International Lawyer to be Next President of Slovenia

Dr. Danilo Türk, international law professor, former diplomat, and former Assistant UN Secretary General, has “decisively won Slovenia’s presidential election Sunday, the electoral commission announced.” (See the AFP and the VOA reports.)

Dr. Türk, an international lawyer by training, was ambassador to the UN from 1992 to 2000, making him the longest serving Slovenian ambassador abroad. According to his bio on the website of the Slovenian Mission to the UN:

During his ambassadorship, Dr. Türk served as the Deputy Head of Delegation of Slovenia to the 47th-54th sessions of the General Assembly and Deputy Head of Delegations of Slovenia to the World Conference on Human Rights (Vienna, Austria, 1993), the World Summit on Social Development (Copenhagen, Denmark, 1995), and the Habitat II conference (Istanbul, Turkey, 1996). In the period 1994-1997 he served as the Chairman of the Working Group of the Third Committee of the General Assembly.

His university bio states:

One of Dr. Türk’s major interests has been the promotion of human rights, both in Slovenia and internationally. He was a member of the United Nations Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities from 1984 to 1992 and its Chairman in 1990. He served as Special Rapporteur of the Sub-Commission in (a) Economic, Social and Cultural Rights from 1988 to 1992 and (b) the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression from 1989 to 1992. He also participated in a number of advisory meetings to the OSCE High Commissioner on national Minorities from 1994 to 1999. From 1997 to 1998, Mr. Türk served as a member of the Human Rights Committee established by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Dr. Türk’s diplomatic experience is to a large extent linked to the United Nations. It includes his work as Chairman of the Working Group of the Third Committee of the General Assembly on the reform of UN mechanisms in the field of human rights from 1994 to 1997. While representing Slovenia on the Security Council from 1998 to 1999, Dr. Türk served as a chairman of the Security Council’s Committee established by Security Council resolution 748 in 1992 (Sanctions against Libya). He was President of the Security Council in August 1998 and again in November 1999.

In 2000 he became the UN’s Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs, a post in which he served until 2005.

On the academic side, his bio on the Slovenian Mission site notes:

Much of Dr. Türk’s professional life has been devoted to research and teaching of international law. He began his academic career in 1978 teaching public international law at the University of Ljubljana where, in 1996, he became a tenured professor. From 1983 to 1992, he headed the university’s Institute of International Law and International Relations.

Moreover (from his university bio), Dr. Türk has

published a book entitled THE PRINCIPLE OF NON-INTERVENTION IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND IN INTERNATIONAL LAW (Ljubljana, 1984) and approximately 100 articles on various aspects of international law, in particular human rights, the rights of minorities, the use of force by states, GATT, etc. He also lectured at a number of universities in Europe and in the United States.

In the early 1990’s I was a law student at NYU and Dr. Türk frequently attended law school conferences and spoke in various classes. Besides being a great teacher, he was gracious and helpful.

It’s good to see nice guys finish first once in a while. Congratulations!