United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will deliver the opening keynote address for the 2009 Princeton Colloquium on Public and International Affairs Friday, April 17 at 9:30 a.m., at the McCarter Center's Matthews Theatre, on the Princeton University campus. The title of Ban's speech is "The Imperative for a New Multilateralism."

The two-day Colloquium is hosted by the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs Friday and Saturday April 17 and 18, and is titled “Prosperity or Peril? The Next Phase of Globalization.” Through keynote addresses and panel sessions, the Colloquium will examine whether and how the increasingly interconnected forces of globalization will result in a more stable and prosperous global society, or instead enable instability and violence to spread more easily across borders.

Ban was elected as the eighth U.N. Secretary-General in 2006. At the time of his election, he was minister of foreign affairs and trade for the Republic of Korea (South Korea). His three decades as a diplomat have included postings in New Delhi, Washington, D.C., and Vienna, and responsibility for a variety of portfolios, including foreign policy adviser to South Korea's president, chief national security adviser to the president, deputy minister for policy planning, and director-general of American affairs.

Ban's ties to the United Nations date back to 1975, when he worked for Foreign Ministry's United Nations Division, and included assignments as: first secretary at South Korea's Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York; director of the United Nations Division at the Ministry's headquarters in Seoul; and ambassador to Vienna in 1999, where he served as chairman of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization.

The Secretary-General’s talk on Friday, April 17 is free and open to the public. Doors will open at 9:00 a.m. for general admission seating. No cameras, backpacks, or umbrellas will be allowed into the venue, and all attendees will be asked to bring a photo ID in the event that security measures require it. Because of security considerations, the audience must be seated by 9:15, so attendees are encouraged to arrive early.

As parking for the McCarter Center is extremely limited, the Woodrow Wilson School will provide shuttle bus service from Lot 21 on the Princeton campus to the McCarter Center starting at 8:00 a.m. Friday. (Buses will leave from the FitzRandolph Road side of the parking lot).

Directions to campus are available online, as is an interactive campus map (for view of Lot 21).

Please visit the Princeton Colloquium website for a detailed schedule of events. 

Members of the news media wishing to attend the Secretary-General's address should e-mail the University's Office of Communications at commpro@princeton.edu NO LATER THAN noon Wednesday, April 15.