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Ajith Nivard Cabraal made the Case Presentation on the topic "Civil society and conflict management" at the International Conference on Federalism held in St. Gallen, Switzerland, from August 27 to 30. He was an invitee of the Federal Council of the Swiss Confederation and the Conference of Cantonal Governments of Switzerland. The Conference served as an interaction and learning opportunity for more than 500 key politicians, senior civil servants, scholars, representatives of the business community and specially handpicked young people from 50 countries.

The deliberations at the Conference was on the theme, "Federalism in a changing world - learning from each others", and the thrust of the conference was to critically examine the political processes that need to be implemented in order to strike a balance between the power exercised and the roles played by Central Governments and State and Local units to which political and administrative power has been devolved. At this conference, three main topics were discussed. These were (a) Federalism and Foreign Relations, (b) Federalism, Decentralism and Conflict Management in Multicultural Societies, and (c) Assignment of Responsibilities and Fiscal Federalism.

The Conference was addressed by the Presidents of Switzerland, Germany, Mali, Yugoslavia, and Austria, as well as by the Prime Ministers of Belgium and Canada. The Minister of Defence of India, a Justice of the Supreme Court of the USA, and the Vice President of the European Convention also contributed their views.

The Conference deliberated upon the benefits and challenges of Federalism and the issues involved; the methodologies developed so far to tackle communal, language, ethnic, tribal rivalries and governance issues; how consensus democracy can be pursued and achieved; how divided and conflicting communities can be integrated; and how a "constitutional tool kit" could be developed to be made use of by nations who are attempting to manage conflict in multi-cultural societies.

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