NEW PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF LITHUANIA PRESENTS CREDENTIALS TO DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF UNITED NATIONS OFFICE AT GENEVA

Rytis Paulauskas, the new Permanent Representative of Lithuania to the United Nations Office at Geneva, today presented his credentials to Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, the Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva.

Prior to his appointment to Geneva, Mr. Paulauskas was the Director of the Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe (OSCE) Chairmanship Department, and Head of the OSCE Chairmanship Task Force since 2008. He was the Permanent Representative of Lithuania to the United Nations, OSCE, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and other international organizations in Vienna from November 2003 to August 2008. In 2006 he was Chairman of the General Working Group, Wassenaar Arrangement on Export Controls for Conventional Arms and Dual-Use Goods and Technologies; and also Co-Chairman of the OSCE Working Group on Non-Military Aspects of Security.

Mr. Paulauskas undertook a tour of duty to New York between 1995 and 1999, where he was first a Counsellor and then the Deputy Permanent Representative of Lithuania to the United Nations, and also the Legal Counsellor of the Mission. From 1996 to 1999, he was Rapporteur of the Sixth (Legal Affairs) Committee of the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York. From 1995 to 1996, he sat on the General Assembly’s Third (Human Rights) and Sixth (Legal Affairs) Committees as well as the Commission on Human Rights. Mr. Paulauskas was posted to Strasbourg, France between 1993 and 1995 where he served as First Secretary, and then as Deputy Permanent Representative, of Lithuania to the Council of Europe. His first diplomatic position was as Attaché, then Acting Head, at the International Organizations Division for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Mr. Paulauskas continued an academic career in parallel to his diplomatic service. In 2012 he was made a Research Scholar at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, Massachusetts in the United States. Mr. Paulauskas was a lecturer at the Institute of International Relations and Political Science at Vilnius University between 2010 and 2012. Between 2000 and 2001 he studied at Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in a cross-registration programme with Harvard University, where he gained a Master of Arts degree. In 1992 he attended training courses at the Academy of International Law in The Hague, Netherlands. Mr. Paulauskas took his first degree at Vilnius University Law School in Lithuania between 1987 and 1992, where he achieved a Master of Laws advanced degree. He has also served as an elections observer in both the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1989) and in Lithuania (1990)

Mr. Paulauskas was born on 24 May 1969 in Vilnius, Lithuania. He is married and has a son.



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CR12/012E