Boutros Boutros-Ghali

Boutros Boutros-Ghali was an Egyptian politician and diplomat who served as the sixth Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1992 to 1996. He was the first Arab and first African to hold the leading UN post. A descendant of one of Egypt’s most distinguished Coptic Christian families, Boutros-Ghali received a bachelor’s degree from Cairo University (1946) and a Ph.D. in international law from the University of Paris (1949). He then held a professorship at Cairo University and lectured in international law and international affairs at various universities and institutes in the United States, Europe, India, the Middle East, and Africa. He also wrote several scholarly books, published in French. In October 1977 Boutros-Ghali was appointed Egypt’s minister of state for foreign affairs, and the following month he accompanied Pres. Anwar Sadat on his historic trip to Jerusalem after Egypt’s foreign minister resigned in protest against the Egyptian-Israeli rapprochement. Boutros-Ghali became deputy prime minister in 1991. As UN secretary-general from 1992, Boutros-Ghali vigorously supported UN mediation in post-Cold War strife. His term saw lengthy and difficult peacekeeping operations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Somalia, and Rwanda. He received criticism over UN inaction in Angola and during the genocide in Rwanda, and the perceived ineffectiveness of the UN peacekeeping operation in Bosnia led to a NATO intervention. In 1996, Boutros-Ghali ran unopposed for a second term as secretary-general but the United States, long dissatisfied with his leadership, denied his bid by exercising its UN Security Council veto. After leaving the UN, Boutros-Ghali served as the first Secretary-General of La Francophonie from 1997 to 2002. He then became chairman of the South Centre, an intergovernmental think tank for developing countries. He died in 2016 in Cairo at the age of 93.