Nobelist: Group action required for a better world

By Kate Becker

Can one person change the world?

Not alone, says Nobel Peace Prize winner Jody Williams, founder of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL).

Jody Williams, founder of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines and a Nobel Peace Prize winner, speaks at the convocation of the Cornell Commitment, March 5, in Kennedy Hall. Frank DiMeo/University Photography

Williams spoke at the annual convocation for the Cornell Commitment, March 5, in Kennedy Hall's Call Alumni Auditorium. The convocation celebrated the service and academic achievement of students from the Cornell Commitment programs: The Cornell Tradition, Cornell Presidential Research Scholars and Meinig Family Cornell National Scholars.

Williams' talk, titled "The Individual's Impact on Social and Political Change," traced her history with the ICBL. The organization was launched in 1991 and achieved its goal of an international treaty banning anti-personnel land mines in 1997 -- a very short time on the calendar of international law, she noted.

"I have no illusions that one individual, working alone, can change the world," said Williams. Networks of governmental and nongovernmental organizations are needed, she said, to create social change. Today, the ICBL involves more than 1,300 NGOs in more than 85 countries.

It was a struggle, said Williams, to convince governments that a ban on land mines was an achievable and worthwhile goal. Government leaders called her a "dreamer" with a "utopian" vision.

But, she said, "I totally reject the idea of a utopia." Progress toward a better world happens, she argued, "because you get up and take action to create the world in which you want to live."

Williams and the ICBL made that progress by convincing the world that land mines are fundamentally different from other conventional weapons. "Land mines did not recognize peace," said Williams. They "decimate civilian lives for decades" after the end of a war. Even their wartime utility is doubtful, she said, as they actually hamper troop movements.

Some 141 nations eventually signed the treaty, the first to outlaw a widely used conventional weapon. "The entire Western hemisphere" signed, noted Williams, except Cuba and the United States.

Williams addressed the United States' refusal to sign the treaty in a question-and-answer session that followed her talk.

"They don't want their global actions to be bound by any international treaty," she said. "It isn't an issue of anti-personnel land mines" -- the United States neither uses nor manufactures them anymore -- "it's a precedent."

Despite this kind of resistance, Williams said that the ICBL's biggest challenge was sharing information among hundreds of different organizations. "Shared information meant shared power," she said. "We were armed with irrefutable facts."

She identified the key to the ICBL's success as "absolute reliability: following through on what you say you're going to do."

The best thing about winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997, said Williams, was that it gave these unnoticed workers a sense of recognition. "The real prize," she said, "has been making lives better."

Speaking to an audience of students about to embark on their own careers, Williams offered lessons from her lifetime of service.

"[You have] the capacity to embrace your own passion," she said. She also called on students to remember that, "No matter what you accomplish as an individual, you did not get there alone.

"The people who inspire me most are the people who work in relative anonymity, day and in and day out, trying to make the world a better place," she added.

Williams' talk followed brief remarks from undergraduates from each of the Cornell Commitment programs and the announcement of the Debra S. Newman Cornell Tradition Community Recognition Award. The annual prize, which includes a $1,000 grant to an agency chosen by the recipient, was awarded to Ithaca resident Noel Desch for his "dedication to serving others" and his "long history of service to the local communities." For 25 years Desch served on the Ithaca Town Board, 12 of those years as town supervisor.