Posted on: Tuesday, October 30, 2001
Island Voices
U.N.'s work well recognized
By Carolyn Stephenson
When the Nobel committee awarded its centenary Peace Prize to the United Nations and its secretary-general, Kofi Annan, on Oct. 12, it was the first time the award had gone directly to the U.N.
The committee honored the U.N. and the secretary-general "for their work for a better organized and more peaceful world." It recognized Annan's work with respect to both peace and security as well as human rights.
The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to other parts of the U.N. system many times, honoring the wide variety of approaches to peace that the U.N. represents.
Dag Hammarskjold, the second U.N. secretary-general, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize posthumously in 1961 for his work in creating "peace and goodwill among nations and men." Hammarskjold's "quiet diplomacy" both directly strengthened peace negotiations and strengthened the organization.
Ralph Bunche also received a Nobel Prize in 1950 for his U.N. mediation in the early stages of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
U.N. organizations received five peace prizes.
The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, founded in 1951, was awarded the prize twice, in 1954 and 1981, for its assistance to the rising numbers of refugees in the face of political difficulties.
In 1965, the committee awarded the prize to UNICEF (then the U.N. International Children's Emergency Fund, now the U.N. Children's Fund), emphasizing UNICEF's "realization that children provide they key to the future" and its work in forging "solidarity between the rich and the poor countries." How many of us in the United States first learned about the work of the U.N. by collecting for UNICEF in those little orange boxes every Halloween?
The 1969 prize to the International Labor Organization, a specialized agency of the U.N. that had been founded at the time of the foundation of the League of Nations in 1919, was based on the ILO's fundamental idea that "If you desire peace, cultivate justice."
In 1988, the prize went to the U.N. peace-keeping forces, which have "contributed to reducing tensions where an armistice has been negotiated but a peace treaty has yet to be established."
On the same day the Nobel Prize was awarded to the U.N. and its secretary-general, Annan predicted that the global anti-terrorism coalition forged after Sept. 11 would hold together. He added that "the military aspect, which for the moment we are all focused on, is going to be a very small part of the fight in the long run."
The U.N. has worked for years on the development of international treaties against terrorism, providing an international legal infrastructure that is the basis of much of the work now being done to stop terrorism.
The General Assembly Legal Committee is currently developing a comprehensive convention on the elimination of terrorism. High school students in Hawai'i, incidentally, will be simulating the U.N.'s work on the prevention of terrorism during the annual Hawai'i Model U.N., to be held during International Education Week in November and December.
The U.S. payment of its U.N. dues after the Sept. 11 events showed it recognized the importance of the U.N. in building a global coalition and framework of international law against terrorism. The next step is for the U.S. to ratify the many international human rights and other treaties that embody its own ideals, beginning with the International Criminal Court, the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Carolyn Stephenson is associate professor of political science at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa and director of the Hawai'i Model U.N.
