Boutros Boutros-Ghali

Boutros Boutros-Ghali (14 November 1922 – 16 February 2016) was an Egyptian politician and diplomat who served as the sixth secretary-general of the United Nations from 1992 to 1996. Prior to his appointment as secretary-general, Boutros-Ghali was the acting minister of foreign affairs of Egypt between 1977 and 1979. He oversaw the United Nations over a period coinciding with several world crises, including the breakup of Yugoslavia and the Rwandan genocide.

Born to a Coptic Christian family in Cairo, Boutros-Ghali was an academic by training and taught international law and international relations at Cairo University from 1949 to 1979. His political career began during the presidency of Anwar Sadat, who appointed him acting foreign minister in 1977. In that capacity, he helped negotiate the Camp David Accords and the Egypt–Israel peace treaty between Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. He was acting foreign minister until early 1991, when he served as deputy foreign minister for a few months.

Boutros-Ghali was elected secretary-general by the United Nations General Assembly in 1991 and began his term in 1992, succeeding Javier Pérez de Cuéllar. His tenure was marked by controversy and crises, which included the Somali Civil War, the Rwandan Civil War, the continuing Angolan Civil War and the Yugoslav Wars. 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 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.