The Global Peace Leadership Conference Africa 2024 gathered delegates from across Africa and the world to discuss strategies for fostering peace, development, and cooperation. The conference promoted an African Renaissance that leverages the continent’s heritage and values, empowering African leadership, enhancing intracontinental partnerships, and encouraging ethical global citizenship. Dr. Hyun Jin P. Moon was a keynote speaker, highlighting the richness of Africa’s spiritual values and the importance of building a culture of peace around the model of an extended family.

The Global Peace Convention 2023 wrapped up in Manila, the Philippines, with a powerful call to action centered on public service, civic engagement, and fostering peace through shared values and identity as one human family. This year’s theme, “One Family under God: Vision for National Transformation and Civilization of Peace,” resonated through both in-person and virtual sessions, engaging thousands of participants from 94 nations.

🔹 Virtual Sessions: Kicked off on November 1, addressing crucial issues such as improving security, tackling root causes of conflict, upholding rights of faith and conscience, and enhancing community resilience. They also emphasized the importance of women and youth’s active roles in decision-making.

🔹 In-Person Events: Participants in the Philippines experienced the vibrant Global Peace Youth Festival, the insightful International Forum on One Korea, the impactful Educators’ Congress, the prestigious Global Peace Awards Gala, and the main feature – the Convention Plenary.

Join us as we reflect on these transformative discussions and celebrate the collective effort toward a harmonious global community.

Watch the highlights below:

On October 2, 2023, the International Forum on One Korea took place in Seoul, South Korea, followed by the Korea United Festa at Yeouido Park on October 3, marking Korea’s Foundation Day. This pivotal event brought together global leaders, scholars, and advocates to discuss the vision of a unified Korea and the aspirations driving the Korean Dream.

Keynote speaker Dr. Hyun Jin P. Moon discussed the Korean Dream, a vision rooted in 5,000 years of Korean history, and emphasized the critical moment for Korean reunification based on the ideal of Hongik Ingan, meaning a country that will benefit all humankind.

Watch highlights from the October 2-3, 2023 events below:

International Forum on One Korea
Free and Unified Korea: Options for the New U.S. Administration

February 24, 2021

Special Remarks by Dr. Hyun Jin Preston Moon
Founder & Chairman, Global Peace Foundation

Thank you, Richard.

And to my good friend Dr. Edwin Feulner, thank you for your insightful message and longtime advocacy and scholarship in promoting the U.S.-ROK Alliance.

I would like to also thank all the distinguished speakers from the U.S. and the ROK for your leadership toward a free and united Korea.

Ladies and gentlemen, two years ago we celebrated the centenary of the March 1st Korean Independence Movement that, under Japanese colonial rule, called for Korea to be “united, independent and free.” That call was repeated by the United Nations in the aftermath of World War II. Yet today, Korea still remains divided.

Unfortunately, this is not what the Korean people dreamed of. Shaped by Cold War dynamics, two states were created shortly after liberation, each wanting a unified Korea but with conflicting visions of what it should look like. The Korean War only solidified that division, leaving the two regimes in a continual struggle for control over the peninsula to this day.

This unfinished business has brought untold suffering to the Korean people as well as insecurity to the region and the world. Attempts to restrain North Korean aggression, from the Agreed Framework, through the Six-Party talks to Obama’s “strategic patience,” only resulted in a nuclear-armed North.

President Trump’s attempt to resolve matters through dialogue in his summit meetings was no more successful. It suffered from a purely bilateral approach and exclusive focus on just the nuclear issue.

The time is ripe for fresh strategic thinking. A unified Korea, aligned with fundamental freedoms and human rights, should become the clearly stated and actively pursued policy of the U.S., South Korea, their allies and the U.N. This would provide a clear end goal for Korea policy and a framework for all negotiations with the North. Focus on this end goal naturally requires a comprehensive approach that no longer compartmentalizes the nuclear issue from other issues such as human rights, governance concerns and economic development.

Such an approach is certainly in the interests of the Korean people, as well as the U.S., and the global community of nations. It is not in the interest of Koreans in the South to live in the shadow of a nuclear-armed neighbor still ready to pursue unification by force if the opportunity arose. It is definitely not in the interest of Koreans in the North to live in a state that denies them the most basic of human rights.

The path to a free and unified Korea must begin with the historic aspiration of the Korean people themselves to create an ideal nation, drawing upon a shared culture and identity that long predates the current division. In particular, it must look to Korea’s foundational philosophy of Hongik Ingan, or “living for the greater benefit of all mankind,” which aligns with the highest ideals and principles of democracy.

I call this approach the “Korean Dream” and explain it in my book of that name. It is uniquely rooted in Korea’s history and the hopes and ideals of its 20th century Independence Movement. These aspirations have motivated our people’s drive for self-determination, with the goal of a unified Korea of democratic, principled ideals.

In our highly interconnected world, this cannot be realized without international support. Both Koreas have publicly asserted their desire for unification; the international community can contribute most effectively by supporting a Korean Dream initiative for unification.

It is in the interests of the United States to play a major role in this effort. Not only would a free and unified Korea end the nuclear threat to the U.S. but, it would create a nation that is a bastion of liberty and democratic principles in a region where statist approaches are on the rise.

Thus, the U.S. should widen its current policy of denuclearization to that of supporting the Korean Dream. The Marshall Plan of post-war Europe can become a good long-term strategic framework since it reshaped the geopolitical landscape of that region by making former enemies into firm allies. Rather than take the lead in directly dealing with the North, the U.S. should provide strong policy support, acting as a guarantor for progress toward a free and unified Korea. In addition, it could offer economic assistance and global leadership so that the South does not carry the sole financial burden to rebuild the North.

Finally, government policies alone will not achieve unification. Great social transformation requires the active engagement of a broad public, united in pursuit of a common cause. Just as with the effort to end apartheid in South Africa, the movement for a unified Korea needs broad Korean and international public support expressed through active civic organizations and NGOs.

This charge has been taken up by Action for Korea United, the largest citizen-led movement for unification in the history of South Korea which is now spreading into the major diaspora communities around the world. It is making unprecedented progress in bridging divides and building civic consensus in the cause of unification.

Ladies and gentlemen, a unified Korea of high ideals will end the ominous threats to peace and security in East Asia and will greatly benefit the world. With vision, leadership, and robust civic action, Korea’s historical quest for one free, independent sovereign nation can and will be a reality that is firmly within our reach.

Thank you very much.

With regular reports of North Korean missile launches every few months, it is hard to imagine that denuclearization and reunification seemed so close at the start of 2019.

It is timely to revisit Dr. Moon’s approach to Korean reunification that advocates international support for Korean-led efforts to bring peace to the peninsula and end the more than 70-year division of one people.

Even as North and South Korean officials began engagement at the beginning of 2018, starting with the inter-Korean summit between Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong-un, and as U.S. opened bilateral relations with the DPRK, Dr. Hyun Jin P. Moon warned that short sighted actions would jeopardize the opportunity presented by the then fully enforced global sanctions regime. A year later, events seem to be playing out as he foreshadowed.

Now, more than ever, added efforts need to be made to promote promoting a vision-driven, people-powered movement for Korean reunification based on the timeless, Korean ethic of Hongik Ingan. Koreans everywhere, in the South, North and diaspora need to take this issue into their own hands, and they need the world’s support. 

We are here, gathered and inspired, by a dream. That dream is the Korean Dream. It was one hundred years ago that our forefathers gathered all across this land, two million of our forefathers, inspired by a dream to create a new, independent, ideal model nation that could be the inspiration of all humanity.

Action for Korea United hosted a festival in celebration of Korea’s liberation day on August 15 at the Kintex Convention Center in Seoul. This festival brought over 15,000 activists and patriots together to build a unified Korea based on time-honored Korean values. 

To see Dr. Moon’s August 15 speech, click here.