Jan Eliasson

Jan Eliasson in October 2011

Jan Eliasson (born September 17, 1940 in Gothenburg ) is a Swedish diplomat and social democratic politician. He was Sweden's Foreign Minister from April 24 to October 6, 2006, and President of the 60th session of the UN General Assembly from September 2005 to September 2006 . From July 1, 2012 to January 1, 2017 he was UN Deputy Secretary General .

biography

Jan Eliasson studied as an exchange student in Indiana in 1957 and 1958 and graduated from the Swedish Naval Academy in 1962 . In 1965 he received his Masters degree from the University of Gothenburg Business School .

After completing his studies, Eliasson began his career in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Sweden and worked between 1982 and 1983 as an advisor to Prime Minister Olof Palme . From 1983 to 1987 he served as Secretary General for Political Affairs in the Swedish Foreign Ministry.

As early as 1980, Eliasson was a member of a UN mission that was supposed to mediate in the war between Iran and Iraq . In this capacity he worked until 1986. From 1988 to 1992 he was the Permanent Representative of Sweden to the United Nations in New York City , where he also served as the personal representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations on Iran / Iraq affairs.

Eliasson ( right ) with George W. Bush in September 2005

In 1991 Eliasson served as head of the working group of the UN General Assembly on issues of emergency relief and Vice President of ECOSOC (1991-92). In 1992 he also became the first Under Secretary for Humanitarian Affairs of the United Nations. In this capacity he was on missions in Somalia , Sudan , Mozambique and the Balkans . He also campaigned against the use of landmines .

Between 1994 and 1999, Eliasson served as State Secretary in the Swedish Foreign Ministry. During this time, he developed an action plan for preventive crisis management, which was later applied to the Balkans. Since 2000 he has been the Swedish Ambassador to the USA in Washington, DC

On June 13, 2005, Eliasson was unanimously elected as the future President of the UN General Assembly. He took up this position on September 17, 2005 during the opening of the session of the General Assembly.

Jan Eliasson is committed to a " veto- free culture" in the United Nations: New permanent members of the UN Security Council should no longer receive any veto power, the previous veto powers should only use theirs in exceptional cases, e. B. when it comes to stop genocide .

On March 27, 2006, he was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs of Sweden as the successor to the resigned Laila Freivalds . He took up this post on April 24, 2006, but held his office at the United Nations until September. After the Social Democrats had lost the election in September 2006, Eliasson handed over the office to Carl Bildt from the Moderata samlingspartiet .

From December 2006 Eliasson was UN special envoy for Darfur .

Awards

• 1997: Large gold medal on ribbon for services to the Republic of Austria
• 2006: Honorary doctorate from Uppsala University

Web links

• CV at the UN (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ List of all decorations awarded by the Federal President for services to the Republic of Austria from 1952 (PDF; 6.9 MB)