2001: the United Nations and Kofi Annan: 'the only negotiable route to global peace' - The Nobel Prize

UN Chronicle, Sept-Nov, 2003

The centenary year of Nobel Prizes gave the Nobel Committee pause. It was time to consider historical continuities, the ideals of the unity of mankind and the promotion of justice and humanity as envisaged by Alfred Nobel. The culmination of this scrutiny was the recognition of the United Nations and Secretary-General Kofi Annan as the Nobel Peace Laureates for the first year of the new century--the first time the Organization as a whole and its serving chief executive had been so directly honoured The Prize was to applaud the spirit of strengthening cooperation among States, the promotion of global peace and security, as well as the international mobilization aimed at meeting the economic, social and environmental challenges of the world. The award also clearly demonstrated the conviction of the Norwegian Nobel Committee that the United Nations had come into its own, acting more fully the part it was meant to play and achieving many successes, despite occasional setbacks. The Committee proclaimed that "the only negotiable route to global peace and cooperation goes by way of the United Nations".

The Peace Prize was a vindication for the Organization since even as it challenges criticisms of being without power or effectiveness--it can recount its successes in peacekeeping operations, economic and human development, and human rights protection, operating as an instrument of peace, a focal point for international law and a forum for development of inter-racial understanding and amity. From the "repercussions of the Gulf War, the wars in the former Yugoslavia and especially in Kosovo, the status of East Timor (Timor-Leste), the war in the Congo and the implementation of the UN resolutions concerning the Middle East", the list of its global outreach is impressive. In his presentation speech, Nobel Committee Chairman Gunnar Berge said the UN had achieved more than its founders believed possible. "The UN could have won the award so often that in the end it never did." Its success lies in the fact, he said, that greater and smaller powers have been able to come together to face diverse global, regional and local challenges. Noting that the Prize was being awarded by the Committee in its centenary year, the citation proclaimed "that the only negotiable route to global peace and cooperation goes by way of the United Nations".

In its reference to Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the citation describes his pre-eminence "in bringing new life to the Organization....In an organization that can hardly become more than its members permit, he has made clear that sovereignty cannot be a shield behind which Member States conceal their violations."

"While clearly underlining the UN's traditional responsibility for peace and security, he has also emphasized its obligations with regard to human rights. He has risen to such new challenges as HIV/AIDS and international terrorism and brought about more efficient utilization of the UN's modest resources." In his remarks at the award ceremony, Mr. Berge observed that "no one has done more than Kofi Annan to revitalize the UN", giving it in a short time "an external prestige and an internal morale the likes of which the Organization had hardly seen in its over fifty-year history."

In the speech honouring the United Nations and its Secretary-General, the Nobel Committee declared that the accelerating pace of globalization was an imperative that called for the Organization to play an active role in managing the affairs of nations fairly, "if not in the form of a centralized world government then at least as the more efficient global instrument which the world so sorely needs"

Kofi Annan, a champion of human rights with a profound awareness of the sanctity and dignity of each individual, spoke of protecting human dignity regardless of religion or race. "Today's real borders are not between nations, but between the powerful and powerless, free and fettered, privileged and humiliated", he stated in his Nobel Lecture. Calling for a greater participatory role of the UN in the fight against international terrorism, he said that humanitarian or human rights crises in one part of the world have been seen to lead to national security crises in another--"a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon rainforest can generate a violent storm on the other side of the earth".

The Secretary-General is the first to be elected to the post from the ranks of UN staff. Born in Ghana and educated in Africa, Europe and the United States, his career spans years of service at the World Health Organization, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, and in human resources management, budget and finance, and peace-keeping. As UN Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping, he oversaw the deployment of nearly 70,000 military and civilian personnel in UN operations around the world

There were men and women among them who never returned home. In 2003, the United Nations and Mr. Annan decided to honour them by making available in its entirety the $1-million Nobel Peace Prize award, as a lasting tribute to peacekeepers, through the establishment of a memorial fund which will provide financial assistance for the education of the children of U N civilian personnel killed in the line of duly. Thus the Nobel Peace Prize money goes to honour, fittingly, those who will no longer be dubbed "the forgotten staff".