Mr. Trimble was awarded the Nobel Prize for his role in negotiating the Good Friday agreement in Northern Ireland, which provided a formula for power-sharing in the civil-war torn province and set it on the path to the peace it currently enjoys. Mr. Trimble's courageous and visionary decision, as the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, to engage in dialogue and negotiation with his nationalist counterpart John Hume is rightly recognized as a decisive step in the resolution of this seemingly intractable conflict.

Born in Belfast, Trimble's early career was spent in the practice and teaching of law. He was Assistant Dean of the Faculty of Law at Queens University from 1973 to 1975 and Head of the Department of Commercial and Property Law for some ten years. Interested in politics from an early stage, Trimble joined the Ulster Unionist Party in 1978. In addition to a number of papers and pamphlets, he co-authored Northern Ireland Housing Law, contributed chapters to Human Rights and Responsibilities in Britain and Ireland -- which was the product of a joint churches working party --and edited the Northern Ireland Law Reports for 15 years. He resigned from the University after becoming a Member of Parliament in 1990.

Following his election to parliament Trimble became the Ulster Unionist Party spokesman on Home Affairs. In the early nineties David was instrumental in obtaining amendments to a number of Home Office Bills, notably a major criminal justice and public order Act in 1993 and the Act which established the Criminal Cases Review Commission.

On September 8, 1995, Trimble was elected leader of the Ulster Unionist Party. He established himself quickly and led Unionism into a proactive engagement with the other parties in Ireland, north and south. He was the first Unionist leader in a generation to meet an Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) and the first ever to do so in Government Buildings in Dublin. He soon established relations with all the British national parties, and started regular visits to Washington where he was the first Unionist leader to meet the U.S. President. Over the years he was to work closely with Prime Minister Blair and be in regular contact with Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

Trimble managed to secure the election of negotiators to multiparty political talks in 1996. Sinn Fein, the political wing of the IRA, was excluded from the talks as the IRA was not observing a cease fire. The talks made little progress until after the 1997 general election in the UK which saw the Labour Party come to office after 18 years in opposition. Sinn Fein/IRA, believing that Labour would be more sympathetic to their cause, reinstated their cease fire and was admitted to the talks. This caused two of the three major Unionist parties to withdraw but Trimble led his UUP back into negotiations.

The result, reached on Good Friday, 10th April 1998, was the Belfast Agreement. This Agreement provided for power-sharing between unionists and nationalists in a devolved parliament, cross-border cooperation between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic and a new British-Irish relationship. The Belfast Agreement has proven to have lasting and far-reaching success: In a dramatic declaration in July 2005, The IRA announced it would renounce all violence and resume disarmament—a move designed to accelerate Northern Ireland's peace process and further negotiations on power-sharing, the core goal of the Agreement.

Trimble's contribution to peace and political progress in Northern Ireland has been recognized at home and abroad. In addition to Nobel Peace Prize (which he was awarded alongside John Hume) he has also been named Parliamentarian of the Year by his peers in the British House of Commons in The House Magazine awards of 2000, and in the Spectator Magazine Parliamentary awards the subsequent year. He has also been conferred with honorary doctorates by Universities in Northern Ireland, Great Britain, the United States, Canada and Israel.

David Trimble's lectures explore the nature of conflict in the modern world, and what must be done to provide peace, prosperity, and security to our planet's most vulnerable people. Drawing on his experiences as a politician and peace negotiator in his own native Northern Ireland, Trimble discusses the causes of sectarian conflict, and the various ways that men and women of good will and good intentions can move forward to a peaceful future. Trimble knows firsthand that peace often involves both tough, practical choices as well as a leap of faith, and he blends the very personal perspective of someone who made these choices and took that leap, with a broad-ranging inquiry into what can be done to create the climate for a more peaceful planet.

Can the lessons learned in negotiating the historic peace settlement between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland be utilized to ease tensions, foster understanding and harness peace in the Middle East today? In this talk, Nobel Laureate David Trimble shares the monumental lessons he learned in negotiating The Belfast Agreement, showing us how they may hold the key to ending the similar, seemingly intractable conflict between Palestine and Israel, between the Sunnis and the Shiites.

How do warring factions of vastly different political and religious beliefs, with generations of violence toward each other, move toward disarmament; and how do they do it with words instead of weapons? What needs to be the catalyst for change and understanding, and how do we begin? In the Middle East today, as in the Northern Ireland of a decade ago, these are the vital questions. And with a bracing authority, Trimble answers them, once again bringing his insight, integrity, political acumen, and humanitarianism to a delicate subject matter. He suggests the necessary steps toward a peaceful solution in the Middle East, one that may begin to undo the damage of centuries of mistrust and unrest. As the man who brought peace to Northern Ireland has already proven, even the most explosive conflicts can be mended: the first step is to recognize that only we, and we alone, can bring peace to our world.