Dr. Ghali is indeed a unique personality of a rare calibre. A dedicated academician specializing in international law and politics and a specialist press writer, he was also a political expert and thinker as well as international diplomat. The nomination, on June 7,1991, of Dr. Boutros Boutros Ghali to the position of the United Nations Secretary-General was a recognition of Egypt’s regional, African and international status as well as his intensive expertise and skills in the field of international law and relations.

    On November 21,1991. The Security Council unanimously passed Resolution No 720/ 1991 at its session No 3017, proposing to the United Nations Gener-al Assembly to appoint Dr. Ghali as United Nations Secretary-General for the period January 1,1991 - December 31, 1996. The draft resolution (No 46/21) was ratified at the UN General Assembly Session No 46 on December 3, 1991.

    In his address to the UN General Assembly, Dr. Ghali said, " My affiliation to Egypt, the Arab, African, Mediterranean country, which had been, throughout the ages, the bridgehead for cultures and the melting-pot for the interaction of civilizations and religions, makes it incumbent on me to adopt a faith, which is innate and common to the belief and thinking of every Egyptian, in peace and security as an end in itself, and in dialogue and negotiation as a means and entente and cooperation as a hope to be fulfilled".

    On the other hand, in his address to the UN General Assembly, Mr. Javez Peres De Cuillar, said in appreciation of Dr. Ghali, " I feel overwhelmingly happy to leave my critical position in the hands of an Egyptian highly- cultured diplomat, who enjoys prominent skill and courage, combines experience and intelligence, maturity and dynamism and is in the same time endowed with insight and realism".

    Dr. Ghali, the sixth secretary-General in the history of the United Nations, was born in Cairo on November 14,1922, to a family of highly seasoned statesmen. His grandfather was a Prime Minister and his uncle Foreign Minister. This background deeply influenced his career, and pushed him onto the same path.

    He joined the Faculty of Law, Cairo University, where he obtained his Ll.B in 1946. In 1947, he obtained a Diploma in common law at Paris University. In 1949, Ghali obtained his Ph.D. in international law at the same university. His thesis focused on regional organizations.

    In recognition of his academic achievement and his outstanding role in world politics, Dr.Ghali was granted in 1968 an honorary Ph.D. by the University of Sweden. Dr. Ghali's career was a happy combination of multiple professions, practices and official positions. As an academician, he taught, international law and political sciences in Cairo University from 1949 to 1977. He also headed the Department of political sciences. In 1990, he was appointed Vice-Rector of Senghour Francophonic University, Alexandria.

    In the course of his academic career, he lectured, as a visiting professor, at a number of prominent international universities, including:
 

Columbic University, 1954, 55, 74.

Princeton University, 1955, 74.

Warsaw University, 1960.

The Hague Academy, 1990. He was the first Egyptian to lecture at and to be member of the scientific council of this university.

Rabat University, 1969.

Dakkar University, 1969.

Nehru University, 1976, 1990.

Obsala University, 1986.

Royal Moroccan Academy, 1991.

   Dr.Ghali brought both his academic and professional skills as university professor and press writer into play, as he participated in founding and upgrading the Egyptian Journal of International Law and the Egyptian Journal of Political Sciences. He founded the economic "AI Ahram AI-Iqtisadi" Weekly, where he acted as editor-in-chief since it was issued by AI-Ahram Press establishment in 1959 up to 1973. He also founded "Assiyasa Ad-Dawliya Monthly Magazine (International Policis), where, he acted as editor-in- chief since it was issued by the same establishment in 1965 up to 1991.
During this period he supervised the publication of 107 issues. He also headed the Political and Strategic Centre of AI-Ahram Press establishment. He practised journalism from an academic persepective. His writings in this respect, always rendered in simplified scientific style, were used to communicate political thought to the community.

    Moreover, he contributed several press articles in Arab and international newspapers. In addition to his academic and press activities, he was a member to a large number of societies, organizations and political bodies, including:
 

UN committee on International Law, since 1976.

Head, African Society of Political Studies, 1980.

International Law Society, 1973

Deputy Head, Socialist International, 1990

Press Syndicate of Egypt.

Egyptian society of International Law.

Egyptian society of political sciences.

Coptic society.

The central committee and the supreme executive committee of the Arab Socialist Union, up to 1977.

The Political Bureau of the National Democratic Party of Egypt.

The People's Assembly of Egypt, since 1987.

As a statesman, Dr.Ghali occupied several senior official positions in Egypt.
   He was the State Minister for Foreign Affairs from 1977 to 1991. During this period, he accompanied late President Anwar Sadat in his trip to Israel. He also participated in the peace negotiations between Egypt and Israel. In 1989, he was selected Deputy head of the Egypt-Russian Friendship Society. In May 1991, he was appointed Deputy Premier for Foreign Relations and Emigration. On December 2, 1991, he was elected UN Secretary-General, and resigned all his posts in Cairo on December, 17, 1991.

    Dr. Ghali had an integrated vision of political life, which evolved with the development of the world order. Dr. Ghali authored 21 books in Arabic, chief of which were a constitutional study of World organizations, 1957, studies in International Politics, 1961, politics and Development in Africa, 1970, and his latest "Egypt's road to Jerusalem, 1997, containing his personal memories on Egypt' s march towards peace with Israel.

    He contributed about 45 researches in Arabic in various publications. In addition, he authored 11 books and about 45 researches in French and English, up to 1992, chief of which are:
 

Contributions a'L'Etude des Ententes, Regeonales, 1949

Foreign policies in a world of change, 1966.
    Dr. Ghali, during his term of office as a Secretary-General, worked for establishing the principle of preventive diplomacy. At the first Summit Meeting of the Security Council in January 1992, a report on a vv plan for peace" was submitted as a starting-point of an international dialogue on the role of UN in maintaining world peace and security Preventive Diplomacy was determined as a priority issue. UN capability to undertake Preventive Diplomacy was reinforced. Mandate was given for the first time for the first preventive deployment operation under the world organization. UN cooperation with regional organizations for realizing peace and security was also enhanced. Attention was given to the building of peace following the settlement of conflict, by associating such settlement with arrangements for uprooting the causes of conflicts and strengthening the grounds of development.

    He was also interested in enhancing human rights protection mechanisms under the UN framework. To this end, he appointed an assistant Secretary-General, reporting directly to the Secretary-General as Head of the Human Rights Centre in Geneva, as of January 1, 1993. The protection of human rights was linked with world peace and security.

    Under his supervision, the United Nations effectively participated in orga-nizing several international conferences, chief of which were the "Earth Summit" held in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, 1992, the biggest in the history of UN.,"the population conference", Cairo, Egypt, 1994 and "The Conference on Women", Bejing, China, 1995.

    The United Nations reinforced its operations addressed to the preparation of the institutional and cultural structures of communities to enable them to entrench the underpinnings of and urge the application of democracy. Related to this is the encouragement of obidiance by the law in international relations, including UN involvement in supervising elections in several countries.

Arrangements were made for the gradual evolution of international law, including the encouragement of member-states to resort to the International court of Justice for settling their conflicts and providing legal counsel. Related to this were also the enforcement of the UN Agrreement on the law on the sea, the passing of the resolution to indefinitely extend the validity of the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear weapons, the creation by the security council of the Intentional Tribunals for Crimes against Humanity in the former Yugoslavia and those in Rwanda, and the initiation of negotiations for establishing a permanent international criminal court.

    The development of the UN activities has required an improvement in the organization's performance by effecting a major institutional reform. One of the major administrative and financial reforms led by Dr. Ghali, through Performance Efficiency upgrading programmes, was the reduction of the UN staff power by 25% from 12,000 to 9000 employees, Senior positions were also reduced from 48 to 37.

    The UN balance sheet for 1996 showed a fall of about US Dollar 117 million from the previous year. Moreover, the approved balance sheet for the last two years further showed a decline of about US Dollar 252 million from the previous two years.

    Throughout his tenure as the UN Secretary-General, he has been always committed to his firm belief in international peace security and cooperation. His rich and multi-faceted personality and his sophisticated and intensive international experience have positively contributed to the improvement of the World organization's performance.

Boutros Boutros-Ghali (born November 14, 1922) was Secretary-General of the United Nations from January 1992 to December 1996.

Boutros-Ghali was born in Cairo, Egypt, into a Coptic Christian family that had already provided Egypt with a prime minister (Boutros Ghali, 1846-1910). He graduated from University of Cairo in 1946 and earned a PhD in international law from the University of Paris in 1949. The same year, he was appointed professor of International Law and International Relations at Cairo University, a position which he held until 1977. He became president of the Centre of Political and Strategic Studies in 1975 and president of the African Society of Political Studies in 1980. He was a Fulbright Research Scholar at Columbia University from 1954 to 1955, Director of the Centre of Research of The Hague Academy of International Law from 1963 to 1964, and Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Law at Paris University from 1967 to 1968.

He had served as Egypt's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs from 1977 until early 1991. He then took the post of Deputy Prime Minister for Foreign Affairs for several months before moving to the UN. During Boutros-Ghali's term in office as Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, he played a part in the peace agreements between Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin.

Elected to the top post of the UN in 1992, Boutros-Ghali's term in office remains controversial.

He was criticized for the UN's failure to act during the 1994 Rwandan civil war and genocide, which ultimately killed about 800,000 people. However, this was primarily due to the lack of support by US. The Clinton administration, reeling from the recent debacle in Somalia, announced that not only would it no longer participate in peacekeeping but also that no other nation would be permitted to do so either. Under the 1949 Genocide Convention, UN action to avert genocide and deliver humanitarian aid was legally required in Rwanda, but with the State Department's public directives, the 1949 Genocide Convention was ignored. The US's ambassador to the UN, Madeline Albright, studiously avoided any use of the word "genocide." Albright dismissed as "too expensive" Boutros-Ghali's requests to jam Rwandan radio broadcasts, which were every day inciting the population to kill Watutsi. The US rejected support even for the small existing UN military observation force that was already there, having been sent to Rwanda in August 1993, following a peace agreement made at Yirusha, Rwanda after the initial Kigali violence.

Later that year, elected transitional President Juvenal Habiyarimana of Rwanda and the President of neighbouring Burundi, both Hutus, were killed in a plane crash. Enflamed, Hutu unleashed genocide throughout Rwanda, slaughtering the Tutsi minority.

Boutros-Ghali's term also saw the end of apartheid in South Africa with the election of Nelson Mandela in 1994. Elections also took place in Angola the same year he took office. However, the civil war continued there, and Boutros-Ghali appeared unable to stop it.

Ten security council members, led by three African members (Egypt, Guinea-Bissau and Botswana) sponsored a resolution backing Boutros-Ghali to serve a second five-year-term, until the year 2001. However, the United States vetoed a second term for Boutros-Ghali. It is suspected this was due to his support of Palestine. In addition to the United States, United Kingdom, Poland, South Korea, and Italy did not sponsor the resolution for a second term, although all four of those nations voted in support of Boutros-Ghali (after the US had firmly declared its intention to veto). Although not the first vetoed, Boutros-Ghali was the first UN secretary-general to not be elected to a second term in office.

Boutros-Ghali was succeeded at the UN by Kofi Annan. Since Boutros-Ghali was not given a second term, a successor was chosen from his region, Africa.

From 1997 to 2002 Boutros-Ghali was Secretary-General of La Francophonie, an organization of French-speaking nations.

Boutros-Ghali has published two memoirs:
Egypt's road to Jerusalem (1997), about the Israel-Egypt peace settlement
Unvanquished: A U.S.-U.N. Saga (1999), about his time as Secretary-General at the UN