Cornelio Sommaruga

Cornelio Sommaruga ( born December 29, 1932 in Rome ) is a Swiss lawyer. From 1960 to 1987 he worked for the Swiss representation in a number of international institutions in various countries as a diplomat as well as in Geneva. In 1987 he was President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and held this office until 1999. Since then, he has held various other humanitarian organizations.

Life

Cornelio Sommaruga was born in 1932 as a citizen of Lugano in Rome. He was the eldest of six children in a family of diplomats. His parents raised him Catholic, and apart from the religion of his parents belonged claims to the Scout Movement the most formative influences in his early life. Among his first humanitarian operations include regular participation in the care of participants of the pilgrimages to Lourdes.

He studied, among others, in Rome, Paris and Zurich jurisprudence and graduated in 1957 with a doctorate in law from the University of Zurich. From 1957 to 1959 he worked as a trainee for a bank in Zurich, and then entered the civil service. By the end of 1968 and held various diplomatic posts as attaché in The Hague, as well as Secretary of the Embassy in Bonn and Rome. He then took over until 1973, the Office of the Deputy Head of the Swiss Delegation to the European Free Trade Association (EFTA ), the World Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD ), the United Nations ( UN) and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade ( GATT). From 1973 to 1975 he worked as Deputy Secretary General of EFTA in Geneva, then he was until 1983 a member of the Directorate of the Federal Office for Foreign Economic Affairs in Bern. After that he worked there from 1984 to 1986 as Secretary of State for Foreign Economic Affairs, before he resigned this office in 1987 to become president of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Since his retirement from the office of ICRC President in 1999 Sommaruga various mandates has mainly held in humanitarian organizations. He is since 2000, for example, an honorary member of the ICRC, a member of the study group on peacekeeping operations of the United Nations, President of the International Centre for Humanitarian Demining ( GICHD ) in Geneva, President of Karl Popper Foundation in train and Board of Trustees of the Open Society Institute in Budapest. He became president of the International Association of Initiatives of Change in Caux 2002.

Sommaruga is since 1957 married with Ornella Marzorati, a father of six and grandfather of 16 grandchildren. Among his strictly respected by him family traditions, among others, is one of an annual family gathering at Pentecost and writing a postcard to each of His children from every country he visited as part of its activities. He lives with his wife in Geneva.

ICRC Presidency

In July 1986, Cornelio Sommaruga was determined to succeed Alexandre Hay, Office of the President of the International Committee of the Red Cross and took the post on 8 May 1987. For the ICRC, whose history is rooted in the Calvinist tradition of Geneva, he was only the second Catholic who was elected to the office of President. In his twelve years in office, which shaped the committee sustained, he experienced with the ICRC great historical upheavals and serious events such as the fall of the Eastern Bloc, the failure of the world community in the face of the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, as well as a dramatic increase in the number of missions ICRC and thus the delegates in general and of those who were killed in their operations. In particular, the murder of six delegates on 17 December 1996 in the Chechen city Nowije Atagi near Grozny became the symbol of a significant easing of respect for the Geneva Conventions and their protection symbols and thus a crisis of authority of the ICRC. The expansion of the global commitment of the ICRC during the tenure of Sommaruga also led to a significant increase of the budget of the committee.

In the period 1988-1989 came during the presidency Sommaruga it to a crisis within the ICRC. A number of young delegates turned away after only a few missions by the Committee after internally in the organization, the extent of the failure of the committee became known during the Holocaust. 1989 Sommaruga was accused in an internal letter of about 200 of the 1,300 employees of the committee leadership weakness and excessive restraint in dealing with foreign governments. He was confirmed despite these problems in 1991 and 1995 for one further term. To Sommaruga's actions with regard to the handling of the committee with its own history a public apology on 30 May 1995 for the failure of the ICRC heard, given the crimes of the Nazis.

In 1992 he published a paper in which he analyzed the problem of the symbols of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and possible solutions suggested. This article intensified its efforts to recognize Israeli society Magen David Adom ( MDA) by the ICRC as a national aid society under the Geneva Conventions and to include the company in the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. However, it was partly also to a tightening in the discussion on this issue. So an article in the American newspaper The Washington Post, which included a number of attacks against his person appeared. Among the awards he has received for his work, he therefore measures the Presidential Award of the University of Tel Aviv in a special meaning.

In August 1998, Jakob Kellenberger was elected to succeed Sommaruga from 1 January 2000.

Awards

Cornelio Sommaruga has been commended for his diplomatic and humanitarian engagement with a range of prices. The most important are:

  • Henry Dunant Medal ( 2009)
  • Price of the Association de la presse étrangère en Suisse: " la plus populaire suisse Personnalité auprès of journalistes étrangers », Geneva ( 2003)
  • Price of the Foundation Dr. JE Brandenberger, Lugano ( 2003)
  • North - South Prize of the Council of Europe, Lisbon ( 2001)
  • Falcon North ( 2000)
  • Culture Prize of the Canton of Basel-Country, Muttenz (1998)
  • Award of the International Society for Human Rights, Section Switzerland, Bern (1996 )
  • International Josef- Krainer - Price, Graz ( 1996)
  • Price Fondazione del Centenario BSI Lugano ( 1995)
  • Contact Prix Romand Business Press, Lausanne (1986 )
  • Dr. Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award, Tufts University, Boston ( USA)
  • Presidential Awards from several universities
  • Several honorary doctorates
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