Jean Ziegler 1934–2026, a monument of integrity and intellectual honesty

I met Jean Ziegler at the PEN Club in Geneva more than thirty years ago. I already knew many of his books and was impressed by his clarity and coherence, his courage to take on the military-industrial-financial-media-academic complex, his resolute rejection of colonialism, neo-colonialism, imperialism and their sequels. Ziegler was well aware that speaking truth to power would bring hostility and defamation against him, as Terentius wrote: veritas odium parit. In other words, he expected pushback from those whom he exposed as aggressors, war mongers, corrupt politicians, white-collar criminals or genocidal killers.

His last book “Où est l’Espoir” (Seuil, Paris 2024) reveals how Ziegler was profoundly committed to making the planet a better place to live for all of us. He warned about predator capitalism, opportunism, exploitation and nihilism. He exposes the hypocrisy of our so-called democratic leaders, who are not interested in what the people want or need, and are only out to enrich themselves while giving lip service to “democracy” and the “rule of law”. It is not surprise that he was hated by politicians in the US, UK, France and Germany. The chapter “L’ordre cannibale du monde” (the cannibalistic international order) decries the growing inegalities characterised by billionaires and the abject poor side by side, the betrayal of human rights by the elites, the exploitation of us all by the transnational corporations, in particular the agro-industries. Where is hope? Ziegler asks: In human rationality, in solidarity, in our right and duty to resist. He quotes one of his favourite poets, the Chilean Pablo Neruda, victim of the US ordered coup d’état against Salvador Allende in 1973, in an expression of hope and resilience.
    From 1967 to 1983 and again from 1987 to 1999 he was a Geneva member of the National Council for the Social Democratic Party. His father was a German-speaking magistrate in Thun, where young Hans grew up. In 1953 he enrolled at the Faculty of Law at the University of Bern and later studied sociology in Geneva and, from 1956, sociology in Paris and New York. In 1958 he received his doctorate and became a lecturer in sociology in Bern.
    As a professor of sociology at the University of Geneva, Ziegler inspired his students. I too had the opportunity to attend some of his lectures and meet with him at the university. An elegant and eloquent man, he was very popular with young people, precisely because he was straight-forward and, in spite of the serious issues he dealt with, he displayed a keen sense of humour. He was an institution at the university until his retirement in May 2002, but he continued as permanent visiting professor at the Sorbonne in Paris.
    In his youth he counted Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir among his friends. In fact, it was they who encouraged him to change his first name to Jean.
    He became world-famous primarily thanks to his landmark reports to the UN Commission on Human Rights and later Human Rights Council, where he served as special rapporteur on the right to food from 2000 to 2008. Here he made a name for himself as an advocate for the disadvantaged, the hungry and the malnourished. His reports were raw and shocking. He was also a member of the UN Task Force for Humanitarian Aid in Iraq. From 2008 to 2012 he was a member of the Advisory Committee of the UN Human Rights Council. I myself became UN rapporteur in 2012 and during my six years as an independent expert on international order, I repeatedly consulted him – always generous with his time and a veritable fountain of knowledge.
    Ziegler liked to quote Che Guevara, in particular the iconic statement “hasta la victoria siempre”, urging us not to give up, but to persevere until victory. Ziegler never abandoned the hope that reason will prevail over the insanity of casino economics and savage competition. He strongly believed in the right to international solidarity and supported Virginia Dandan in her efforts to draft a Declaration on the Human Right to International solidarity¹.
    He appreciated the importance of collective rights, not just individual rights, for he knew that for billions of people food, water, shelter and education were far more important than the right to property! Ziegler recognised that the extreme materialism of Western culture was doomed to failure because it was destroying the human acquis of millennia, the importance of spiritual values. He believed in the right to leisure, the right to enjoy life and not be obliged to “produce”. It was more important to be than to do, more important to develop one’s personality than to become a billionaire, more important to live a full life than to accumulate material goods and strive for power over others. Civilization meant love, empathy, solidarity – not skyscrapers and technological gadgets.
    Ziegler knew that after 1945 there was a real hope of a new start based on the UN Charter, which is akin to a world constitution. The UN was phenomenal in standard-setting, rapidly adopting conventions, establishing monitoring mechanisms, lacking, however, implementation powers. The International Court of Justice, akin to a universal constitutional court, similarly lacks the means to enforce judgments and advisory opinions.
    While the UN has failed to prevent wars, it has at least provided a discussion forum, an opportunity to give off steam, since “bla bla is always preferable to boom boom”, e. g. during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, when UN mediation helped prevent nuclear war. What is needed today is a Global Compact on Education for Peace in the spirit of the UNESCO Constitution which reminds us that “since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed.”² A new mindset should follow the motto of the ILO “si vis pacem cole justitiam” – if you want peace, cultivate social justice.  The UN and its agencies including ILO, WHO, WIPO, UNDP, UNEP, UNRWA, remain crucial for the survival of civilized life on the planet.
    If the UN did not exist, humanity would have to establish comparable international institutions to advance peace and development. Ziegler advocated UN reform as a matter of urgency. Many scholars, including myself in my 2013 report to the General Assembly, have made concrete, implementable pragmatic proposals. Alas, the political will of major powers is lacking, and the mainstream media continues to disseminate fake news, fake history and fake law, which hinder constructive dialogue.
    During his career Ziegler travelled a great deal. A committed socialist, he visited Cuba on several occasions. Once, he fell ill in Havana and received blood transfusions, which led him to say he had genuine Cuban blood. Nicolas Wadimoff made a splendid documentary film on Ziegler, which I strongly recommend all readers to see³.
    I fondly remember a lovely dinner invitation at the home of Dr. Fawzia Assaad, my predecessor as President of PEN International Centre Suisse romand. The widow of a high-ranking ILO official and herself an accomplished novelist with many superb books, Fawzia was a wonderful host. That evening I also met Ziegler’s wife Erica Deuber, an art historian, professor, and lively conversationalist.
    We talked about world literature, but also about the world surrounding us, about politicians in Switzerland, France, Germany, the United States. We talked about peace as a human right, recognising that there can be no sustainable peace if there is structural violence, if there is racism, discrimination, segregation. Surely no peace can ever emerge if we continue killing each other’s children. Only by changing the paradigm of endemic exploitation, by breaking the vicious circle of violence can be hope to arrive at harmonious relations with each other.
    Bob Dylan’s unanswered questions remain relevant today: “How many times must a man look up before he can see the sky? How many ears must one man have, before he can hear people cry?” Are the answers just blowing in the wind? Or will the questions remain unanswered, made irrelevant by our hypocrisy, gone with our tardy vestiges of human kindness?
    Ziegler was must concerned with the Orwellian destruction of language, the weaponisation of human rights, relentless media disinformation, wrong budgetary priorities, military interventions, sanctions and blockades, censorship and self-censorship. How many deaths will it take ‘til we know that too many people have died? Pete Seeger’s “ubi sunt” lyrics also remain unanswered. “Where have all the flowers gone?” – Gone to graveyards everyone. Will our leaders ever learn? Will we? These and other topics we discussed during that memorable evening.
    I particularly cherish a telephone conversation I had with Ziegler in June 2024, when my wife Carla and I were on the train returning from the Hermann-Hesse Tage in Sils-Maria. Suddenly my wife’s mobile phone rang. (I refuse to have a mobile because I don’t want to be followed by the CIA everywhere). It was Ziegler, who had my wife’s mobile number and had tried unsuccessfully to reach me at home. He wanted to thank me for the long letter I had addressed to him for his 90th birthday on 19 April 2024. We talked for a good half hour about everything, including my Hesse translations that had been on the agenda at Sils-Maria. He shared with me his love for Rilke and Hesse poems. He sounded inspired, happy!
    Ziegler left us on 10 June 2026, but not as orphans. He also left us with a mandate to continue his work, implementing his UN reports and books, including the following:

• Le Livre noir du capitalisme (The Black Book of Capitalism), co-authored, Le Temps des Cerises, 1998.
• Der Aufstand des Gewissens: Die nicht-gehaltene Festspielrede (The Revolt of Conscience: The Festival Speech That Was Never Delivered), Salzburg 2011
• Betting on Famine: Why the World Still Goes Hungry, The New Press, New York 2013. •

¹https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/position-papers/declaration-right-international-solidarity
²https://www.unesco.org/en/legal-affairs/constitution
³http://rts.ch/play/tv/documentaires/video/jean-ziegler-loptimisme-de-la-volonte?urn=urn:rts:video:d2203651-ba77-3862-8516-b54403b764cf