Christian Strohal | |
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| Born | (1951-05-01)1 May 1951 (age 74) |
| Occupations | Diplomat, human rights activist |
Christian Strohal (born 1 May 1951) is an Austrian diplomat. He was formerly the director of theOffice for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights from 2003 to 2008.[1]
Strohal studied Law, Economics and International Relations in London, at theGeneva Graduate Institute, and in Vienna, where he received his doctorate in 1975.[2]
From 1976 onward, Strohal worked as a diplomat for theAustrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he was, inter alia, to London, Geneva and Rabat. He was a member of the Delegations of Austria at the conferences of theHelsinki Process, which was constituted at the time by the organization known as the CSCE (now theOSCE). From 1985 to 1988 he worked as head of the section of Human Rights. From 1988 to 1992 he was Deputy Head of the Austrian Mission to theUnited Nations in Geneva. In 1992/93 he was special envoy for the preparation of the World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna.
In 1994, he was appointed Head of the Human Rights Department of the Federal Ministry for Foreign Affairs. Strohal held this post until 2000, when he was appointed Ambassador to Luxembourg. In March 2003[3] he took up his post as the new director of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR / ODIHR) of the OSCE inWarsaw, Poland.[4]
In 2008 he becamePermanent Representative of Austria to the United Nations in Geneva, 2013 Permanent Representative to the OSCE in Vienna.
In 2016, he was Special Representative for the Austrian Chairmanship of the OSCE in 2017.
As part of his professional duties, Strohal undertook various tasks at the United Nations. He was chairman of the Western Human Rights Group of theUnited Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) from 1990 to 1992, and vice president of the UNHRC in 1997/98. He served as Vice President of the UNHRC from 2011–2012 and President of the Governing Bodies of theInternational Organization for Migration (IOM) and President of the Compensation Commission of theUN Security Council (2009–2010). Between 2007 and 2012 he also served as Austria's independent adj. member of the Administrative Council of theEuropean UnionFundamental Rights Agency.
He has published a number of articles on questions of human rights and international security policy,[5] and lectured i.a. at theUniversity of Vienna, theDiplomatic Academy in Vienna, the Geneva Academy on International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights and the European Inter-University Center for Human Rights in Venice, as well as atPrinceton University.
For his commitment to human rights, Strohal was awarded the 2008 Felix Ermacora Human Rights Award and the Pro Merito Medal of theEuropean Commission for Democracy through Law from theVenice Commission.[6] He is a member of the International Institute for Human Rights.
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