An Excellent Choice for Speaker

United Nations (U.N.) Secretary-General Kofi A. Annan’s acceptance of the University’s offer to give the Commencement address makes this year’s degree recipients exceptionally fortunate. The University could hardly have chosen a figure of greater distinction and importance to speak to its graduates at the June ceremonies. One of the world’s most influential diplomats and, together with the U.N., the winner of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize, Annan is an especially authentic voice for encouraging public service among some of the country’s best young thinkers. And his invitation is an honorable move on Harvard’s part to draw more attention to the importance of international coalition building.

In his capacities as head of U.N. Peacekeeping and later as Secretary-General, Annan has been at the center of many successful U.N. projects and has catalyzed fundamental changes in the scope of the organization’s peacekeeping operations. He promoted a changeover to civilian government in Nigeria in 1998, assembled an international response to the 1999 conflict in East Timor, established an ongoing mission on the Eritrea-Ethiopia border in 2000—largely restoring security after a war that killed tens of thousands—and worked to verify Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon that same year. Under Annan’s leadership, U.N. peacekeeping efforts have undergone an important metamorphosis: once confined to supervising the observance of ceasefires and peace agreements, they have expanded over the last decade to include disbanding warring forces, assisting refugees, participating in reconstruction and arranging elections.

But Annan’s influence on international events extends far beyond peacekeeping. His 2000 Millennium Report outlined a wide range of commitments, which he called on member states to undertake jointly. And in such initiatives as the 1999 “Global Compact” and the 2001 “Call to Action,” he has personally spearheaded plans for action against such challenges of growing magnitude as globalization and HIV/AIDS. Annan’s tireless dedication to promoting international collaboration and adapting the U.N.’s work to the ever-evolving catalog of world problems distinguishes him as one of today’s most eminent public servants and an especially compelling Commencement speaker.

Annan’s critics will not fail to disapprove of the University’s choice, however, and the Secretary-General’s career, to be sure, does contain some troubling missteps. Kofi Annan and the U.N.’s peacekeepers have been painfully absent from some of the bloodiest conflicts of the ’90s. The political genocides that claimed one million lives in Rwanda in 1994 and more than 7000 lives in Srebrenica in 1995 are widely recognized to be the result of U.N. peacekeeping failures, and Annan has admitted as much publicly. More recently, evidence of corruption and mismanagement in the U.N.-administered Iraqi Oil-for-Food program—including a possible conflict of interest implicating Annan’s son—has raised serious doubts about the organization’s integrity, and that of its leader. But to his credit, Annan has agreed to an independent investigation of the matter.

But it would be a mistake to focus exclusively on these errors, ignoring Annan’s unparalleled authority on international affairs and his exemplary devotion to public service. And while such absurdities as Libya’s membership in the Human Rights Commission call coalition building as an end in itself into question, the events of the past year have made abundantly clear the error in thinking that international coalitions are convenient but not essential. Indeed, the world stands to benefit tremendously from its future leaders recognizing the value of international cooperation—and Harvard, which has recently striven to give public service and internationalism greater emphasis in its curriculum, stands to benefit immensely from hearing from one of the foremost public servants in the world. Kofi Annan is a worthy choice and it will be a pleasure to receive him.