The U Thant Peace Award was created by Sri Chinmoy's peace meditations at the United Nations, after U Thant's death. First offered in 1982, the award is given to individuals and organizations who have exemplified the lofty spiritual ideals of the late United Nations Secretary-General U Thant and implemented those ideals in the tireless pursuit of world peace.
It had been bestowed by The Peace Meditation at the United Nations upon Mahathir Mohamad, Nelson Mandela, Mikhail Gorbachev, Pope John Paul II, Mother Teresa, Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, Kurt Waldheim the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, Dada Vaswani, Swami Satchidananda and U Thant's daughter, Daw Aye Aye Thant.
The U Thant Distinguished Lecture Series is a forum through which eminent thinkers and world leaders speak on the role of the United Nations in addressing the challenges facing the world's peoples and nations in the 21st century. The lecture series is co-organized by the United Nations University and the Science Council of Japan.
The UNU has a tradition of inviting world leaders and renowned individuals to Tokyo to explore the role of the United Nations in a rapidly changing world. The U Thant Distinguished Lecture Series builds upon this tradition by providing an opportunity for Nobel laureates and heads of state, current and former, to share their insights and experiences with scholars, policymakers, business leaders and the public.
On April 8, 2006, the Award was offered to Kofi Annan, who refused it. Similarly in 2007, Ban Ki-moon declined the Award.
| Year | Recipient | Country |
|---|---|---|
| 1982 | Zenon Rossides | |
| 1983 | Jorge Illueca | |
| 1986 | Javier Pérez de Cuéllar | |
| Russell Barber | ||
| 1991 | Vilayat Khan | |
| Guido de Marco | ||
| 1993 | Ganesh Man Singh | |
| Siddhartha Shankar Ray | ||
| Chidambaram Subramaniam | ||
| 1994 | James P. Grant | |
| Mother Teresa | ||
| Mikhail Gorbachev | ||
| 1995 | Laxmi Mall Singhvi | |
| Rafael Hernández Colón | ||
| Desmond Tutu | ||
| 1996 | Nelson Mandela | |
| Robert Mugabe | ||
| Maurice Strong | ||
| Chakravarthi V. Narasimhan | ||
| 1997 | Ananda Guruge | |
| Vladimir Petrovsky | ||
| Carl Lewis | ||
| 14th Dalai Lama | ||
| Inder Kumar Gujral | ||
| 1998 | Dada Vaswani | |
| Pope John Paul II | ||
| Claiborne Pell | ||
| Ja'afar of Negeri Sembilan | ||
| 1999 | Mahathir Mohamad[1] | |
| Girija Prasad Koirala | ||
| Krishna Prasad Bhattarai | ||
| Ted Turner | ||
| Anwarul Karim Chowdhury | ||
| 2000 | Svenn Kristiansen | |
| Humayun Rashid Choudhury | ||
| Gary Ackerman | ||
| Sivaya Subramuniyaswami | ||
| 2001 | Atal Bihari Vajpayee | |
| James Parks Morton | ||
| 2002 | Satchidananda Saraswati | |
| Daw Aye Aye Thant | ||
| Ravi Shankar | ||
| 2004 | Kurt Waldheim | |
| 2007 | Ibrahim Gambari | |
| Bill Pearl | ||
| Pascal Alan Nazareth |