Peter Maurer

Peter Maurer ( born November 20, 1956 in Thun ) is a Swiss diplomat said. He served from 2004 to 2010 as head of the Permanent Mission of Switzerland to the United Nations and then as Secretary of State in the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs. Since 1 July 2012, he is President of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Life

Peter Maurer was born in 1956 in Thun in the canton of Bern and completed from 1976 to 1981 at the Universities of Bern and Perugia to study in the subjects of history, political science and international law. Subsequently he worked until 1986 as a research assistant and lecturer at the Institute of Contemporary History, University of Bern, at the with a dissertation on Swiss food supply during the Second World War, he gained promotion during this time in 1984.

From 1987 he worked in various posts in the diplomatic service of his native country worked, so among other things from 1996 as Deputy Permanent Observer of Switzerland to the United Nations ( UN) in New York. In 2000 he was appointed Ambassador and Head of the responsible for the areas of peace, human rights, humanitarian policy and migration Political Affairs Division IV Human Security in the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs ( DFA), the Swiss Foreign Ministry. From 2004 to 2010 he was head of the Swiss Permanent Mission to the UN and during this period from June 2009 Chairman of the Administrative and Budgetary Committee of the 64th Session of the UN General Assembly. As of March 2010, he served as State Secretary in the EDA.

On October 17, 2011, he was elected by the Assembly of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC ) to the designated successor of the incumbent since 2000, ICRC President Jakob Kellenberger. Thus, the ICRC members after Jakob Kellenberger and its predecessor Cornelio Sommaruga opted for the third time in a row for a high-ranking diplomat and previous Secretary of State, and thus for a person from outside the Committee to fill the office of president. Its rotating basis four-year term began on 1 July 2012.

Peter Maurer is one of the Social Democratic Party of Switzerland (SP ) to. He is married and father of two daughters.

Publications

• Cultivation campaign: agricultural policy, plan options, attachments from 1937 to 1945. Chronos, Zurich 1985, ISBN 3-905278-03-0. ( revised version of his PhD thesis )
• Europe as part of the UN. European Institute of the University of Basel, 2008, ISBN 978-3-905751-09-3. (Online, PDF file)