ICORN lecture 2025: Jan Egeland
Birk Florian Fischer Magnussen
30.05.2025
When: Friday 19 September
Venue: Stavanger Cathedral (Stavanger domkirke)
Tickets for sale early June. Sign up to our newsletter to get notified for presale-tickets!
ICORN-lecuture 2025: Jan Egeland - The courage for fight for freedom, justice and solidarity in a world falling apart
We live in trying, challenging times. The values of human rights, freedom of expression and international solidarity are under increasing pressure worldwide. As unresolved crises are mounting up in Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine, what are bold statements and political alliances worth, when aid is cut on a global scale, and borders are closing to those in most dire need of protection?
Jan Egeland has been Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council since 2013. He has 30 years of experience from international work with human rights, humanitarian crises and conflict resolution, and was among the initiators of the peace negotiations that led to the Oslo accords between Israel and the PLO in 1993. Among many other important roles, Egeland was State Secretary in the Norwegian Ministry for Foreign Affairs, he has been UN Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs with Kofi Annan, he was Europe Director for Human Rights Watch, and was in June 2021 appointed as Eminent Person of The Grand Bargain Initiative.
20 years with ICORN in Stavanger
In 2025 it’s 20 years since a small group of cities gathered in Stavanger and decided to form ICORN, the International Cities of Refuge Network. Since then, 400 persecuted writers and artists have found refuge in on of ICORN’s at present 87 member cities around the world. ICORN’s secretariat is placed at Sølvberget in Stavanger
Former ICORN lectures at the Kapittel Festival:
Svetlana Alexievich, Andrè Glucksman, Masha Gessen, Carsten Jensen, Anne Applebaum, Erika Fatland, Andrei Kurkov, Mohamedou Ould Slahi, Lyndsey Stonebridge, Wole Soyinka and others.
