Geneva is a worldwide centre for diplomacy and international cooperation, and is widely regarded as a global city, mainly because of the presence of numerous international organisations, including the headquarters of many of the agencies of the United Nations and the Red Cross. It is also the place where the Geneva Conventions were signed, which chiefly concern the treatment of wartime non-combatants and prisoners of war.
Geneva has been described as the world's sixth most important financial centre by the Global Financial Centres Index, ahead of Tokyo, Chicago, Frankfurt and Sydney, and a 2007 survey by Mercer Consulting found Geneva to have the second-highest quality of life in the world (narrowly outranked by Zürich). The city has been refered as "the world's smallest metropolis" and the "Peace Capital".