From July 1stto July 2nd, Mrs. Maria Cristina Cárdenas Fischer from the Secretariats of the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm conventions and Mr. Craig Boljkovac who has more than ten years of experience working in UNITAR（U. N. Institute for Training and Research） came to School of Environment to teach the summer course International organizations and environmental conventions for GEP students. From this course, students enjoyed a harvest of knowledge.
Mrs. Cristina is chief of technical assistance branch of the secretariat, and has worked as a government official of Columbia dealing with environmental convention negotiations. She has rich experience in negotiating as well as working in an international organization.
During this two-day course, Mrs. Cristina gave students an overview on the three conventions, how they are connected and the structure of the joint secretariat. Specially, Mrs. Cristina showed students more details of Stockholm Convention, right from people having consensus of needing a convention, the draft being negotiated to the convention coming into effect and making contributions to the world. The lecture was so lively with Mrs. Cristina sharing lots of her stories, her observations and her thoughts.
As a professional negotiator, Mrs. Cristina introduced skills of negotiating to attending students, the content is precious for students yet studying in school.
On the afternoon of July 2nd, Mrs. Cristina organized students to simulate a contact group to work on the road map of action for Cartagena declaration. Representatives have gone through disputes and reached a compromised result. Mrs. Cristina highly remarked on students’ performance and gave valuable suggestions. By learning and doing, attendees reached a new level of understanding negotiation skills.
Mr. Craig Boljkovac is  helping in Basel Convention regional centre for Asia and Pacific part-time, and will be teaching courses for SOE students next semester. Mr. Boljkovac talked about other information on environmental organizations and the structure of the UN system. At the end of the lecture, Mrs. Cristina presented students with procedures of applying for internship in the UN, and welcomed GEP students to work for the UN.

   Mrs. Maria Cristina Cardenas Fischer is delivering lecture to Global Environment Program Students