Cornelio Sommaruga

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Cornelio Sommaruga

Cornelio Sommaruga (born December 29, 1932 in Rome ) is a Swiss lawyer . From 1960 to 1987 he worked as a diplomat in various countries and in Geneva for the Swiss representation at a number of international institutions. In 1987 he became President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and held this office until 1999. Since then he has worked in various other humanitarian organizations.

Life

Cornelio Sommaruga was born in Rome in 1932 as a citizen of Lugano . He was the oldest of six children in a diplomatic family. His parents raised him Catholic, and alongside his parents' religion, the boy scout movement was one of the most formative influences in his early life. One of his first humanitarian activities was regularly taking care of those taking part in the pilgrimages to Lourdes .

He studied among others in Rome , Paris and Zurich jurisprudence and graduated in 1957 with a PhD in law from the University of Zurich. From 1957 to 1959 he worked as a trainee for a bank in Zurich and then entered the civil service. Until the end of 1968 he held diplomatic posts as attaché in The Hague and as embassy secretary in Bonn and Rome. He then took over the post of deputy head of the Swiss delegation to the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), the World Trade Conference (UNCTAD), the United Nations (UNO) and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) until 1973 . From 1973 to 1975 he worked as Deputy Secretary General of EFTA in Geneva, then until 1983 he was a member of the management of the Federal Office for Foreign Trade in Bern. He then worked there from 1984 to 1986 as State Secretary in the Federal Office for Foreign Trade, before resigning from this office in 1987 to become President of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Since his retirement from the office of ICRC President in 1999, Sommaruga has held various mandates, mainly in humanitarian organizations. For example, since 2000 he has been an honorary member of the ICRC, a member of the study group on peace operations of the United Nations, President of the International Center for Humanitarian Demining (GICHD) in Geneva, President of the Karl Popper Foundation in Zug and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Open Society Institute in Budapest. In 2002 he became President of the International Association of Initiatives of Change in Caux. From 2004 to 2008 he was a member of the Board of Directors of JP Morgan (Suisse) SA. He is on the initiative committee of the corporate responsibility initiative .

Sommaruga has been married to Ornella Marzorati since 1957, father of six children and grandfather of 16 grandchildren. His family traditions, which he strictly respects, include an annual family reunion at Pentecost and writing a postcard to each of his children from every country he visits as part of his activities. He lives in Geneva with his wife.

ICRC presidency

In July 1986, Cornelio Sommaruga succeeded Alexandre Hay in the office of President of the International Committee of the Red Cross and took over the office on May 8, 1987. For the ICRC, the history of which is rooted in the Calvinist traditions of Geneva, he was only the second Catholic elected to the office of President. In his twelve years in office, which had a lasting impact on the committee, he and the ICRC experienced great historical upheavals and serious events such as the fall of the Eastern Bloc, the failure of the international community in the face of the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 and a dramatic increase in the number of missions of the ICRC and thus the delegates in general and those who were killed in their operations. In particular, the murder of six delegates on December 17, 1996 in the Chechen city of Novije Atagi near Grozny became a symbol of a marked decline in respect for the Geneva Conventions and their symbols, and thus of a crisis in authority for the ICRC. The expansion of the ICRC's global engagement during Sommaruga's tenure also resulted in a significant increase in the committee's budget.

From 1988 to 1989, during Sommaruga's presidency, there was a crisis within the ICRC. A number of young delegates turned their backs on the committee after just a few missions after the extent of the committee's failure during the Holocaust became known within the organization . In 1989, an internal letter from around 200 of the 1,300 members of the committee accused Sommaruga of weak leadership and excessive reluctance to deal with foreign governments. However, despite these problems, he was re-elected for a further term in 1991 and 1995. Sommaruga's actions in relation to the committee's handling of its own history include a public apology on May 30, 1995 for the ICRC's failure in the face of the crimes of the Nazis.

In 1992 he published an essay in which he analyzed the problems of the symbols of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and suggested possible solutions. This article intensified the efforts for the recognition of the Israeli society Magen David Adom (MDA) by the ICRC as a national aid society within the meaning of the Geneva Conventions and the admission of the society into the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. In some cases, however, the dispute about this problem also intensified. An article appeared in the American newspaper The Washington Post containing a series of attacks against him. Among the awards he has received for his work, he therefore attaches particular importance to the Presidential Award from Tel Aviv University .

In August 1998, Jakob Kellenberger was elected to succeed Sommaruga from January 1, 2000.

Awards

Cornelio Sommaruga has received a number of awards for his diplomatic and humanitarian work. The most important are:

  • Henry Dunant Medal (2009)
  • Prize of the Association de la presse étrangère en Suisse: “Personnalité suisse la plus populaire auprès des journalistes étrangers”, Geneva (2003)
  • Prize of the Dr. JE Brandenberger, Lugano (2003)
  • North-South Prize of the Council of Europe , Lisbon (2001)
  • Order of the Falcons (2000)
  • Culture Prize of the Canton of Baselland, Muttenz (1998)
  • Prize of the International Society for Human Rights, Section Switzerland, Bern (1996)
  • International Josef Krainer Prize , Graz (1996)
  • Prize of the Fondazione del Centenario BSI, Lugano (1995)
  • Prix ​​Contact of the French-speaking Swiss business press, Lausanne (1986)
  • Dr. Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award, Tufts University, Boston (USA)
  • Presidential Awards from several universities
  • several honorary doctorates

Fonts

  • Cornelio Sommaruga: Unity and Plurality of the emblems. In: International Review of the Red Cross. 289/1992. ICRC, pp. 333-338, ISSN  1560-7755 .
  • Cornelio Sommaruga: Humanitarian challenges on the threshold of the twenty-first century. In: International Review of the Red Cross. 310/1996. ICRC, pp. 20-35, ISSN  1560-7755 .

literature

Web links

Commons : Cornelio Sommaruga  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ JP Morgan (Suisse) SA, Zurich - Board of Directors. Retrieved November 21, 2018 .
  2. ↑ Corporate Responsibility Initiative: Personalities. Retrieved August 3, 2020 .
  3. ↑ NZZ am Sonntag, December 22, 2013, p. 6.
  4. ↑ NZZ am Sonntag, December 22, 2013, p. 6.
personal data
SURNAME Sommaruga, Cornelio
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss lawyer
DATE OF BIRTH December 29, 1932
PLACE OF BIRTH Rome