Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
Woodhouse Lane,
LS1 3HE
It was issued to mark the 40th anniversary of the original report by Olof Palme’s “Independent Commission on Disarmament and Security Issues”. Presented at the height of the Cold War, the 1982 report developed the concept of Common Security – the idea that nations and populations can only feel safe when their counterparts feel safe.
Since 1987, the Politics and Applied Global Ethics Department of Leeds Beckett University and the Leeds City Council ‘Peacelink’ Group, in association with the UK and Ireland Mayors for Peace Chapter, work together to organise the annual Leeds Olof Palme Memorial Peace Lecture.
The lecture was first established in 1987 by then MEP for Leeds, and former Leeds councillor, Michael McGowan, in memory of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, a peace campaigner and outspoken opponent of apartheid in South Africa. Olof Palme attended as a student activist a conference in Leeds University in the 1950s. These lectures have been held to remember his work for promoting peace and security in the world.
Anna Sundström is Secretary-General of the Olof Palme International Center in Stockholm. She has previously worked as Head of Operations at the Center, international secretary of the Social Democratic Women’s Organization, as international secretary and policy advisor in the Swedish Parliament and as a policy advisor at the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs.
