About Unece
On 19 December 2008 the Secretary-General appointed Mr. Ján Kubiš of Slovakia as the new Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE).
Mr. Kubiš has outstanding qualifications and numerous accomplishments in his own country and internationally, in the area of diplomacy, foreign security policy, as well as international economic relations. Mr. Kubiš served as Minister for Foreign Affairs of Slovakia from 2006 to January 2009, as Chairman of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, from 2007 to 2008, and as Secretary-General of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), from 1999 to 2005.
Among his previous functions, Mr. Kubiš was the European Union’s Special Representative for Central Asia with the office in Brussels from 2005 to 2006. In 2000, he was the Personal Representative of the Chairman-in-Office of OSCE for Central Asia, and from 1994 to 1998, Director of OSCE’s Conflict Prevention Centre. From 1998 to 1999, he was Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Tajikistan and Head of the United Nations Mission of Observers in Tajikistan.
A graduate of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, Mr. Kubiš worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the former Czechoslovakia from 1976 to 1992 and thereafter in 1993 at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Slovakia. In 1993-1994 he served as Permanent Representative of Slovakia in Geneva to the United Nations Office and other International Organizations, including the Economic Commission for Europe.
Mr. Kubiš, who is married and has one daughter, was born in Bratislava in 1952.
Gunnar Myrdal (Sweden), 1947-1957
Mr. Uglješa (Ugi) Zvekić
Ambassador, Head of the Mission of the Republic of Serbia to the United Nations and other international organizations in Geneva, Switzerland.
Mr. Zvekić, born on 2 August 1950 in Belgrade, has a law degree and a PhD in sociology. He was a Fulbright scholar (1973-75) and then worked in the Institute for Criminological and Sociological Research in Belgrade from 1976 to 1984 when he joined the United Nations Crime and Drugs Programme.
Until 1999 he was a Deputy Director of the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI) based in Italy. From 1999 to 2004 he headed the anti-crime programme of the United Nations regional office for Southern Africa, based in Pretoria, South Africa. Until his retirement from the United Nations in September 2009, he was in charge of the Strategic Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in Vienna, Austria.
He has published extensively on crime and development, and reform of the criminal justice system from the perspective of human rights and international standards. He has taught in many academic institutions worldwide.
His vast experience in multilateral work within the United Nations Secretariat will be of assistance in the multilateral diplomacy at the United Nations and other international organizations in Geneva.
