Director's Lecture Series - War and Peace: the Conflict in Ukraine

Jeffery Sachs, Adam Habib

Sign up to the event via Eventbrite.

Please submit any questions you have for the speakers via this link.

On 26 April UN Secretary General António Guterres met with Vladimir Putin in a diplomatic attempt to appeal to the Russian President to resolve the Russia-Ukraine conflict. In a recent opinion piece for CNN, Professor Jeffrey Sachs called for a negotiated peace deal as the only way to end the war, stating that the “key step is for NATO allies and Ukraine to make clear that NATO will not enlarge into Ukraine as long as Russia stops the war and leaves Ukraine.” However, is this a deal Ukraine and NATO want to make? And should Ukraine make these concessions to Russia over its sovereignty? Is this the only possible solution to end the conflict?

SOAS Director Professor Adam Habib will be joined by Professor Jeffrey Sachs for a lively discussion on the ongoing conflict and question whether the war has tested the limits of global diplomacy and if so, what is the answer to resolving the conflict?

The SOAS Director’s Lecture Series focuses on the planetary questions of our time and how to enable a collective human response. In this historical moment, all of our big challenges – pandemics, climate change, inequality, social and political polarisation – are transnational in character and require a cohering of the human community.

This is the forth event in the SOAS Director’s Lecture Series where SOAS Director Adam Habib leads discussions with high profile leaders and changemakers regarding important topics of our time.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS:

Jeffrey D. Sachs is University Professor and Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, where he directed the Earth Institute from 2002 until 2016. He is President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, Chair of the Lancet COVID19 Commission, Co-Chair of the UN Council of Engineers for the Energy Transition, Commissioner of the UN Broadband Commission for Development, academician of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences at the Vatican, and Tan Sri Jeffrey Cheah Honorary Distinguished Professor of Sustainable Development at Sunway University.

He has been Special Advisor to three United Nations Secretaries-General, and currently serves as an SDG Advocate under Secretary General António Guterres. Sachs spent over twenty years as a professor at Harvard University, where he received his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees, and has received 38 honorary doctorates. In 2021, Sachs received the TÜBA Academy Prize from the Turkish Academy of Sciences, the Legion of Honor by decree of the President of the Republic of France, the Order of the Cross from the President of Estonia, and honorary doctorates from Amrita University in Kerala, India; Macau University of Science and Technology; and the University of Siena, Italy. His most recent book is The Ages of Globalization: Geography, Technology, and Institutions (2020).

Adam Habib is an academic, researcher, activist, administrator, and well-known public intellectual. A Professor of Political Science, Habib has over 30 years of academic, research and administration expertise, spanning five universities and multiple local and international institutions. Prior to his appointment as Director of SOAS, he was Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in Johannesburg, South Africa since 2013. He is also one of the co-founders of the African Research Universities Alliance, an affiliation of research-intensive universities on the continent.

Adam Habib has published numerous edited books, book chapters and journal articles over the last three decades in the thematic areas of democratisation and its consolidation in South Africa, contemporary social movements, philanthropy, inequality, giving and its impact on poverty alleviation and development, institutional reform, changing identities and their evolution in the post-apartheid era, and South Africa's role in Africa and beyond.

Sign up to the event via Eventbrite.

EVENT ACCESS:

Closer to the event you will receive a zoom link to access the event. You will need to have a zoom account to access this event. Set up an account online. Please submit any questions you have for the speakers via this link.

Contact email: events@soas.ac.uk