Message from the President

The twenty-first century awaited us with a series of planetary challenges that we could not have imagined even in the darkest scenarios just a decade after the end of the Cold War. A good two decades later, we are witnessing the crisis of the democratic order, the accumulation of military conflicts, genocidal threats to the existence of nations and minorities, and the decline of fundamental human rights. The Council for decades enabled scholars from both sides of the Iron Curtain to get together, while a simple look at its current World Network shows the inclusivity of representatives of countries and regions from all sides of geopolitical, economic, and scholarly spectra, united by the values shared in documents such as the Declaration of Ethical Principles and Professional Integrity and the Statement and Activities in View of Decolonization of Music and Dance Studies.