ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — Former President Bill Clinton said on Sunday that he believed that New York University and the Abu Dhabi government would conduct a thorough investigation into worker rights abuses at the university’s new campus here in the country’s capital.

Delivering the first graduation speech at the campus, Mr. Clinton said the controversy had “dominated the coverage” of the university during the days leading up to the ceremony, in the heart of the capital’s cultural district.

“I wish the coverage this week had been about you,” he told the 140 graduating students. But he said the concerns raised about workers building the campus were “an opportunity to address in concrete, real flesh-and-blood form, one of the representative issues of equality and identity in the 21st century.”

In his remarks, Mr. Clinton expressed support for his friend John Sexton, N.Y.U.’s president, while voicing concern about treatment of foreign laborers who helped construct the building where the ceremony was held. The abusive practices, including underpayment of wages and overcrowded living conditions, were described in a New York Times article last Monday. Mr. Clinton’s speech avoided any direct criticism of N.Y.U. or the United Arab Emirates.