Home Business Governance Former UN Head Ban Ki-Moon Proposed to Chair IOC Ethics Commission

Former UN Head Ban Ki-Moon Proposed to Chair IOC Ethics Commission

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Former UN Head Ban Ki-Moon Proposed to Chair IOC Ethics Commission
From left: Former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Michael Spindelegger, former Vice Chancellor, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of Finance, of Austria, and Susan le Jeune D’Allegeershecque, Permanent Representative of the UK to the UN Vienna. Photo: https://www.flickr.com/photos/ctbto/

Former United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has been proposed as the new chair of the IOC’s Ethics Commission by the IOC Executive Board. The proposal will be put for vote to the September IOC Session in Lima, Peru, with the IOC emphasizing that under the reforms of the Olympic Agenda 2020 the chair of the Ethics Commission and all its members must be elected by the full membership of the IOC. If approved, Ban will replace the current Chair of the Ethics Commission, Youssoupha Ndiaye (former President of the Constitutional Court of Senegal), who is standing down at the end of this IOC Session.

Making the proposal known at the IOC homepage, IOC President Thomas Bach said: “The IOC is honored and pleased that Ban accepted for his name to be put forward. On the one hand, Ban has an exemplary record of public service with integrity, accountability and transparency. On the other hand, he is a great friend of the Olympic Movement.”

Ban Ki-Moon added: “I am deeply honored to be nominated as the Chair of the IOC’s Ethics Commission and accept the position with a sense of humility and responsibility. The United Nations and the International Olympic Committee have had a close working relationship over many years with both organizations contributing to building a peaceful and better world. In working closely under the principles of the IOC movement, I will do my best to enhance the accountability and transparency of the IOC.”

Ban was the eighth Secretary-General of the United Nations, from January 2007 to December 2016. When he took office, he committed the UN to the highest standards of ethics, integrity, accountability and transparency. One of Ban’s first actions was to introduce a code of ethics to the organization, which applied to all employees. He is a strong proponent of enhancing the role of sport to address global challenges. He oversaw the inclusion of “sport as an important enabler” in the Sustainable Development Goals, part of the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. At the IOC Session in Sochi in 2014, he said that “Olympic principles are United Nations principles.” He ran twice with the Olympic torch, at the Olympic Games Rio 2016 and at the Olympic Winter Games Sochi 2014, to demonstrate the unique power of sport as a global force for good.

This story first appeared in the blog, The Sport Intern. The editor is Karl-Heinz Huba of Lorsch, Germany. He can be reached at ISMG@aol.com. The article is reprinted here with permission of Huba.

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