Former President Jimmy Carter receives humanitarian award in Phoenix

Ruth V. McGregor, Chief Justice, Arizona Supreme Court,


Former president Jimmy Carter was awarded the O’Connor Justice Prize by the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at the Arizona Biltmore Hotel Friday night.

Carter, 92, is this year's recipient of the O'Connor Justice Prize, an annual award named after retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.


Carter was given the award for humanitarian service during and after his presidency in the first time the award has been given since the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law moved to downtown Phoenix.

Carter accepted the award following an introduction from former Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals’ District of Columbia circuit Patricia Wald. Wald was appointed to the court originally in 1979 by then-President Carter.In a clear, powerful voice with distinctive Georgia accent, Carter said he didn’t always agree with Ronald Reagan but that placing O’Connor on the nation's high court “was the best decision he ever made.”

Carter did not give media interviews or take audience questions but answered three questions from Ana Palacio, last year’s winner of the O’Connor Justice Prize.

Palacio, the former foreign affairs minister of Spain, asked Carter to paint an optimistic picture of the United States in the world.

Carter said there is no limit to what the American people can do.

“I think the United States ought to be a superpower. Not just militarily, we already are, but we should be the nation on earth where anyone who has a conflict (could say) why don’t we go to Washington because the United States is a champion of peace? Why don’t we go to Washington because the United States is a champion of environmental quality? Why don’t we go to Washington because the United States is a champion of generosity? That’s the kind of superpower the United States ought to be. And I don’t think it’s beyond our capabilities as a people.”

Palacio then asked how he became inspired to found the non-profit Carter Center, which he launched in 1982 with his wife, Rosalynn, to fight world hunger, disease, poverty, and oppression.

Carter said after the success with the Camp David Accords, a peace agreement between Israel and Eqypt he was inundated with requests to mediate disputes while he was in office. This included disputes between “husband and wife,” he joked.

After he was “involuntarily retired” from the White House in the 1980 election, “I decided I would devote the rest of my life to mediating disputes.”

This led to the Carter Center’s involvement in orchestrating fair elections and monitoring more than 100 troubled elections in the world.

“What we’ve done primarily is devote ourselves to elections and peacekeeping,” he said.

Carter, with former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, attended the Jan. 20 inauguration of President Donald Trump but made no comment on the latter’s first week in office.

About 300 dignitaries and guests attended the ceremony, which opened with a dinner of herb-grilled flat iron steak, grilled butternut squash and sweet cream and berries. Among the notables besides O'Connor was retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens.

In introductory remarks, Patricia Wald, retired chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals, said it's difficult to sum up all of Carter's achievements in just eight minutes: "How can a mere sentence do justice?"

To rousing applause, Wald added, "He set the bar himself by putting his peanut business in a blind trust.” The comment was a swipe at the current administration and Trump for declining to put his business interests into a blind trust.

She went on to praise Carter’s candor and honesty in speaking to the American people throughout his four years in office, “even when the news wasn’t good.”

Among the domestic and foreign challenges Carter faced were high inflation and unemployment, the 1979 energy crisis, the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, the Iran hostage crisis and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Since leaving office in 1981, Carter has dedicated himself to humanitarian work and has emerged as an elder statesman.

His work at finding peaceful solutions to international conflicts and advancing democracy and human rights earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.

Notably, the Carter Center has led a campaign to eradicate the Guinea worm, a parasite that grows inside the abdomen and causes painful burning.

Since the non-profit center began working on the disease three decades ago, infections have fallen from 3.5 million a year to 25 cases last year, according to the center.

A cancer survivor, Carter successfully underwent treatment for melanoma that had spread to his brain in 2015.

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter have been married 70 years.

“Seventy-one if I make it to July,” he said to the audience.

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