Kyung Hee University opens Peace BAR Festival 2018

Kyung Hee University President Choue In-won delivers the opening speech during last year's Peace BAR Festival held on the campus in northeastern Seoul. / Courtesy of Kyung Hee University

By Kim Jae-heun

Kyung Hee University is hosting its Peace BAR Festival (PBF) 2018, an annual conference commemorating the United Nations International Day of Peace, on its campus in northeastern Seoul.

Global think-tanks _ the Conference of NGOs in Consultative Relationships with the United Nations and the World Academy of Arts and Sciences _ co-organized the three-day event which will run through Thursday.

Participants of this year's conference are discussing the future of a sustainable global community under the theme “The Korean Peninsula in an Age of Transformative Civilization: Values and Philosophy.”

Prof. Peter Wadhams of Cambridge University began the conference with the topic “Farewell to Ice: Climate Change and Global Peace.”

Wadhams warned about the global warming issue and talked about how seriously it was affecting the world. The scholar said the world has to take immediate action to cope with the problem that is becoming a huge threat to people.

Former Secretary General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization Irina Bokova moderated the panel discussion held afterward.

On the second day of the festival, chief editor Adam Michnik of the Polish news daily Gazeta Wyborcza and former Korean Deputy Prime Minister Han Wan-sang will hold special lectures to suggest new perspectives on establishing a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula.

Following the lecture, the two scholars will participate in a roundtable conference discussing the main theme of the festival along with Kyung Hee University President Choue In-won, Wadhams, Michnik and Prof. Thomas Reuter of the University of Melbourne.

On the last day, Prof. Thomas Weiss of City University of New York, who studies the U.N., will give a lecture on the topic of “A World Without the U.N.?” He will stress the importance of global civil society's role by imagining a world without the U.N. and a world where the U.N. effectively operates.

In line with the festival, the Seoul Peace Forum will be held on the last day, co-hosted by the university, the Korea International Cooperation Agency, the National Human Rights Commission and the Seoul Metropolitan Government. The participants will talk about the role of official development assistance for international peace and sustainable development.

Kyung Hee University held its first international conference commemorating the U.N. International Day of Peace in 1982 under the theme of “International Peace and Crisis of Modern Society.”

It became the motto of the current Peace BAR Festival, which took its acronym BAR from “spiritually Beautiful, materially Affluent, and humanly Rewarding.”

Since 2007, the event has covered more general and philosophical topics dealing with various problems and peace issues in the 21 century.