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Port of Call |
LAST UPDATE July 12, 2005
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| site design imagesparkle.com |
| August 8, 2003 |
New York City, United States – Peace Boat Conference in the United Nations |
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| Peace Boat participants learning about the workings of the United Nations |
A dialogue on "Towards a Nuclear-Weapons-Free and Peaceful Northeast Asia," was organised at the United Nations by a partnership of Peace Boat, UNIFEM (United Nations Development Fund for Women) and the NGO Section of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations. Participants included the UN Under-Secretary General for Disarmament, Nobuyasu Abe; Chief of the NGO Section of DESA, Hanifa Mezoui; Peace and Security Adviser at UNIFEM, Felicity Hill; President of the Hague Appeal for Peace, Cora Weiss, along with over 200 Peace Boat participants from Japan and Korea.
Developing out of Peace Boat's Forum Onboard, in which Japanese, South Korean and US peace activists and scholars worked to identify peaceful solutions to the crisis in the Northeast Asian region, this dialogue sought to identify roles for the United Nations and civil society to play in de-escalating the emerging conflict. The results of the Forum, in the form of a position paper, whose key recommendation was the establishment of a Nuclear-Weapons Free Zone in the region, were presented to Mr Abe.
This dialogue and the Forum onboard link in with Peace Boat's Japan-based work to build civil society links between the people of Japan and the Koreas, as a proactive attempt to reverse the militarist trend in the region, and represent also Peace Boat's mission to further raise the voice of civil society at the United Nations.
Prior to the meeting, Peace Boat participants were given a guided tour of the United Nations building in New York to learn about the history, structure and some of the major institutions and initiatives of this organisation, which came into existence in the wake of the horror of WWII, whose mission is summed up in the Preamble to its Charter, which states, "We, the peoples of the United Nations, determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war... to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights to live together in peace have resolved to combine our efforts to accomplish these aims" |
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| Representatives of the Peace Boat and the UN listen to presentations calling for the UN and international civil society to become more actively involved in building a nuclear-free peace in Northeast Asia |
Speakers including Akira Kawasaki of Peace Boat, who presented the paper, commented on the need for the UN to take a more proactive role in fostering meaningful dialogue between Japan, North and South Korea and to help create the necessary preconditions for the normalization of relations. Wook Sik Cheong, a forum participant from Civil Network for a Peaceful Korea, spoke from a South Korean perspective asking for more dialogue at both a government and civil society level to promote peace and reconciliation. |
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| Panelists (L-R): Felicity Hill (UNIFEM), Hanifa Mezoui (DESA), Nobuyasu Abe (USG for Disarmament Affairs), Ryo Ijichi (Peace Boat), Fumiko Amano (Hiroshima bomb survivor), Akira Kawasaki (Peace Boat) |
Hanifa Mezoui, Chief of the NGO Section of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs at the UN spoke of the increasingly important role of NGOs within the UN system and in the broader context of international society as actors for positive social change. Cora Weiss from the Hague Appeal for Peace called for greater efforts to be made to raise awareness in the US and around the world through peace education.
UN Undersecretary General for Disarmament Affairs, Nobuyasu Abe accepted the position paper and reflected the importance of NGOs in pushing for disarmament and encouraging them to work at a national level as a way to influence the governments' and at the same time UN policy. Felicity Hill of UNIFEM highlighted the important role of women in furthering peace and disarmament and called for greater representation of women at the UN. |
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