singapore, who will be talking about Small States' Foreign Policy From The Perspective Of International Relations Theory.

Local speakers include Lino Briguglio, director of the Islands and Small States Institute at the Foundation for International Studies, Ambassador Victor Camilleri, Malta's Permanent Representative to the UN in New York, and former Foreign Affairs Minister Alex Sceberras Trigona.

For more information, or to register, one may send an e-mail to conference@ diplomacy.edu, visit the conference website at www.diplomacy.edu/Conferences/SmallStates or call 2133 3323.