Boutros Boutros-Ghali

Boutros Boutros-Ghali (1922–2016) was an Egyptian jurist, academic, and diplomat who became the first African and first Arab to hold the office of UN Secretary-General. Trained as an international lawyer at Cairo University and the University of Paris, he taught international law for decades before entering Egyptian politics. As Egypt's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, he played a central role in the negotiations that produced the 1978 Camp David Accords and the 1979 Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty, accompanying President Anwar Sadat to Jerusalem in 1977.

He took office as Secretary-General on 1 January 1992, succeeding Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, at a moment of high expectations following the end of the Cold War. His tenure is most associated with the report "An Agenda for Peace" (1992), commissioned by the Security Council, which set out a framework for preventive diplomacy, peacemaking, peacekeeping, and post-conflict peacebuilding. He later issued companion reports An Agenda for Development (1994) and An Agenda for Democratization (1996).

His term coincided with the UN's most difficult crises of the decade: the wars in the former Yugoslavia, the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, the collapse of UNOSOM II in Somalia after the 1993 Mogadishu battle, and the Haitian political crisis. Critics, particularly within the United States, faulted his management of these missions and his relationship with Washington.

In 1996 he sought a second term and won the support of 14 of 15 Security Council members, but the United States, under Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, vetoed his reappointment — the only time a sitting Secretary-General has been denied a second term by veto. He was succeeded by Kofi Annan in January 1997.

After leaving the UN, Boutros-Ghali served as the first Secretary-General of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (1997–2002) and chaired Egypt's National Council for Human Rights. He died in Cairo on 16 February 2016.