Foreword by the College President

As President of Kellogg College, it was an honour to welcome Ban Ki-moon to address a packed audience for our inaugural lecture on human rights, and it is now a pleasure to be able to contribute a Foreword to the transcript from that evening. It was fortuitous that the latest addition to the College’s ‘Bynum Tudor Fellowship’, Ban Ki-moon, was the ideal person to speak on human rights. So, this was Ban Ki-moon’s first lecture as a Bynum Tudor Fellow, which also inaugurated the College’s annual human rights lecture series.

The Kellogg College Bynum Tudor Fellowship is named after the late Bynum Tudor, who was a great friend of the College and is awarded to those who have made outstanding contributions in areas of life outside academia. It included the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who engaged tremendously with other members of the College community when he visited. Desmond Tutu was particularly appropriate for the Fellowship, being a member of The Elders, the organisation that Nelson Mandela founded to bring together international leaders with experience to try to help advise on world issues and problems. Ban Ki-moon is a member of The Elders and indeed serves as the Vice-Chair.

When Ban Ki-moon was Secretary-General of the United Nations, he created the United Nations Women's Organisation to help promote and develop the work of the United Nations on gender equality and women's emancipation. An outstanding executive chair in that role was Dr Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, who is a member of our Bynum Tudor Fellowship. Also present at the lecture was another of our Bynum Tudor Fellows, Sir David Brown, formerly Chair of Motorola and at the time of the lecture still Chair of the Bletchley Park Trust which promotes, develops and celebrates Bletchley Park which is where Alan Turing and other code breakers worked during World War Two, and in that sense contributed to defending and promoting human rights, globally.

Another Bynum Tudor Fellow, His Majesty King Charles III could not be present for the lecture but was represented by Simon Sadinsky, the Executive Director (Education) of the King’s Foundation.

Ban Ki-moon’s lecture was introduced by the University of Oxford's Professor of International Human Rights Law, Dr Nazila Ghanea – a longstanding Fellow of the College. Nazila would have introduced the inaugural lecturer in any case, being Professor of International Human Rights Law, but was particularly well placed to introduce the former Secretary General of the United Nations, as Professor Ghanea is herself a United Nations Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or beliefs.