Kyung Hee University will hold Peace BAR Festival 2018 to celebrate the 37th anniversary of the International Day of Peace and gather academia, nongovernmental organizations and business partnerships to examine the Korean Peninsula and find values to contribute to the global peace movement.

The two-day festival will be held from Tuesday to Thursday under the theme “The Korean Peninsula in an Age of Transformative Civilization: Values and Philosophy” at the Grand Peace Hall and Lobby of the University in eastern Seoul.

Participants will have an opportunity to examine the changes and development that have taken place on the Korean Peninsula since the signing of the Panmunjom Declaration, and discuss the values and philosophy necessary for a sustainable global society. BAR is an acronym for the 60-year tradition of pursuing a 21st century society that is “spiritually beautiful, materially affluent, humanly rewarding,” the school said.

World Academy of Art and Science and Conference of NGOs in Consultative Relationship (CoNGO) with the UN is co-hosting the academic conferences.

An international academic conference on climate change and sustainable development will be held Tuesday. Professor Peter Wadhams from University of Cambridge, author of “A Farewell to Ice: Climate Change and Global Peace,” will deliver a lecture, and Irina Bokova, a former UN secretary-general candidate and Miwon scholar of practice at Kyung Hee University, will moderate a follow-up discussion.

The panelists will be Maria Pia Casarini, director of the Zavatti Polar Institute, Liberato Bautista, president of CoNGO, Garry Jacobs, CEO of WAAS, Kim So-hee, secretary-general of Climate Change Center, and Kim Seong-joong, principal researcher at the Korea Polar Research Institute.

Following the official opening ceremony scheduled on Wednesday will be special lectures and a roundtable talk to look into changes the Korean Peninsula has undergone, offering diverse perspectives on the country’s recent and historical events.

Adam Michnik, chief editor of Gazeta Wyborcza, and Han Wan-sang, chairman of the Presidential Commission on the Centennial Anniversary of the March 1 Independent Movement & the Provisional Government, will present lectures under the titles “Spring on Korean Peninsula in an Age of Transformative Civilization From the Eye of Global Civil Society” and “Spring on the Korean Peninsula in the Perspective of the History of Civilization,” respectively.

In the roundtable talk, the panelists, including Kyung Hee University President Choue In-won, will discuss how a peace treaty on the Korean Peninsula could promote global peace and how to build a world civil society.

On the last day of the festival will be an academic conference on the topic “A World Without the UN?” led by Thomas Weiss, a chair professor at City University of New York.

The annual Peace BAR Festival began in 2004, celebrating the UN Peace Park and Global NGO Complex, which was an extension of the 1999 Seoul International Conference of NGOs co-hosted by the university, UN Department of Public Information and CoNGO.

By Jo He-rim (herim@heraldcorp.com)