Please join us for a conversation with Thant Myint U, an award-winning author, historian, conservationist, and international public servant, and Karin Landgren, a former UN Under-Secretary-General.
The Secretary-General has long been essential to the proper functioning of the United Nations and the preservation of global order. This year the UN will choose its 10th Secretary General.
Myint U’s new book, Peacemaker: U Thant and the Forgotten Quest for a Just World, highlights the pivotal leadership of U Thant, the first person of color to lead the United Nations. During the volatile 1960s, Thant’s steady diplomacy proved essential in navigating the Cuban Missile Crisis and mediating several high-stakes conflicts. The book offers a vital recalibration of history, placing the emergence of newly sovereign states at the center of the global political stage. In an era of renewed great-power competition, Peacemaker provides a necessary lens for understanding our fractured world and offers a pragmatic roadmap for the future of international cooperation.
Agenda
4:45 p.m. – Registration Opens
5:15 p.m. – Program Begins
6:20 p.m. – Reception
7:00 p.m. – Event Ends
Thant Myint-U is an award-winning writer, historian, conservationist, and former international public servant.
Educated at Harvard and the University of Cambridge, he completed his PhD in history at Cambridge, where he later taught as a Fellow of Trinity College. He has served on three United Nations peacekeeping operations—in Cambodia (1992–93) and the former Yugoslavia (1994–96)—and spent several years with the UN in New York (2000–2007), including in the Department of Political Affairs as Chief of Policy Planning and in the Executive Office of the Secretary-General.
From 2009 to 2021, he played a leading role in reform efforts in Burma (Myanmar), serving as a presidential advisor and peace mediator, and as chair of U Thant House and founding chair of Yangon Heritage Trust. He is the author of five books, most recently Peacemaker: U Thant and the Forgotten Quest for a Just World.
He is an Honorary Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, a Senior Fellow of the UN Foundation, and a Non-Resident Fellow of NYU’s Center for International Cooperation.
Karin Landgren is a Distinguished Fellow at the NYU Center on International Cooperation. She was previously the Executive Director of the Security Council Report.
A former UN Undersecretary-General, she led three UN peacekeeping and political missions in Liberia, Burundi, and Nepal. During nearly twenty years of working with refugees, she was the UNHCR country representative in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Eritrea, and Singapore. She also served with UNHCR in India and the Philippines. As Chief of Standards and Legal Advice, she initiated the revival of UNHCR’s responsibility for the protection of stateless persons. Subsequently, she was UNICEF’s first Chief of Child Protection, developing a novel and systemic approach to safeguarding these rights.
Ms. Landgren is a member of the Nordic Women Mediators. She holds a BSc (Econ) and an LLM from the London School of Economics.
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