SECRETARY-GENERAL APPOINTS DANIEL O'DONNELL OF UNITED STATES TO INVESTIGATIVE TEAM IN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO

13 February 1998

Press Release
SG/A/672
BIO/3141

SECRETARY-GENERAL APPOINTS DANIEL O'DONNELL OF UNITED STATES TO INVESTIGATIVE TEAM IN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO

19980213 Biographical Note Secretary-General Kofi Annan today announced the appointment of Daniel Michael O'Donnell of the United States as a new member of his investigative team in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The team has a mandate to investigate grave violations of human rights and international humanitarian law alleged to have been committed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (the former Zaire) since 1 March 1993. Mr. O'Donnell will assume his new position at the end of February 1998. Mr. O'Donnell was Director of Investigations of the Commission for Historical Clarification in Guatemala from July 1997 to January 1998. The Commission was established to investigate abuses committed by governmental and guerilla forces during 36 years of armed conflict. Mr. O'Donnell established the investigative procedures and priorities and supervised the field operations of more than 60 investigators in 14 offices. From 1993 to 1997, Mr. O'Donnell worked as a consultant on children's and human rights for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), Radda Barnen, and other organizations. In that capacity, he organized training programmes, provided advisory services, programme designs and evaluations. In 1992, he worked as a Human Rights Officer in the United Nations Centre for Human Rights in Geneva, where he dealt with summary and arbitrary executions, internally displaced persons and human rights in the former Yugoslavia. As a Senior Legal Officer at Defence for Children International in Geneva from 1987 to 1992, Mr. O'Donnell was involved in standard-setting for the Convention on the Rights of the Child, as well as in the work of a number of United Nations human rights bodies. During that period, he lectured at legal and human rights institutions in Lima, Peru; Strasbourg, France; and San Remo, Italy. From 1985 to 1987, he worked as a consultant for the Andean Commission of Jurists in Lima, where he wrote a manual on the international protection of human rights. Between 1982 and 1987, Mr. O'Donnell was a special adviser at the Inter- American Institute for Human Rights in San Jose, Costa Rica. From 1980 to 1982, he was Director of the Centre for the Independence of Judges and Lawyers at the International Commission of Jurists in Geneva. Prior to 1980, Mr. O'Donnell worked in different legal capacities at the International Commission of Jurists and in the United States District Court in New York. In 1980, he was admitted to the Bar of New York. Mr. O'Donnell was born on 14 November 1949. He received a Bachelor of Arts in History in 1973 and a Juris Doctor in 1997 from the State University of New York at Buffalo. He is fluent in English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese.

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