PETER TOMKA OF SLOVAKIA ELECTED CHAIRMAN OF SIXTH COMMITTEE

16 September 1997

Press Release
BIO/3108
GA/L/3034

PETER TOMKA OF SLOVAKIA ELECTED CHAIRMAN OF SIXTH COMMITTEE

19970916 Biographical Note Peter Tomka, Legal Adviser in Slovakia's Foreign Ministry and Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations, was this afternoon elected Chairman of the Sixth Committee (Legal). Mr. Tomka was Slovakia's Acting Permanent Representative to the United Nations from 1994 -- following the dissolution of the Czecho-Slovak Federation and admission of Slovakia to the United Nations -- until early this year. Since his appointment in 1991 as Counsellor and Legal Adviser at Czechoslovakia's United Nations Mission, Mr. Tomka has participated actively in the work of the Sixth Committee, where he has served as Vice-Chairman (1992) and as Chairman of its Working Group on the United Nations Decade of International Law (1995). In 1996, Mr. Tomka served as Chairman of the Meeting of States Parties to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and as Vice- Chairman of the Meeting of States Parties to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. He was also Chairman of the Committee on Applications for Review of the Judgements of the United Nations Administrative Tribunal (1991). Mr. Tomka began his career in his country's Foreign Ministry in 1986, as Assistant Legal Adviser, becoming head of its Public International Law Division in 1991. During that period, Mr. Tomka also taught international law at Charles University in Prague (1985-1991). In 1993, he was appointed as his country's agent before the International Court of Justice in the Gabcikovo- Nagymaros Project case between Hungary and Slovakia -- a case which he pleaded before the Court during March and April 1997. Throughout his career, Mr. Tomka has participated in a number of conferences dealing with international legal issues, including the law of the sea, the law of Antarctica, and international humanitarian law. He has also authored publications on such subjects as the codification of international law, peaceful settlement of disputes, crimes against peace and security, and a collection of texts on the law of the European Union. Mr. Tomka is a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, the International Law Association, and the Slovak Society for International Law. Graduating from Charles University Law School111 in 1979, Mr. Tomka completed his doctoral dissertation on the codification of international law in the United Nations in 1985. He also studied international law in France, at the Institut du Droit de la Paix et du Developpement, and in Ukraine, at the Faculty of International Law and International Relations. Mr. Tomka was born on 1 June 1956 and is married.

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