Peter Maurer (born 1956) is a Swiss diplomat who was the President of the

International Committee of the Red Cross The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is a humanitarian organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, and is a three-time Nobel Prize laureate. The organization has played an instrumental role in the development of rules of war and ...

(ICRC) from 1 July 2012 until October 2022 and is currently President of the Basel Institute on Governance.

Early life and education

Maurer was born in

Thun Thun () is a List of towns in Switzerland, town and a Municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in the administrative district of Thun (administrative district), Thun in the Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Canton of Bern, Bern in Switzerland. ...

, Switzerland. He studied

History History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...

and

International Law International law, also known as public international law and the law of nations, is the set of Rule of law, rules, norms, Customary law, legal customs and standards that State (polity), states and other actors feel an obligation to, and generall ...

Bern Bern (), or Berne (), ; ; ; . is the ''de facto'' Capital city, capital of Switzerland, referred to as the "federal city".; ; ; . According to the Swiss constitution, the Swiss Confederation intentionally has no "capital", but Bern has gov ...

, and was awarded a

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

Career

In 1987, Maurer entered the Swiss Diplomatic Service ( Federal Department of Foreign Affairs), where he held various positions in Bern and

Pretoria Pretoria ( ; ) is the Capital of South Africa, administrative capital of South Africa, serving as the seat of the Executive (government), executive branch of government, and as the host to all foreign embassies to the country. Pretoria strad ...

, South Africa, before being transferred to New York in 1996 as Deputy Permanent Observer at the Swiss Mission to the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

. In 2000, he was appointed Ambassador and head of the division in charge of human security at the headquarters of Switzerland's Foreign Ministry in Berne. In 2004, Maurer was appointed Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Switzerland to the United Nations in New York. In this position, he endeavoured to integrate Switzerland, which had only recently joined the United Nations, into multilateral networks. In June 2009, the

United Nations General Assembly The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA or GA; , AGNU or AG) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), serving as its main deliberative, policymaking, and representative organ. Currently in its Seventy-ninth session of th ...

elected Maurer Chairman of the Fifth Committee, in charge of United Nations administrative and budgetary affairs. In addition, he was elected Chairman of the

Burundi Burundi, officially the Republic of Burundi, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is located in the Great Rift Valley at the junction between the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa, with a population of over 14 million peop ...

Configuration of the UN Peacebuilding Commission. In January 2010, Maurer became Switzerland's State Secretary for Foreign Affairs, a position he held until he was elected President of the ICRC, succeeding Jakob Kellenberger in June 2012. Maurer led the ICRC through a historic budget increase, from 1.1 billion CHF in 2011 to over 1.6 billion CHF in 2015. In addition, he launched the world’s first "humanitarian impact bond" scheme, in which private investors lend €22 million of five-year funding and their repayments depend on what difference the project makes to its clients’ lives. Since 2019, Maurer has been co-chairing the

World Economic Forum The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international non-governmental organization, international advocacy non-governmental organization and think tank, based in Cologny, Canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded on 24 January 1971 by German ...

High-Level Group on Humanitarian Investing, alongside Børge Brende and Kristalina Georgieva. In September 2019, he was re-elected as the president of the ICRC for an additional term of 4 years, until October 2022, when he was succeeded by Mirjana Spoljaric Egger. While president of the ICRC, Maurer earned an annual salary of up to CHF 437’000, while the ICRC was facing significant budget cuts.

Other activities

* International Gender Champions (IGC), Member (since 2017) *

(WEF), Member of the Board (since 2014) *

(WEF), Co-Chair of the Global Future Council on the Future of the Humanitarian System *

International Institute for Strategic Studies The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) is an international research institute or think tank focusing on defence and security issues. Since 1997, its headquarters have been at Arundel House in London. It has offices on four co ...

(IISS), Member of the Advisory Council

Awards and honours

* 2014 Honorary doctorate,

University of Basel The University of Basel (Latin: ''Universitas Basiliensis''; German: ''Universität Basel'') is a public research university in Basel, Switzerland. Founded on 4 April 1460, it is Switzerland's oldest university and among the world's oldest univ ...

* 2018 Honorary doctorate,

Waseda University Waseda University (Japanese: ), abbreviated as or , is a private university, private research university in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Founded in 1882 as the Tōkyō Professional School by Ōkuma Shigenobu, the fifth Prime Minister of Japan, prime ministe ...

* 2023 Knight Commander's Cross of the

Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany The Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (, or , BVO) is the highest state decoration, federal decoration of the Federal Republic of Germany. It may be awarded for any field of endeavor. It was created by the first List of president ...

* 2023

Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun

References

Sources

* UN, 15 September 2009
PETER MAURER OF SWITZERLAND CHAIR OF FIFTH COMMITTEE
* ICRC, 19 October 2011

* ICRC, 7 September 2012

* WEF, 3 November 2014
Peter Maurer Joins Foundation Board, World Economic Forum

External links

*
The president of the ICRC
{{DEFAULTSORT:Maurer, Peter 1956 births Living people Red Cross personnel People from Thun Università per Stranieri di Perugia alumni Permanent representatives of Switzerland to the United Nations Knights Commander of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Grand Cordons of the Order of the Rising Sun