Sometimes it may seem that beings on this planet have reached their present state through survival of the fittest–and among the fittest, perhaps the most fierce, the most capable at combat. However, even more has been achieved through cooperation, through friendship, through care and concern. We have found that no matter how coercively force is structured, it achieves limited and shaky results.

Also, sometimes it may seem that happiness depends solely on economic success and failure. However, to a greater extent happiness depends upon the morality of cooperation, friendship, care, and concern. We have found that even though a modicum of economic success is essential, it is not sufficient for happiness.

Two types of experiments–one focused on state control and another focused on unbridled greed–have run their course; these have shown that without respect for human rights, conflict inevitably arises, thereby undermining the very control and economic development that are sought. Power and money, when not constrained from within each person out of a concern for others' rights, eventually turn against themselves, undoing the benefits for which they were sought.

While many who strive to bring the world into balance work in relative anonymity, several have received international recognition for their selfless efforts. Such is the case with the nine great hearts and minds who have agreed to convene in Charlottesville at the University of Virginia for the Nobel Peace Laureates Conference on Human Rights, Conflict, and Reconciliation. These Nobel Peace Laureates will share with the world and with each other their views about the importance of recognizing basic human rights, their concerns about the conflicts that arise when these rights are either not perceived or denied, and their ideas for achieving reconciliation.

At the core of their agenda is the conviction that morality is essential for personal, political, social, and economic balance. They believe that without a personal ethic that includes compassion for other human beings, mere self-concern will eventually undo the fabric even of one's own life.

By organizing this conference, I hope to encourage attention to and discussion of these topics. It is also my hope that by witnessing these conversations by and among the Nobel Peace Laureates, and through asking questions of them, we will be stimulated to reflect on the often complicated and difficult implementation of attitudes and techniques for peace.

People have asked me in recent months how the idea for the conference originated. It started with discussions with Michele Bohana, Director of the Institute for Asian Democracy. My relationship with His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, and Michele's relationship with Betty Williams and other Nobel Peace Laureates led us to speculate about the provocative results of bringing these and other Laureates together to discuss their ongoing work for peace.

I subsequently shared our idea with Raymond J. Nelson, who was then dean of the College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, while we were attending a luncheon and waiting for the arrival of the Emperor of Japan. Nelson embraced the idea and presented it to the president of the University, John T. Casteen III, in September 1996. Two days before Christmas of that year, the three of us met, and President Casteen committed significant initial funds from his own office. I then took a proposal for the Conference to the Page-Barbour and Richard Lecture Series Committee, which supplied the majority of the funding.

Of the 21 living Nobel Peace Laureates, we invited several whom we knew had participated in group efforts before. One such effort had taken place in Thailand on behalf of fellow laureate Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma; a second group effort had taken place in New York to establish a code of conduct for arms transfers. We also invited last year's Nobel Peace Prize recipients. Nine of the 11 Laureates we contacted were able to accept our invitations.

Melvyn P. Leffler, the new dean of the College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, was especially helpful in providing logistical support and in suggesting the names of 11 professors to develop an educational lead-up to the Conference. This group produced a series of 60 lectures, panel discussions, and films at the University of Virginia and other Charlottesville venues from September to November.

More than 20 University staff members, representing departments too numerous to list, were also crucial to the success of the Conference. This group literally made everything possible. I have been continually amazed at their expertise, good humor, volunteerism, and flexibility in working across departmental lines. I must also acknowledge the contributions of our always effective conference coordinator Bryan Phillips. This young scholar has played an important role in making the conference a reality.

As I see it, the aim of all the hard work by the administration, faculty, staff, and students involved in this Conference is to provide an atmosphere for provocative conversation among the Peace Laureates on the stage of Cabell Hall Auditorium on November 5-6. The aim of that conversation is communication to the audience in the Hall and to many others through simulcast transmission at the University, through Adelphia cable, through satellite transmission over North America, through Internet transmission, and through distribution by the United States Information Agency to 130 countries. The aim of that communication is to stimulate individuals and groups to reflection on and discussion of agendas for peace. The aim of that reflection and discussion is the implementation of techniques that will effect a diminishment of suffering.

I feel that the aims of the Conference will be fulfilled when I hear that someone–anywhere in the world–became inspired from even a single statement during it and strove to alleviate a level of conflict and pain. There is a good chance that this will happen, since these Laureates are persons who have, over a long period time, striven in the face of difficult odds to achieve a measure of peace and thus can speak with the wisdom of experience and heartfelt conviction.

With wishes to all of you for stimulating inquiry into the sources of our conflicts and of our highest ethical aspirations, I remain,

Yours sincerely,