BERTIE RAMCHARAN APPOINTED DEPUTY HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
Press Release
SG/A/687
HR/4386
BERTIE RAMCHARAN APPOINTED DEPUTY HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
19981027 Biographical Note Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed on 22 October Bertie Gangapersaud Ramcharan of Guyana as Deputy United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, at the Assistant Secretary-General level, effective 1 December.He is currently Director of the Africa I Division in the Department of Political Affairs. He has been with the United Nations for the past 25 years, during which he served as Special Assistant to the Director of the Centre for Human Rights for a number of years, as Chief of the Secretary-General's speech- writing service for four years, as Director in the Office of the Secretary- General's Special Representative for the Former Yugoslavia and as Director of the Secretariat of the International Conference on the Former Yugoslavia for three years.
Mr. Ramcharan is Adjunct Professor of International Human Rights Law at Columbia University and has taught at several other universities, including the Geneva Graduate Institute of International Studies. He is the author of several books on the international law of human rights, the International Law Commission, the United Nations, early warning and preventive diplomacy, the good offices of the Secretary-General, and fact-finding. He has extensive field experience in diplomacy and has been on a number of fact-finding mission for the United Nations.
Mr. Ramcharan has Masters and Doctorate degrees in International Law from the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is also a Barrister-at- Law of Lincoln's Inn and the holder of a Diploma in International Law of The Hague Academy of International Law, where he was Director of Studies in 1983.
Mr. Ramcharan is married and has one son.
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