Biographical Note

Secretary-General Appoints Jennifer Welsh of Canada Special Adviser

 

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced today the appointment of Jennifer Welsh of Canada as his Special Adviser at the Assistant Secretary-General level.  She will succeed Edward Luck of the United States, who left the position in June 2012, and to whom the Secretary-General is deeply grateful.

Ms. Welsh will work under the overall guidance of Adama Dieng, the Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, to further the conceptual, political, institutional and operational development of the responsibility to protect concept, as set out by the General Assembly in paragraphs 138 and 139 of the 2005 World Summit Outcome document.

Currently Professor of International Relations and Co-Director of the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict at the University of Oxford, Ms. Welsh’s research projects include the evolution of the “responsibility to protect” in international society, the ethics of post-conflict reconstruction, the authority of the United Nations Security Council and the notion of sovereignty.

Ms. Welsh was previously Associate Director of the Peace and Conflict Studies Programme at the University of Toronto, Cadieux Research Fellow on the policy planning staff of Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Jean Monnet Fellow of the European University Institute.  She has also taught international relations at McGill University and at the Central European University, in addition to having published widely on the responsibility to protect and atrocity prevention.  She has worked as a consultant to the Government of Canada on international policy and has been a frequent commentator in the Canadian media on foreign policy and international relations.

Holding a master’s degree and a doctorate from the University of Oxford, where she studied as a Rhodes Scholar, Ms. Welsh also has a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) degree from the University of Saskatchewan in Canada.

Born in Regina, Saskatchewan, she is married and has two children.

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