GCS International plans to cooperate with the U.N. University for Peace in San Jose, Costa Rica to jointly celebrate the September 21 U.N. International Day of Peace at the U.N. headquarters in New York, USA and/or in Korea or Costa Rica.

The two sides agreed in principle to cooperate when GCS International President Chungwon Choue visited the U.N. Peace University in the city of Colon on March 12, 2020, together with Dr. Seok-jae Kang, secretary general of GCS International and senior consultant for WT Cares Program; Dr. Selma Li, president of the GCS Portland, USA Chapter; and Raul Pinzon Salamanca, president of the GCS Colombia Chapter.

Shortly before leaving Costa Rica at the airport on March 13, GCS President Choue talked over the phone with Dr. Francisco Rojas Aravena, rector of the University for Peace, who was in Chile, to agree to discuss the matter shortly.
The rector welcomed Dr. Choue’s suggestion of cooperating with GCS International and World Taekwondo to jointly mark the September 21 U.N. International Day of Peace.

The University for Peace is an international organization with a university status, established by treaty at the United Nations General Assembly in 1980, and has its main campus in Costa Rica.
The UPEACE was founded in 1980 by the late Costa Rican President Rodrigo Carazo Odio. Rodrigo Carazo, one of the 77 international promoters of the GCS Movement, played a crucial role in establishing the U.N. International Day of Peace.

In 1981 in San Jose, Costa Rica, the GCS founder, the late Dr. Young Seek Choue, and his eldest son, Dr. Chungwon Choue, attended the 6th International Association of University Presidents (IAUP) Triennial Conference. Dr. Young Seek Choue was then president of the IAUP and GCS International.
At the IAUP meeting, the U.N. International Day of Peace and Year of Peace were proposed by Dr. Young Seek Choue, and then President Rodrigo Carazo instructed Rodolfo Piza Excalante, the then Costa Rican ambassador to the U.N., to put the agenda to the U.N. General Assembly. Late that year the United Nations unanimously approved the International Day of Peace.

Three Costa Rican dignitaries – Rodrigo Carazo, Rodolfo Piza Excalante and then vice president Armando Arauz Aguilar – were among the 77 international promoters of the GCS Movement.
The eldest son of the late Rodrigo Carazo Odio, Rodrigo Alberto Carazo Zeladon, now serves as the Costa Rica representative before the United Nations, while the late president’s second son, Mario Ernesto Carazo is working as the incumbent president of the U.N. University for Peace.