The Royal Thai Government nominated Dr. Surakiart Sathirathai, Deputy Prime Minister of Thailand, as candidate for the post of United Nations Secretary General when H.E. Mr. Kofi Annan completes his term at the end of 2006. His candidature has been endorsed by the Leaders of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN).

These leaders support Dr. Surakiart for the post of Secretary General because of his career long record of wise statesmanship, strong administrative leadership, intellectual depth and moral vision.

Dr. Surakiart has the experience, diplomatic and administrative skill to deliver real reform at the United Nations.

	Dr. Surakiart has extensive private and public sector management experience. He has repeatedly taken difficult and unpopular decisions to reform entrenched cultures of management. He has brought an outsider's fresh look to every post, and built a reputation as an effective reformer and turn-around manager.
	As Foreign Minister, he undertook a comprehensive restructuring of the Ministry, bringing private sector management accountability to Thailand's diplomatic service and outcome oriented measures of performance. As Chairman of Petroleum Authority of Thailand Exploration and Production Plc., Dr. Surakiart restructured operations and management for privatization, facilitating an initial public offering of shares. As Chairman of the Executive Board of Thai Oil, Dr. Surakiart implemented drastic cost-cutting and management reforms, which led it to become the first company to complete debt restructuring under the new Thai Bankruptcy Act. At Laem Thong Bank, Dr. Surakiart's cost-cutting and management reforms reduced costs by 20% and regained foreign investor confidence. As Finance Minister, Dr. Surakiart implemented immensely unpopular macro-economic reforms to correct imbalances in the financial sector, monitor short-term capital flows and ensure that lending institutions had more lending discipline. Nearly ten years after the financial crisis, Dr. Surakiart's policies remain the basis for Thailand's economic policy. At Chulalongkorn University, as lecturer and then as Dean of the Law Faculty , Dr. Surakiart developed new programs, insisted upon interdisciplinary collaboration between lawyers, economists and political scientists, and brought international expertise to Thailand's leading university.
	In each case, Dr. Surakiart was successful because he was able to understand the needs of key stakeholders, brought an outsider's perspective, as well as the energy and focus to deliver real reform that brought visible results within a short time frame.

Dr. Surakiart's experience and support in Asia will enable the United Nations to play a productive role managing the peaceful rise of Asia in the broader international community.

As Dr. Surakiart wrote in his 2005 article "Managing the Rise of Asia,"

To say that it is "Asia's turn" to lead the United Nations is no diplomatic courtesy. It is true that Asia has long been underrepresented among the leaders of the major UN institutions. Far more importantly, however, only an Asian Secretary General with deep experience in fostering intra-Asian cooperation and strong links to the wider world will be able to lead the United Nations in contributing to the peaceful management of the rapidly transforming Asia's political, economic and cultural world.

	Dr. Surakiart has extensive experience in fostering intra-Asian cooperation. He has been involved in resolving some of the most intractable international conflicts in the Asian region, and has been a leader in developing new institutional frameworks for pan-Asian cooperation.
	As Foreign Minister, Dr. Surakiart reoriented Thai foreign policy towards intra-Asian cooperation, vigorously promoting the "prosper thy neighbor" policy of regional economic development. Ever since before he became Foreign Minister, Dr. Surakiart had been calling for a practical way to foster an Asian wide cooperation. He was instrumental in placing an Asian cooperation initiative in the Thai Rak Thai (TRT) party manifesto. When he became Foreign Minister, he worked closely and tirelessly with Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra to create a cooperation framework tailor made for Asia, a continent of tremendous diversity. After many shuttle diplomacy and confidence-building missions, the Asia Cooperation Dialogue (ACD) was inaugurated in 2002 with ASEAN, China, Japan and India as the core members. The ACD is a framework for diverse and overlapping projects of transnational cooperation. It has grown to include members throughout Asia and has sponsored numerous cooperative initiatives in just three years. With Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, Dr. Surakiart founded the Ayeyawady-Chao Phraya-Mekong Economic Cooperation Strategy in 2003, bridging the development gulf between Thailand, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar and Vietnam. As Prime Minister Chatichai's policy advisor and personal envoy, Dr. Surakiart played a pivotal role in Thailand's perennially fractious relations with Cambodia, leading behind the scenes negotiations with all parties in Cambodia while cooperating closely with the United States and other parties outside the region. He also led Thailand's trade negotiations with the United States in the field of intellectual property rights. As Foreign Minister, Dr. Surakiart oversaw the establishment of Joint Development Areas with Thailand's neighbors to permit joint economic exploration of offshore territories while negotiations over their final legal status continued. Dr. Surakiart has been tireless in expanding Asian cooperation beyond the ASEAN community, working consistently with China, India, Russia and Japan and other Asian partners.
	Dr. Surakiart's private sector work added to his experience as an international negotiator. At the Petroleum Authority of Thailand Exploration and Production (PTTEP), he mediated among American and French exploration companies, private investors, and government interests in delicate negotiations to ensure petroleum exploration off the coast of Myanmar. In restructuring PTTEP and Laem Thong Bank, Dr. Surakiart managed difficult negotiations among foreign investors, government ministries, labor and management interests. As a founding partner of a major Bangkok private law firm, Dr.Surakiart forged partnerships with law firms in Asia and Australia.
	Dr. Surakiart understands the significance of Asia's multiple ties to the wider world. He wrote of his Asian partners:   "We must remain open to one another, respecting the diversity of our paths forward, and cooperating with one another as we build our common future. We must also remain open to the world and to new ideas. We succeed only in partnership with friends outside Asia and with the help of the institutions of the world community." Dr. Surakiart's private and financial sector experiences have all involved collaboration with commercial partners, investors and government agencies outside Asia. Dr. Surakiart's links to the wider world are deep and personal. He has lived and studied in the United States --- his son was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts - and in the United Kingdom. His mother is a renowned scholar of French literature, and his wife, Thanpuying Dr. Suthawan Sathirathai holds a doctorate in economics from the University of Cambridge (UK) as well as a graduate degree.

Dr. Surakiart will bring the intellectual weight and moral vision necessary for the Secretary General to work effectively as the global statesman representing all Member States.

	Peace. Dr. Surakiart's deepest moral commitment, rooted in his Buddhist heritage, is to peace. Peace within oneself, peace among peoples and among cultures. From his student days, Dr. Surakiart has sought to improve the effectiveness of the international institutions and multilateral collaboration that he sees as the strongest path to peace. His approach stresses flexible multilateral arrangements and personal trust. For Dr. Surakiart, "to manage peace we must learn to manage change." The Asia Cooperation Dialogue illustrated his vision of learning to live with differences and the ability to build strength out of diversity - the first ever pan-Asian framework stresses inclusiveness and respect for diversity rather than institutional form. Now in its fourth year, the ACD structure now comprises 28 members representing 85 percent of all the sub-regions of Asia with 19 areas of broad cooperation projects that are yielding tangible results. In each international negotiation, Dr. Surakiart stresses the significance of interpersonal trust and reliability. He has established himself as a respected "honest broker" within Asian diplomatic circles. Dr. Surakiart knows that the road to peace is not always the shortest or most popular. In the 1980s, his behind the scenes work, in close cooperation with the United States, to bring different Cambodian factions together when the Thai government's officially recognized one faction alone was strongly disapproved by many Thai diplomats and officials. Nevertheless, when the mission bore fruit and helped bring peace, stability and eventually a UN supervised election to Cambodia, Dr. Surakiart's effort and subtle diplomatic skill came to be highly regarded and appreciated by all.
	Poverty alleviation has been Dr. Surakiart's central focus - motivating his interest in international economics, finance and development. Peace, he recognizes, is only sustainable when accompanied by prosperity. His efforts have been animated by the principles of self-reliance, South-South cooperation, "prosper thy neighbor," and multilateral cooperation for development. He has consistently sought links between international finance and trade issues and real world poverty at the local level. He has experience with the difficult task of bringing vastly different national governments together for a common development task, notably in his work on the Ayeyawady-Chao Phraya-Mekong Economic Cooperation Strategy and the East-West Economic Corridor, linking Asian nations from Vietnam to Myanmar and India.
	Democracy and Effective governance. An experienced institutional reformer and manager, Dr. Surakiart understands the significance of effective and accountable governance, locally, nationally and internationally, to the pursuit of peace, prosperity and social justice. He has been a particular champion of participation, broadening those at the negotiating table, and opening governance to the engagement of all stakeholders and citizens. He has deep experience encouraging democracy and reforming governance within Thailand, among Thailand's neighbors, and in his management reform work in the private sector.
	Human Rights and Humanitarianism. Dr. Surakiart has a long record of commitment to human rights as a universal measure for good governance and social justice. His diplomatic career has placed him at the center of transnational work in health, human security and humanitarian relief, most recently in the coordination of Tsunami relief. Dr. Surakiart has a particular interest in gender justice, ensuring the participation of women in governance and economic life at all levels, and addressing humanitarian issues of particular concern to women, most recently in his chairmanship of the Thai national committee to address human trafficking. As chairman of the Thai national commission on trafficking, Dr. Surakiart drafted a bill on prevention and suppression of human trafficking as well as assisting its victims, and shepherded it through the cabinet. Dr. Surakiart took the lead in organizing an Asian-wide response to the SARS epidemic, hosting a high-level meeting of ASEAN and Chinese leaders days after the crisis broke. He has been deeply involved in sharing Thai experiences with HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment with neighboring nations, and co-chaired the second Asia-Pacific Ministerial Meeting on HIV/AIDS in Bangkok in 2004. Within hours of the December 2004 Tsunami, Dr. Surakiart arranged to airlift personnel from nearly 30 embassies to Phuket to assist their affected citizens. He went on to coordinate the national response, while facilitating U.S. led efforts to establish a regional relief center in Thailand. He has worked closely with Secretary General Annan and ASEAN colleagues to coordinate infrastructure in the region in the event of future emergencies and to set up an early-warning system for future tsunamis. As Deputy Prime Minister, Dr. Surakiart has facilitated the regularization of economic migrants in Thailand to ease access to health, education and other services.
	Dr. Surakiart is a serious academic and intellectual. He obtained two masters degrees, one in law from Harvard (LL.M) with a thesis on human rights and the other in law and diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University (M.A.L.D.), and was the first Thai to earn a doctorate in law from Harvard University. His thesis explored the global trade law regime from the perspective of the third world. He co-edited a monograph on Third World approaches to international law with his Harvard mentor Fred Snyder, and has been an active participant in academic debate since, publishing widely. As lecturer and Dean at the Faculty of Law, Chulalongkorn University, he founded the Law and Development Research Center, and wrote and taught in the areas of international trade and finance, and was instrumental in bringing international expertise and an interdisciplinary perspective to the Thai law faculty. His efforts at the University ensured that law reform was included in Thailand's Fifth National Economic and Social Development Plan.
	Dr. Surakiart is widely acknowledged as one of his nation's most dynamic and brilliant leaders. He has had the honor of serving as the youngest Finance Minister, the youngest Foreign Minister, and now the youngest Deputy Prime Minister in his nation's history. An expert in international law, finance and economic development, Dr. Surakiart brings over twenty years of service in academic, government and private business. He has led the effort to reform governance of several Thai companies, instituted major curricular reforms at the Faculty of Law, built and strengthened several intergovernmental organizations dedicated to regional cooperation in the service of sensible development and has led and facilitated numerous challenging international negotiations among both public and private actors.