The thinking that led to the creation of the International Risk Governance Council (IRGC) began in 1999 during the 10th Forum Engelberg (www.forum-engelberg.org) at which delegates identified the need for fresh views and a new type of organisation to provide an independent and innovative approach to risk governance. At its conclusion, conference participants agreed a resolution that set in motion the events that led to IRGC’s founding.
Click here for full text of the Forum Engelberg Resolution
Between 1999 and 2002 a High Level Working Group developed a proposal for a new independent, international body focusing on the management of emerging risk. This proposal recommended that IRGC’s mission should be to become a leading institution for the compilation of knowledge and provision of tools in risk governance and to assist the public sector in improving the substantive as well as the procedural quality of risk evaluation and risk management. The IRGC should become a source of independent, unified, authoritative and timely information on issues of risk governance.
Click here for full text of the Proposal developed by the High Level Working Group
In January 2002, this proposal was presented to a Round Table meeting in Zurich attended by invited representatives from governments, governmental and non-governmental organisations, industry, academia, and the media. The meeting concluded by confirming the purpose, structure and working approach of the new organisation, which was to be called the International Risk Governance Council. Later that year, an initial Board was formed to plan and oversee IRGC’s formation.
In the winter of 2002-2003, the Swiss government recommended to the Swiss Parliament that IRGC should be supported financially and the initial priorities for IRGC’s first project work were developed in a stakeholder-driven evaluation process.
In June 2003 IRGC was formally founded as a private foundation under Articles 80 and onwards of the Swiss Civil Code and located in Geneva.
IRGC’s founders were Adolf Ogi, UN Special Adviser on Sport for Development and Peace and former Swiss Federal Councillor, Olaf Kübler, President of ETH Zurich, J. Bennett Johnston, US Senator (Louisiana) 1972-1997, Donald Johnston, Secretary-General of the OECD, KunMo Chung, President of Korean Hoseo University, and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development represented by Björn Stigson.