Graduate Center Celebrates 60 Years of UN, New Publications

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan spoke at The Graduate Center June 1 to celebrate both the institution's 60th anniversary and two new publications from The Graduate Center's United Nations Intellectual History Project (UNIHP), a multiyear, multinational effort to produce a history of the organization's economic and social contributions since 1945.

Opening the event, entitled "The Importance of People and Ideas at the UN," Secretary-General Annan spoke of the UN's ongoing commitment to fighting poverty and protecting human rights, and the importance of preserving the history of ideas developed in the institution.

"I am very glad... that so much has been produced in such a short time," Annan said, "and that it has all been carried out to the most rigorous standards of academic independence and excellence. The results speak for themselves."

The Secretary-General concluded by thanking the UN Intellectual History Project and Ralph Bunche Institute "for filling a significant gap in our collective institutional memory. These publications are very timely," he noted, "coming in a very important year for the United Nations."

After remarks by former Graduate Center President Frances Degen Horowitz, Intellectual History Project co-director Richard Jolly then spoke of the lessons of the first 60 years at the UN. A panel discussion on the "State of the Struggle for Development and Social Justice" followed, with panelists Margaret Anstee, Noeleen Heyzer, Gert Rosenthal, and journalist James Traub; the panel was moderated by Graduate Center Presidential Professor of Political Science and Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies Director Thomas G. Weiss, who co-directs the Intellectual History Project.

UN Voices: The Struggle for Development & Social Justice and The Power of UN Ideas: Lessons from the First 60 Years are the two latest publications in the Project's publication series, in which a series of books will be published and a total of 73 oral histories have been compiled.

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UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan

Secretary-General Annan with United Nations Intellectual History Project co-director Thomas Weiss; Photos: A. Poyo