MIROSLAV SOMOL OF CZECH REPUBLIC ELECTED CHAIRMAN OF COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS
Press Release
BIO/3064
HR/CN/766
MIROSLAV SOMOL OF CZECH REPUBLIC ELECTED CHAIRMAN OF COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS
19970318 GENEVA, 10 March (UN Information Service) -- The Permanent Representative of the Czech Republic to the United Nations at Geneva, Miroslav Somol, was elected Chairman of the fifty-third session of the Commission on Human Rights by acclamation this morning.Mr. Somol started his career in 1975 in the Federal Ministry of Foreign Trade. During his tenure there, he was responsible for, among other things, the formulation of multilateral trade policy in regard to international economic organizations. He also headed governmental delegations to conferences and meetings of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.
In 1989, Mr. Somol was posted to the Czechoslovak Embassy in Damascus, Syria, as Commercial Attaché, returning to Prague in 1992 as Director-General for multilateral trade policy. In that capacity, he was predominantly responsible for the initial stage of implementation of the trade part of the European agreement between the then Czechoslovakia and the European Union. Following the break up of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic, Mr. Somol was charged with restructuring the trade division of the newly established Ministry of Industry and Trade, in which he served first as acting Vice-Minister for Trade and then as Vice-Minister.
Born on 1 July 1952, Mr. Somol studied law at Charles University, Prague, and earned a doctorate from the Institute of State and Law of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences.
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