Secretary-General Appoints Ivan Šimonović of Croatia Special Adviser on Responsibility to Protect

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today announced the appointment of Ivan Šimonović of Croatia as his Special Adviser on the Responsibility to Protect.  Mr. Šimonović succeeds Jennifer Welsh of Canada, to whom the Secretary-General is deeply grateful for her exceptional leadership and advice on the development and implementation of the responsibility to protect.

Mr. Šimonović is currently Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights and Head of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in New York.  He intends to pursue a career in academia while taking up this assignment on 1 October 2016.

In his role as the Special Adviser on the Responsibility to Protect, Mr. Šimonović will work under the overall guidance of the Special Adviser of the Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide to further the political, institutional and operational development of the responsibility to protect principle, as set out by the General Assembly in paragraphs 138 and 139 of the 2005 World Summit Outcome document.

Before joining the United Nations in 2010, Mr. Šimonović held the position of Minister for Justice of Croatia.  He was previously Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs and Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York, where he served as President of the Economic and Social Council.

Mr. Šimonović was a professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Zagreb, where he was Head of the Legal Theory Department, Vice-Dean and Vice-Rector for international cooperation.  Serving in an expert capacity, he has been a member of the Council of Europe’s Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice Commission) and the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance, as well as Agent of the Republic of Croatia before the United Nations International Court of Justice.  He also served as the President of Croatia’s United Nations Association.

The holder of a graduate degree in law, Mr. Šimonović also has a master’s degree in public administration and politics, and a PhD from the University of Zagreb.

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*     This supersedes Press Release SG/A/1238-BIO/4194 of 3 May 2010.