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Release Date: January 27, 2005
Nobel Laureates Express Support for
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan
NEW YORK – Seventy Nobel Laureates in Peace, Medicine, Literature, Physics, Chemistry, and Economics announced today their support for their fellow Nobel Laureate, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. In a signed statement, they commended the UN leader for, “effectively leveraging his moral authority, independence, and wisdom to elevate the United Nations to meet its highest principles.” The signed statement is attached.
The list includes former presidents Jimmy Carter, Mikhail Gorbachev, and Kim Dae-Jung, well-known authors such as Elie Wiesel, Toni Morrison, Nadine Gordimer, and Seamus Heaney, and international organizations such as Amnesty International. Additionally, the list contains scientists, doctors, and economists who have made groundbreaking discoveries to their fields and who, “have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind.”
The laureates expressed their, “deepest respect and support for Kofi Annan and the values he has embraced in his lifetime of work for peace and security.” They cited his leadership in combating terrorism, establishing the Global AIDS Fund, inspiring the Millennium Development Goals to free the world’s poor from poverty, and initiating efforts to improve the UN’s capability to tackle the challenges to peace and security.
The Nobel laureates came together to show their support for Kofi Annan amid criticisms of the Secretary-General and the United Nations for implementation of the Oil-for-Food program, a program established by the UN Security Council in 1995 that provided food and medicine to 25 million Iraqis while it was under sanctions. As he enters the final two years of his term, the Secretary General plans to initiate a series of comprehensive reforms designed to improve the UN’s performance, accountability and transparency. His leadership, recognized by his fellow Nobel Laureates, is critical to the success of this effort.
The Nobel committee awarded Secretary-General Annan and the UN the Nobel Peace Prize during the 2001 celebration of the centenary of the Nobel Prizes. The committee has given the coveted prize to the UN in the past, including to the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations in 1988, the UN Fund for Children (UNICEF) in 1965, and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in both 1954 and 1981.
The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Secretary-General Annan for his work to address proactively the most serious global challenges, in particular his leadership after the attacks of September 11th to give the UN a stronger role in the fight against international terrorism. Upon awarding the prize that year, the chair of the Nobel Committee stated, “The Committee… felt a need to emphasize the continuous theme of the history of the prize, the hope for a better organized and more peaceful world. Nothing symbolizes that hope, or represents that reality, better than the United Nations.” He went on to state, “No one has done more than Kofi Annan to revitalize the United Nations.”
According to Alfred Nobel, this famed prize was to be given to the person who had done the most for “fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”
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