NEW PERMANENT OBSERVER OF COUNCIL OF EUROPE PRESENTS LETTER OF NOMINATION TO DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF UNOG

Jean-Francois Kammer, the new Permanent Observer of the Council of Europe to the United Nations Office at Geneva, today presented his letter of nomination to Sergei Ordzhonikidze, the Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva.

Prior to his appointment, Mr. Kammer had been serving as the Ambassador of Switzerland to the Czech Republic since January 2005, and concurrently as the Ambassador of Switzerland to the Holy See since June 2005. He was Switzerland’s Ambassador to Ukraine and Moldova from 2000 to 2004. He was Commissioner of the twenty-seventh International Conference of the Red Cross from 1998 to 2000.

A career diplomat, Mr. Kammer joined the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs of Switzerland in 1977. His foreign posts include serving with the Swiss delegation to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in Vienna as Deputy Head (1993 to 1998); at the Embassy of Switzerland in Paris as First Secretary and Counselor (1985 to 1989); and at the Embassy of Switzerland in Moscow as Second and First Secretary (1982 to 1985).

Mr. Kammer has a Bachelor of Law from the University of Geneva (1972). He took the Bar Exam of the Canton of Geneva in 1974 and worked as a lawyer in 1975 and as a legal expert at the International Committee of the Red Cross in 1976 before joining the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs. He is married with two children.


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CR10/035E