NEW PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF VENEZUELA PRESENTS CREDENTIALS

Biographical Note

NEW PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF VENEZUELA PRESENTS CREDENTIALS

(Based on information received from the Protocol and Liaison Service.)

Fermin Toro Jimenez, the new Permanent Representative of Venezuela to the United Nations, presented his credentials today to Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Prior to his appointment, Mr. Toro Jimenez, an attorney and law professor, was head of the Human Rights Section of the President’s Office of International Affairs.  Over the past two years, he held a number of other government posts, including as Legal Adviser to the President (2002-2003) and Director of International Relations in the President’s Office (2003 to present).  In 2003 and 2004, he also served as the State Agent on Human Rights for the International System.

Ambassador Toro Jimenez began his diplomatic career in 1958, with a one-year post as the Counsellor to the Venezuelan Mission to the United Nations in Geneva.  From 1994 to 1999, he was the Director of the Institute of Superior Diplomatic Studies in Venezuela’s Ministry of Foreign Relations.

His academic career spans nearly 50 years:  he was a senior professor at the Central University of Venezuela’s School of Law and Political Science, where, from 1959 to 2003, he taught graduate and undergraduate studies in International Public Law, as well as Administrative, Civil and Labour Law.  From 2002 to 2003, he held a dual professorship at the Universidad José María Vargas and Escuela Superior de Guerra Naval, both in Venezuela.

Ambassador Toro Jimenez, who has published several articles and books on politics, diplomacy, international public law, human rights and foreign policy, is a member of the American Association of Jurists and a founding member of its Venezuelan chapter, of which he has been Secretary-General since 1986.  He received both his law and doctorate degrees from the Central University of Venezuela.

Born in Caracas in 1933, Mr. Toro Jimenez is married and has four children.

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