Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005, will deliver the annual Anwar Sadat Lecture for Peace and Development, at 7 p.m., on Tuesday, October 24, in the Dekelboum Concert Hall of the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center.

ElBaradei and his agency were jointly awarded the Peace Prize for efforts "to prevent nuclear energy from being used for military purposes and to ensure that nuclear energy for peaceful purposes is used in the safest possible way."

Based in Vienna, ElBaradei has played a pivotal role in international efforts to monitor Iran's nuclear development and, among other initiatives, referred the matter to the U.N. Security Council for action.

El Baradei is a lawyer and diplomat by training, and has held his position since 1997. He was reappointed to a third term in 2005. He has used his position to warn of the dangers of nuclear energy, as well as to pursue the IAEA ideal: "atoms for peace."

In a 2004 op-ed published by the New York Times, ElBaradei wrote, "We must abandon the unworkable notion that it is morally reprehensible for some countries to pursue weapons of mass destruction, yet morally acceptable for others to rely on them for security—and indeed to continue to refine their capacities and postulate plans for their use...If the world does not change course, we risk self-destruction."

Delivering his Nobel lecture last year, he described weapons of mass destruction as threats without borders: "We cannot respond to these threats by building more walls, developing bigger weapons, or dispatching more troops. Quite to the contrary. By their very nature, these security threats require primarily multinational cooperation...We must ensure—absolutely—that no more countries acquire these deadly weapons. We must see to it that nuclear-weapon states take concrete steps towards nuclear disarmament. And we must put in place a security system that does not rely on nuclear deterrence."

The annual lecture series, part of the university's Anwar Sadat Chair for Peace and Development program and directed by Chair Shibley Telhami, has consistently attracted world figures including Kofi Annan, Nelson Mandela, Henry Kissinger, Jimmy Carter and Ezer Weizman.

Stay tuned for more details.

MORE INFORMATION IS AVAILABLE ONLINE:

http://www.bsos.umd.edu/SADAT/lecture/index.htm

http://www.iaea.org/About/DGC/dgbio.html

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2005/elbaradei-lecture-en.html