Book Launch with Michael von der Schulenburg “On Building Peace: Rescuing the Nation-State and saving the United Nations”

Excellences,
Ladies and Gentlemen
Dear Michael:

It is a pleasure to welcome a friend, a distinguished UN diplomat, a seasoned practitioner of peacebuilding, and – last but not least – a maverick, a “Querdenker”, of global security affairs: thank you, Michael, for being here with us today.

Michael von der Schulenburg is someone who probably needs no introduction in the halls of the Palais. But let me still recall some highlights of his long career with the UN – because it is these experiences that give his arguments the credibility of someone who actually witnessed events unfolding “on the ground”.

Over the past thirty years with the UN, Michael completed senior assignments in many of the world’s most challenging environments:
- He crossed mine fields and mountain passes as he travelled on horse-back through Afghanistan to establish relations with the mujahedin.
- He survived road-side bombs and hand-grenade attacks in Baghdad as he worked to organize free and fair elections in Iraq.
- He tackled the constant threat of political violence in Sierra Leone as he led the first fully integrated United Nations peacebuilding mission.

I am grateful that he has now distilled his experiences into thought-provoking insights on the future of peacebuilding and the role of the organization we all serve, the United Nations.

Ladies and Gentlemen:

We are living in contradictory times. If you could choose to be born at any time in human history, today might be as best a choice as any. You would be less likely to be living in poverty; less likely to be illiterate; less likely to die of diseases or be killed in a war; and less likely to live under autocratic regimes than at any time in human history.

And yet, the world of today is marked by a pervasive sense of unease, strife, and uncertainty. The transition towards a more multipolar world order is putting global cooperation under strain. At the same time, the technological revolution is fundamentally transforming societies, economies, and politics. Amidst a convergence of global experiences, people seek to reassert identities – some by stoking sectarianism and intolerance. We are, as the Secretary-General recently put it, “a world in pieces. We need to be a world at peace.”

How to achieve this – “a world at peace” – is the overarching question that this book grapples with.

Not everyone will agree with its central arguments – namely that we need to rescue the nation state (rather than transcend or jettison it), and that we need an enlarged UN Charter.

But I for one welcome this new and imaginative proposal on the way forward. The questions it raises are necessary elements in any serious collective discussion on how we reshape the structures and tools needed to successfully address the problems of today and tomorrow.

And for that, Michael, thank you.