PETER DICKSON DONIGI (PAPUA NEW GUINEA), PRESIDENT OF ASSEMBLY OF INTERNATIONAL SEABED AUTHORITY

Biographical Note                                           BIO/3370*

                                                            3 July 2001

PETER DICKSON DONIGI (PAPUA NEW GUINEA), PRESIDENT OF ASSEMBLY

OF INTERNATIONAL SEABED AUTHORITY

(Received from the International Seabed Authority.)

KINGSTON, 2 July -- Peter Dickson Donigi (Papua New Guinea), who was elected today as President of the Assembly of the International Seabed Authority at its seventh session (2001), has been his country’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations since November 1998.

Mr. Donigi has participated in negotiations on the law of the sea since the first substantive session of the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea, held in Caracas in 1974.  Active in law of the sea issues at the United Nations, he was President in 2000 of the Meeting of States Parties to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and has been Chairman of the Asian Group members of the International Seabed Authority.  He was Chairman in 1999 and 2000 of the United Nations Special Committee on the Situation with regard to the Implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples.

Before his appointment to the United Nations, Mr. Donigi was consultant under World Bank auspices to the Government of Papua New Guinea on the establishment of an independent commission against corruption.

Mr. Donigi has held many senior government positions, including Senior Crown Prosecutor (1975) before independence.  Between 1981 and 1998, his career was primarily in private legal practice in Papua New Guinea, where for six years he was president of the nation’s Law Society.  He was a senior partner in the largest domestic law firm in the country before leaving it in 1989.  He practised on his own, handling, among others, constitutional law cases, law of associations, corporate and property law, banking, finance and securities.  His speciality was constitutional law, and he appeared in many precedent-setting constitutional cases in Papua New Guinea.  He was a founder and chairman of Pacrim Energy, a junior Papua New Guinea-registered petroleum exploration company.

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*     This supersedes Press Release BIO/3207 dated 23 November 1998.

- 2 - Press Release

                                                                    SEA/1713

In August 1991, he was appointed Ambassador and Special Envoy to the United Nations in New York on a short assignment, returning to his legal practice in January 1992.  In April 1992, he was appointed Ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany with concurrent accreditation to the Holy See, serving until January 1995.  He has also been a senior legal adviser to his Government on international law and international trade law, First Assistant Secretary for Trade and Economic Relations, Deputy Secretary for Foreign Affairs and Trade, and head of mission to the European Economic Community in Brussels.

Mr. Donigi was honoured as a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in 1989 for services to law and the community.  In 1991, he was made a Commonwealth Fellow on the nomination of the Commonwealth Lawyers' Association, which elected him to its Council in 1993.

Mr. Donigi was educated at the University of Papua New Guinea, graduating in 1973 with a Bachelor of Law (LL.B) degree.  He is the author of a book entitled "Indigenous or Aboriginal Rights to Property:  A Papua New Guinea Perspective" (1994), dealing with land rights and ownership of resources in the country.

Born in the East Sepik Province of Papua New Guinea on 19 December 1950, Ambassador Donigi is married and has five children.

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