2002: H.E. Mr. Ivan Šimonović (Croatia)

2002-president

Biography

Ivan Simonovic became the president of ECOSOC on 14 January 2002, after serving as Senior Vice-President of the Council since January 2001.

Until the outbreak of hostilities in the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, he worked as the Professor of Jurisprudence at the University of Zagreb Law School. He has authored and edited over fifty publications, including books, book chapters and articles in scholarly journals, in his native Croatian and English. He has lectured in Croatia, Slovenia, Austria, Poland and the United States, where he was a Fulbright scholar at the Yale Law School. He holds a doctoral degree in law (LL.D.) from the University of Zagreb.

Ambassador Simonovic joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Croatia in 1992. Since then, his duties included the posts of an Assistant Foreign Minister, in charge of Consular and International Legal Affairs (1992-1993) amd Multilateral Affairs (1994-1995), First Assistant Minister and Deputy Foreign Minister (1995-1996). He was a member of th Croatian Delegation at the 1995 Dayton Peace Talks.

Since February 1997, Ambassador Simonovic has been serving as Ambassador and Permanent Representative of the Republic of Croatia to the United Nations in New York. In May 2000 he was appointed as Agent of the Government of Croatia, in its case against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia for alleged genocide, to the International Court of Justice. He is the Vice-President of the Bureau of the Preparatory Committee of the International Conference on Financing for Development to be held in March 2002. Ambassador Simonovic was born in Zagreb, capital of Croatia. He is married, with two children. 

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