Department of Public Information • News and
Media Division • New York
Biographical Note
SECRETARY-GENERAL Appoints Edward C. Luck of United States
Special Adviser
United Nations
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is pleased to announce the appointment of
Edward C. Luck as Special Adviser at the Assistant Secretary-General
level. Mr. Luck’s work will include the responsibility to protect, as
set out by the General Assembly in paragraphs 138 and 139 of the 2005
World Summit Outcome document. Mr. Luck’s primary role will be
conceptual development and consensus building, to assist the General
Assembly to continue consideration of this crucial issue. Towards this
end, the Secretary-General has requested Mr. Luck to help him develop
proposals, through a broad consultative process, to be considered by the
United Nations membership.
Mr. Luck is
Vice-President and Director of Studies of the International Peace
Academy, an independent policy research institute. He is currently on
public service leave as Professor of Practice in International and
Public Affairs of the School of International and Public Affairs,
Columbia University, where he is Director of the Center on International
Organization. Before coming to Columbia in 2001, he was Founder and
Executive Director of the Center for the Study of International
Organization, a research centre jointly established by the School of Law
of New York University and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and
International Affairs of Princeton University
From 1995 to 1997, he
played a key role in the United Nations reform process as a Senior
Consultant to the Department of Administration and Management of the
United Nations, as Staff Director of the General Assembly’s Open-ended
High-level Working Group on the Strengthening of the United Nations
System, and as an adviser to the President of the General Assembly,
Razali Ismail, on his proposals for Security Council reform.
From 1984 to 1994,
Mr. Luck served as President and Chief Executive Officer of the United
Nations Association of the United States, an organization he served in a
number of research and management capacities between 1974 and 1984. He
has also been a visiting professor at Sciences-Po in Paris, a senior
consultant to the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for
Children and Armed Conflict, a member of the Secretary-General’s Policy
Working Group on the United Nations and Terrorism, and a consultant to
numerous private foundations and research centres.
A frequent media
commentator and prolific author, Mr. Luck’s most recent books include
The UN Security Council: Practice and Promise (Routledge, 2006),
International Law and Organization: Closing the Compliance Gap,
co-edited with Michael W. Doyle(Rowman and Littlefield, 2004), and Mixed
Messages: American Politics and International Organization, 1919-1999
(Brookings, 1999).
He holds a Bachelor
of Arts from Dartmouth College with High Distinction in International
Relations and a series of graduate degrees from Columbia University,
including an Master of International Affairs from the School of
International Affairs, the Certificate of the Russian Institute, and
Master of Arts, Master of Philosophy, and Doctor of Philosophy degrees
in political science from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.
He was born on 17
October 1948 and is married with one daughter.
Dr. Edward C. Luck currently serves as
United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Adviser at the Assistant
Secretary-General level. He was appointed to the position by UN
Secretary-General
Ban Ki-moon in February 2008.
For ten years (1984–94), Dr. Luck served as the President and CEO of
the
United Nations Association of the USA (UNA-USA), and he subsequently
served for four years as the president emeritus of the organization
(1994–98). From December 1995 through July 1997, Dr. Luck played a key
role in the United Nations reform process as a senior consultant to the
Department of Administration and Management of the
United Nations and as a staff director of the
General Assembly's Open-Ended High-Level Working Group on the
Strengthening of the
United Nations System.
