Wolfgang Petritsch

Wolfgang Petritsch
Wolfgang Petritsch in May 2016
3rd High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina
In office August, 1999 – 27 September 2002
Preceded by	Carlos Westendorp
Succeeded by	Paddy Ashdown
Personal details
Born	(1947-08-26) 26 August 1947 Klagenfurt, Austria
Citizenship	Austrian
Nationality	Slovene

Wolfgang Petritsch (born 26 August 1947) is an Austrian diplomat of Slovene ethnicity. He was born to a Carinthian Slovene family in Klagenfurt and spent his childhood in a partially Slovene-, partially German-speaking environment. He has a PhD from the University of Vienna and was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Petritsch’s reflections on international affairs have been published extensively in the world’s leading newspapers and he is the author or co-author of several books, including most recently Bosnia and Herzegovina: From Dayton to Europe and the Long Road to Peace: Kosovo and the International Community, 1989-2004.

Career

Petritsch’s experience in the former Yugoslavia stretches back to 1997 when he was appointed Austrian Ambassador to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. From October 1998 to July 1999 he served as the European Union’s Special Envoy for Kosovo and in February and March 1999 as the European Union’s Chief Negotiator at the Kosovo peace talks in Rambouillet and Paris. Petritsch’s diplomatic career also has seen him serve in Paris and New York.

Prior to his appointment as Austria’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva, Petritsch served between August 1999 and May 2002 as the High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina. In this role, Petritsch was the final authority on civilian implementation of the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement.

While living in Bosnia and Herzegovina – one of the most mine-infested countries in the world – Petritsch witnessed firsthand the humanitarian impact of anti-personnel mines. In September 2003, Petritsch, as Austria’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Office in Geneva, was elected President of the Ottawa Treaty’s First Review Conference, or Nairobi Summit on a Mine Free World,^[1] taking place in Kenya in 2004. This was an opportunity for Austria to lead the substantive preparations for the Summit, including the development of a concrete action plan to complete the job of eliminating anti-personnel mines.

After leaving Geneva, Petritsch went to Paris as Ambassador of Austria to the OECD until 2013. Later he became a Joseph A. Schumpeter Fellow at Harvard University.^[2]

He did serve as chair of the Board of the European Cultural Foundation till summer 2013. Currently serves as the President of the Austrian Marshall Plan Foundation.

Further reading

• Solioz, Christophe; Petritsch, Wolfgang (December 2003). "The fate of Bosnia and Herzegovina: an exclusive interview of Christophe Solioz with Wolfgang Petritsch". Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans. 5 (3): 355–373. doi:10.1080/14613190310001610788.

References

External links

• Office of the High Representative