Ban Ki-moon

Ban Ki-moon
Born	13 June 1944 Onnan Township, Injō County, Chūseihoku Province, Japanese Korea
Nationality	South Korean
Alma mater	Seoul National University, Harvard University
Children	3
Spouse	Yoo Soon-taek
Member of	Atlantic Council/Distinguished Leadership Awards, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
8th UN Secretary General  Secretary-General of the United Nations In office 1 January 2007 - 31 December 2016 Employer United Nations Deputy Jan Eliasson Preceded by Kofi Annan Succeeded by António Guterres  South Korea/Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade In office 17 January 2004 - 1 December 2006

Ban Ki-moon is a former Secretary-General of the United Nations, after succeeding Kofi Annan in 2007. Before becoming Secretary-General, Ban was Foreign Minister of the Republic of Korea from January 2004 to November 2006, having previously been a career diplomat in South Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Ban was said to have struggled in his first month to adjust to the culture of the UN, but quickly found his bearings and passed several major reforms on peacekeeping and UN employment practices. Diplomatically, Ban has taken particularly strong views on global warming, pressing the issue repeatedly with US President George W. Bush, and on the Darfur conflict, where he helped persuade Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir to allow peacekeeping troops to enter Sudan.

On 21 June 2011, Ban was unanimously re-elected by the General Assembly to serve until 31 December 2016, when he will be succeeded by Portugal's António Guterres.

In August 2016, declaring "this may be our last chance to find the truth", Ban Ki-moon called for the appointment of “eminent person or persons” to pursue an investigation into the death of his predecessor, Dag Hammarskjöld in a mysterious 1961 air crash at Ndola in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia):

“Seeking a complete understanding of the circumstances is our solemn duty to my illustrious and distinguished predecessor, Dag Hammarskjöld, to the other members of the party accompanying him, and to their families.”

Hammarskjöld Commission

Susan Williams' 2011 book "Who Killed Hammarskjöld?"

The Hammarskjöld Commission was established in July 2012 as a voluntary body of four international jurists who were invited by an international Enabling Committee to report whether, in their view, the evidence now available would justify the United Nations in reopening its inquiry into the cause of death of UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld, pursuant to General Assembly resolution 1759 (XVII) of 26 October 1962. The 2011 book by author Susan Williams entitled "Who Killed Hammarskjöld?" had argued that the plane was brought down, and prompted the diplomat's nephew Knut Hammarskjöld to call for a new inquiry.

The Hammarskjöld Commission's report, which was published on 9 September 2013, recommended that the United Nations should launch a new investigation into the crash, stating that the possibility that the plane was attacked from above, or that it was forced down due to threats, should be "taken seriously, despite everything". On 11 February 2014, the UN Regional Information Centre for Western Europe (UNRIC) reported that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had written to the President of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) requesting that the Hammarskjöld Commission's report should be included in the agenda of UNGA's current session since "new evidence has come to his attention."

A member of the Hammarskjöld Inquiry Trust, Karl Gustav Hammar, the former head of the Church of Sweden, welcomed the Secretary-General's initiative:

"My interpretation is that the Secretary-General wants the Member States to take an internal look and present whatever they may find in their archives," Archbishop Hammar says. "Since the Hammarskjöld Commission pointed to the US National Security Agency (NSA), I think Ban Ki-moon wants to decrease the pressure and ask: who knows anything at all? Now that the UN General Assembly will put the issue on its agenda, there will be a chance for a discussion," Hammar told Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter.

E-petition

On 29 April 2014, an e-petition was created and recommended that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon should propose extending the remit of the new UN Inquiry to cover the deaths of both Dag Hammarskjöld and Bernt Carlsson:

"Take action to investigate the deaths of UN Officials Dag Hammarskjöld and Bernt Carlsson!"

On 19 May 2014, the Wall Street Journal confirmed that, because of the weight of evidence uncovered by Dr Susan Williams, UNGA had put the Hammarskjöld case on its agenda for discussion during its current session at a date to be arranged. As a result, a draft resolution to reopen the adjourned 1962 UN Inquiry could then be put to a vote by the General Assembly.

 

Appointments by Ban Ki-moon

Appointee	Job	Appointed	End
Filippo Grandi	UN/High Commissioner/Refugees	1 January 2016
Margot Wallström	United Nations Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict	April 2010	22 June 2012

 

Events Participated in

Event	Start	End	Location(s)	Description
WEF/Annual Meeting/2006	25 January 2006	29 January 2006	World Economic Forum Switzerland	Only a few of the over 2000 participants are known
WEF/Annual Meeting/2008	23 January 2008	27 January 2008	World Economic Forum Switzerland
WEF/Annual Meeting/2009	23 January 2008	27 January 2008	World Economic Forum Switzerland
WEF/Annual Meeting/2013	23 January 2013	27 January 2013	World Economic Forum Switzerland	2500 mostly unelected leaders met to discuss "leading through adversity"
WEF/Annual Meeting/2014	22 January 2014	25 January 2014	World Economic Forum Switzerland	2604 guests in Davos considered "Reshaping The World"
WEF/Annual Meeting/2016	20 January 2016	23 January 2016	World Economic Forum Switzerland	Attended by a lot of people, both leaders and followers

 

Related Document

Title	Type	Publication date	Author(s)	Description
Document:Open letter to Ban Ki-Moon from Richard Falk	open letter	7 February 2016	Richard Falk	On-the-button open letter from Richard Falk to Ban Ki-moon about Israeli attacks on the latter for his modest, reasonable and accurate criticism of Israeli policy - Schadenfreude would be understandable in light of Richard Falks experience at Moon's hands.

References

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