Secretary-General Appoints Ian Martin of United Kingdom Special Representative,

 

Georg Charpentier of Finland Deputy Special Representative for Libya

 

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today announced the appointment of Ian Martin of the United Kingdom as his Special Representative and Head of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), and also appointed Georg Charpentier of Finland as Deputy Special Representative and Resident Coordinator, ad interim.

Mr. Martin has until now served as Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Post-Conflict Planning for Libya, a position in which he led the integrated pre-assessment process, coordinating United Nations agencies, funds and programmes, the World Bank and the International Organization for Migration.  Mr. Martin consulted and liaised closely with the Libyan transitional authorities.

The new Special Representative has served the Organization in other senior capacities, including as Head of the Headquarters Board of Inquiry into certain incidents in the Gaza Strip; Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Nepal; Special Envoy for Timor-Leste; Representative in Nepal of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights; and Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General in the United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea.

Mr. Martin was also Special Representative of the Secretary-General for the East Timor Popular Consultation; Special Adviser to the High Commissioner for Human Rights; Chief of the United Nations Human Rights Field Operation in Rwanda; and Director for Human Rights of the International Civilian Mission in Haiti.  He also served in the Office of the High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina as Deputy High Representative for Human Rights and Rule of Law.

Having was previously Secretary General of Amnesty International from 1986 to 1992, and Vice-President of the International Centre for Transitional Justice from 2002 to 2005, Mr. Martin’s writings include Self-Determination in East Timor: the United Nations, the Ballot, and International Intervention.

Mr. Charpentier brings extensive humanitarian and development experience to his new position, and recently completed his assignment as Deputy Special Representative for the Sudan and United Nations Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator in that country.

He was previously Deputy Special Representative in Côte d’Ivoire; United Nations Resident Coordinator and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Resident Representative in Burkina Faso; United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative in Burundi; Senior Deputy Resident Representative in Ethiopia; and UNDP Resident Representative, ad interim, and Humanitarian Coordinator, ad interim, in Congo.  He has also served as Deputy Resident Representative in Lesotho and Sao Tome and Principe, and Assistant Resident Representative in Mauritania.

From 2002 to 2004, Mr. Charpentier was the UNDP Deputy Director of the Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery in Geneva, where he participated in several inter-agency missions covering transition and recovery, small arms and demobilization in Somalia, Sudan, Liberia and Côte d’Ivoire.  He was also seconded for two years to the World Food Programme (WFP) at the secretariat of the Programme de Restructuration du Marché Céréalier in Mali.

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For information media • not an official record