University of Virginia Press Release
July, 1998

NOBEL PEACE LAUREATES TO DISCUSS HUMAN RIGHTS, CONFLICT AND RECONCILIATION

      An international group of Nobel Peace Prize recipients will convene at the University of Virginia this fall for a two-day forum to discuss their current efforts to promote peace and human rights around the world, University President John T. Casteen III announced today. An extensive educational program of panels and lectures on peace-related issues will lead up to the historic conference.

      The Nobel Peace Laureates Conference on Human Rights, Conflict and Reconciliation, to be held in Charlottesville Nov. 5 and 6, is co-sponsored by the Washington-based Institute for Asian Democracy. Participants will include His Holiness the Dalai Lama, spiritual and political leader of Tibet and worldwide symbol of non-violent advocacy; former President Oscar Arias Sanchez of Costa Rica, architect of Central American peace initiatives and promoter of arms control; Jose Ramos-Horta of East Timor, recogized for his efforts to resolve the East Timor-Indonesian conflict; Rigoberta Menchu Tum of Guatemala, leading advocate of indigenous peoples' rights and ethnic reconciliation; Betty Williams, whose work in Northern Ireland helped forge a "peoples' power" movement; and Jody Williams of the United States, whose grassroots campaign to ban landmines raised awareness worldwide. Bobby Muller, president of the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation who co-founded the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, also will attend. 1984 Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, who has worked for reconciliation in post-apartheid South Africa as head of the country's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, will attend the first day's sessions. 1991 Nobel recipient Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma, whose work to restore democracy to her country, will have someone participate on her behalf as she is unable to leave Burma.

       Civil rights leader Julian Bond, national chair of the NAACP and a U.Va. civil rights historian, will moderate the discussions.

      "Bringing together these world leaders will be an extraordinary event. To be able to participate in discussions with those who have made peace their life's work will be a powerful learning experience for our students -- as well as for our entire University community," Casteen said. "We are honored that such distinguished laureates have chosen to attend this historic gathering."

       The Nobel peace laureates will meet in the University's Old Cabell Hall Auditorium for morning and afternoon discussions both days before an audience of students, faculty and members of the public, said P. Jeffrey Hopkins, professor of religious studies and organizer of the conference.

      "We want to provide a stimulating setting for these persons of great heart and mind to gather and for others to hear and participate," said Hopkins, a Tibetan studies specialist who has long worked closely with the Dalai Lama as a translator of his writings. "Each laureate will make a presentation on his or her concerns and objectives and then discuss that topic with a panel of the others in an open forum. We are sure to witness some valuable and interesting discussion."

       In addition to their public forums, the laureates will meet with students who have been studying their work and will be guests at private University functions during their stay. A press conference with the laureates will conclude the two-day event.

       The idea for the conference originated when Hopkins and Michele Bohana, director of the Institute for Asian Democracy, discussed ways in which Nobel laureates could be brought together to advance international peace iniatives. Hopkins serves as the institute's president.

      The pre-conference discussions and lectures in the fall will be an important focus of the 1998-99 academic year at the University, said Dean of Arts and Sciences Melvyn P. Leffler, an historian and authority on the origins of the cold war. Leffler, who was a fellow at the Nobel Peace Institute in Oslo where he lectured and conducted research this summer, said U.Va. students will have an opportunity to examine this fall such issues as the causes of war and conflict, international children's rights, social injustice, and the role of women in peacemaking.

       Conference proceedings will be published by the University Press of Virginia as a book. Free admission tickets for each of the four sessions in the 800-seat auditorium will become available for the University community and public at a date to be announced in the fall--check the Ticket Distribution page for details. Conference sessions also will be shown live on closed-circuit TV at locations around the U.Va. Grounds on campus on channel 43, and in Charlottesville, VA on Adelphia Cable channel 14. Satellite broadcast of the conference will be available throughout North America on the channels shown on the Broadcast of the Conference page. Conference details are regularly updated on this web site.

      All of the conferees continue to pursue the broad themes and causes for which they have been recognized by the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

Nobel Peace Laureates Conference Participants and Themes

Moderator: Julian Bond, Department of History, University of Virginia

Questions should be addressed to: