The Austrians in the highest UN powers
The Linz lawyer Volker Türk is the right-hand man of UN chief Guterres, and Austrians can also be found at central posts in the UN branch offices.
Again and again Austrians make it in the highest days of power of the United Nations. Currently, Volker Türk from Linz stands out: the lawyer works as “Vice Secretary General for Strategic Coordination in the Executive Office of the Secretary General”. Plain hand: He is the rights of UN chief António Guterres.
Turk’s work is central to the development of UN strategies. Because he checks analyzes that individual departments submit to the Secretary General – such as concepts on human rights policy or measures against Covid – and coordinates this content. The UN vision of the future “Our common agenda” for better global cooperation, which Güterres presented in September, also passed over Turk’s desk.
Türk moves safely on the international stage. He has been working in the UN system for three decades, before moving to the UN headquarters in New York in 2019 as the new UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva. As early as 2015, when he was accepted for this high post, he became the most important Austrian UN official. Before that, however, he had gained a lot of experience in the “field”; his work for the UN refugee agency UNHCR took him from Malaysia via the Balkans to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Human rights have always been an important concern of Türk: He once told the “press” how he had already decided at the age of 15 to give his life to this topic. At that time he had completed the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” in English class. That is why Türk also studied law, specializing in refugee law. During his studies he volunteered at Amnesty International. At that time he was in close contact with people who had fled to Austria: “This topic has never let me go.”
As a top Austrian civil servant, career diplomat Elisabeth Tichy-Fisslberger also contributed to the protection of human rights: in 2020 she was President of the UN Human Rights Council; she was elected by acclamation on the proposal of the Western European group of states. The UN ambassador in Geneva was the first Austrian to head the body.
But Austrians can also be found at central positions in the UN branch offices: Stefan Priesner represents the UN in Iran, Sabine Machl in Georgia. In Nairobi, the environmental lawyer Arnold Kreilhuber heads the legal department of the UN environmental program Unep.
The shadow of Waldheim. The former UN chief Ban Ki-moon, Guterres’ predecessor, brought two top Austrian diplomats into his closest team: He made Peter Launsky-Tieffenthal (now Secretary General in the Foreign Ministry) head of the UN’s “Press and Information” department Rank of “Under Secretary-General”. And Thomas Stelzer was appointed Assistant Secretary General in the Department of Economic and Social Affairs under Ban. Today Stelzer, who represented Austria at the UN for a long time, heads the International Anti-Corruption Academy (IACA) in Laxenburg.
Austria’s highest UN official of all time is called Kurt Waldheim: He was UN Secretary General from 1972 to 1981. His past and role in the Wehrmacht remained in the dark at that time.
(“Die Presse”, print edition, October 24th, 2021)