Boutros Boutros-Ghali - a Coptic

Boutros Boutros-Ghali (Arabic: بطرس بطرس غالي, Coptic: Bουτρος Βουτρος-Γαλι) (born 14 November 1922) is an Egyptian diplomat who was the sixth Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN) from January 1992 to December 1996. An academic and former Vice Foreign Minister of Egypt, Boutros Boutros-Ghali oversaw the UN at a time when it paid attention to several world crises, including the breakup of Yugoslavia and the Rwandan Genocide.

Boutros Boutros-Ghali from Sciences Po on Vimeo.

Boutros Boutros-Ghali was born in Cairo into a Coptic Christian, and Armenian family (Boutros being the Arabic version of the Greek word πέτρος (petros).[1] His grandfather Boutros Ghali had been Prime Minister of Egypt from 1908 until he was assassinated in 1910.

Boutros-Ghali graduated from Cairo University in 1946. He received a Ph.D. in international law from the University of Paris and a diploma in international relations from the Sciences Po in 1949. In 1979, he was appointed Professor of International Law and International Relations at Cairo University, a position which he held until 1999. He became President of the Centre of Political and Strategic Studies in 1975 and President of the African Society of Political Studies in 1980. He was a Fulbright Research Scholar at Columbia University from 1954 to 1955, Director of the Centre of Research of the Hague Academy of International Law from 1963 to 1964, and Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Law at Paris University from 1967 to 1968. He is also the Honorary Rector of the Graduate Institute of Peace Studies, a branch of Kyunghee University Seoul.

Politic
His political career developed during the presidency of Anwar El Sadat. He was a member of the Central Committee of the Arab Socialist Union from 1974 to 1977. He served as Egypt's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs from 1977 until early 1991. He then became Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs for several months before moving to the UN. As Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, he played a part in the peace agreements between President Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin.

Secretary General of UN 1992-1996- the first African to hold the office
Elected as secretary-general, the top post of the UN, in 1991, Boutros-Ghali's term in office remains controversial. In 1992, he submitted An Agenda for Peace, a suggestion for how the UN could respond to violent conflict. However, he was criticized for the UN's failure to act during the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, which officially left over 1 million people dead, and he appeared unable to muster support in the UN for intervention in the continuing Angolan Civil War. One of the hardest tasks during his term was dealing with the crisis of the Yugoslav wars after the disintegration of former Yugoslavia. His reputation became entangled in the larger controversies over the effectiveness of the UN and the role of the United States in the UN.

He is president of the Egyptian National Council for Human Rights.

Boutros-Ghali has published two memoirs:

1. Egypt's road to Jerusalem (1997), about the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty
2. Unvanquished: A U.S.-U.N. Saga (1999), about his time as Secretary-General at the UN


Related articles:

1. The Massacre in Alexandria Will Strengthen Our Bonds', http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,739122,00.html
2. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boutros_Boutros-Ghali