UC Irvine’s Citizen Peacebuilding Program welcomed Mikhail S. Gorbachev, former President of the Soviet Union, to campus, honoring him with its first Citizen Peacebuilding Award. This award, named in Mr. Gorbachev’s honor in perpetuity, recognizes the tremendous impact he has had on world peace.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner spoke to the theme of “The Road to a Sustainable Environment and a Safer World: A call for Global Glasnost". Now the president of Green Cross International, Gorbachev says, “We need a new system of values, a system which recognizes the organic unity between humankind and nature and promotes the ethic of global responsibility.”

“UCI is happy to welcome a world leader who is dedicated to the common cause of protecting our global environment,” says Chancellor Ralph J. Cicerone. “His visionary approach recognizes the importance of environmental issues to the safety and well-being of all humanity.”

Gorbachev is world-renowned and admired for streamlining and decentralizing the oppressive system he inherited. In an effort to secure relations with the West, Gorbachev signed two broad disarmament pacts, and ended Communist rule in Eastern Europe.

The Citizen Peacebuilding Program is one example of UCI’s response to the growing problems of conflict and violence. Turning research into action, the UCI program takes an integrated approach to studying the best grassroots peacebuilding methods in both domestic and international conflicts.

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