- Conference Speakers
Topics:
- International
- Security & Risk
Hans Blix
Hans Blix role as Chairman of the International Commission on Weapons of Mass Destruction means he is ideally suited to Keynote speeches at any conference where world affairs is discussed.
Weapons of Mass Destruction
As the world urged Saddam Hussein to disarm, Chief UN Weapons Inspector Hans Blix and his team— through on-site inspections — tried to determine if the Iraqi leader was complying. While the U.S. and its allies pushed for justification for military action in Iraq, and key opponents on the U.N. Security Council called for further inspections, Dr. Blix stood between the two, trying to fairly and impartially determine the true scope of Iraq's weapons program. He brought his famous qualities of calm to bear when confronting Baghdad and conveying the message that it must do something to demonstrate it is telling the truth about its weapons programs or face war.
Hans Blix's Biography
Dr. Hans Blix was born in 1928 in Uppsala, Sweden. He studied at the University of Uppsala, Columbia University in the United States and has a law Ph.D. from Cambridge University in the United Kingdom. In 1959, he became Doctor of Laws at the Stockholm University, and in 1960, was appointed Associate Professor in International Law.
From 1963 to 1976, Dr. Blix was Head of Department at the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs and served as Legal Adviser on International Law. In 1976, he became Under-Secretary of State at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, in charge of international development cooperation. He was appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs in October 1978.
From 1961 until 1981, he was a member of Sweden’s delegation to the United Nations General Assembly; and from 1962 to 1978, a member of the Swedish delegation to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva.
He served as Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency from 1981 to 1997. In 2000, the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan appointed Hans Blix head of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC). He retired in June 2003. Dr. Blix is Chairman of the newly formed International Commission on Weapons of Mass Destruction, which begun work in 2004.
He has an Honorary Doctorate from Moscow State University (1987) and is a recipient of the Henry de Wolf Smyth Award (Washington DC, 1988). In 1997, he was awarded the Gold Medal for distinguished service in the field of nuclear affairs by the Uranium Institute, the predecessor to the World Nuclear Association. In 2001 he became Honorary Chairman of the WNA.
Author
He has written several books on subjects associated with international and constitutional law and of course, Iraq.
