Australia pitches for top UNESCO job
10 June 1999
[MELBOURNE] In a surprise move, Australia's conservative Coalition government announced on Monday (7 June) that it is nominating one of its main political opponents, Gareth Evans, as director general of Unesco. The post becomes vacant later this year when the present director general, Federico Mayor, steps down.
The move pitches Evans against a lengthy list of earlier nominations, including that from Japan, Koichiro Matsuura, as well as Ghazi Algosaibi,
Saudi Arabia's ambassador to London, and Ismail Serageldin, a vice president of the World Bank (see Ten candidates line up to succeed Mayor, 4 February 1999).
With wide international experience - including brokering of the Cambodian peace settlement and a prominent supporter of the idea that Australia should play a leading international role in nuclear nonproliferation debates - Evans was once touted as a potential Secretary-General of the United Nations.
Evans holds first class honours degrees in Law from Melbourne University and in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from Oxford University. Before entering the Australian Parliament in 1978, he was a barrister specialising in industrial law, and an academic lawyer specialising in constitutional and civil liberties law. He became a Queens Counsel in 1983
He was Foreign Minister in the Labor government until its defeat in 1996, and subsequently become Deputy Leader of the Opposition until the October 1998 election, after which he did not stand for public office. During his term as foreign minister he helped bring to a conclusion the international Chemical Weapons Convention, and was involved in founding the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, and in initiating the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.
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