JOHN L. WASHBURN

Mr. Washburn has had an extensive career in diplomacy and international governmental and non-governmental organizations. He was a director in the Executive Office of the Secretary-General of the United Nations between January 1988 and April 1993. Thereafter he was a director in the Department of Political Affairs at the United Nations until March 1994. He is currently Convener of the American Non-governmental Organizations Coalition on the International Criminal Court, co-chairman of the Washington Working Group on the International Criminal Court, and is a past president of the Unitarian Universalist United Nations Office. In association with the international Coalition of Non Governmental Organizations for the International Criminal Court, he has attended most of the United Nations Negotiations on the International Criminal Court since 1994 including all of the 1998 diplomatic conference in Rome. He writes and speaks frequently on the United Nations. His most recent publications are articles on relations between the United Nations and the United States in the January-April 1996 issue of Global Governance and on the negotiation of the treaty for the International Criminal Court in the January-March 1999 issue of the same journal. Mr. Washburn was a member of the Foreign Service of the United States from 1963 to 1987. His last assignment was as the member of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff responsible for international organizations and multilateral affairs. Earlier in his Foreign Service career, Mr. Washburn was assigned to India, Iran, and Indonesia. In these overseas postings he was respectively a trainee in a Consulate-General, Petroleum Affairs Officer, and Regional Labor Attache covering Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. In the Department of State, Mr. Washburn had a variety of assignments in the Bureau of International Organization Affairs. These covered most aspects of the work of international organizations and a variety of multilateral issues. He also conceived, helped to establish and was Deputy Director of an office in that Bureau to further the coordination of American bilateral and multilateral diplomacy. During his service in the Bureau of International Organization Affairs, he was a member of United States delegations to various sessions of the United Nations General Assembly, Economic and Social Council, Economic Commission for Asia and the Pacific, and Committee for Programme and Coordination. Mr. Washburn was also Night Shift Chairman of the Iran Hostage Task Force in 1979. He received a special commendation from the Secretary of State for his service and has also been awarded the State Department’s Meritorious Honor Award and Superior Honor Award. In 1977-1978 he was a Congressional Fellow of the American Political Science Association, serving as a senior staff member for Senator William Proxmire of Wisconsin and for Congressman John Cavanaugh of Nebraska. Mr. Washburn is a graduate of Harvard College and the Harvard Law School. He is a Member of the Bar of the District of Columbia and of the bars of the District Court and Circuit Court of Appeals in that jurisdiction. He has worked as a volunteer attorney in an area office of the Neighborhood Legal Services Program. He belongs to the American Society of International Law and the Council on Foreign Relations, and is a founding member of the Academic Council on the United Nations System.

 

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