Adam Daniel Rotfeld

Adam Daniel Rotfeld
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland
8th Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Third Republic of Poland
In office
5 January 2005  13 October 2005
President Aleksander Kwaśniewski
Prime Minister Marek Belka
Preceded by Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz
Succeeded by Stefan Meller
Personal details
Born (1938-03-04) 4 March 1938
Peremyshliany, then Second Polish Republic, now Ukraine
Political party None
Profession Diplomat, Academician

Adam Daniel Rotfeld ['adam ˈdaɲɛl ˈrɔtfɛlt] (born 4 March 1938) is a Polish researcher, diplomat, and former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland from 5 January 2005 until 31 October 2005 when a change of government took place. He served earlier as the deputy foreign minister. While in that position, Rotfeld established the Warsaw Reflection Group on the UN Reform and the Transformation of the Euro-Atlantic Security Institutions, with participation from leading US and European experts and politicians.

From 1991 up to 2002 he served as Director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) and in 1989–1991 project leader on Building a Cooperative Security System in and for Europe at SIPRI.

Life

Rotfeld was born in Przemyślany near Lwów, Poland (now Lviv, Ukraine). He survived the Holocaust in the Univ Lavra, a monastery of the Studite Brethren. Rotfeld was married to Barbara Sikorska-Rotfeld (died in 2006) and has one daughter, Alicja, born in 1971.

Rotfeld studied international law and diplomacy in Warsaw (1955–1960). PhD dissertation on the right of self-determination of people in modern international law at the Jagiellonian University, Kraków defended in 1969. Later, Habilitation on European Security in Statu Nascendi. He was appointed professor at the Warsaw University by the President of Poland in 2001.

Professional activities

Since 1961, Rotfeld worked as researcher at the Polish Institute of International Affairs (PISM, the acronym formed from the Polish name). Member of the UN Secretary General Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters, its chair in 2008 (2006-2011); member of the NATO Expert Group on the New Strategic Concept of Alliance (2009-2010), and since 2010 Commissioner of the Euro-Atlantic Security Commission, member of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR).

Since 1989: Leader of the Project on Building a Co–operative Security System in and for Europe at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Appointed as Director of SIPRI from 1 July 1991 and re–elected in 1996 for a second term (until June 2002). Membership of many consultative bodies and scientific councils, i.e., Institute of Political Studies at the Polish Academy of Sciences, co-chairman of Polish-Russian Group on Difficult Matters.

Participated in many multilateral negotiations and conferences on security and arms control.

Publications

Rotfeld published and edited more than 20 monographs and over 400 articles. Initially focused on the legal and political aspect of relations between Germany and Central and East European states after World War II (recognition of borders, the Munich Agreement and the right of self-determination) and multilateral process of security and cooperation in Europe initiated in Helsinki, as well as arms control and non-proliferation.

After the end of the cold war co-edited with Walther Stützle the volume Germany and Europe in Transition (OUP 1991). Since then his publications are mainly focused on human rights, cooperative security, CSBMs, multilateral security structures (NATO, EU, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE)) and political and legal structures of the security system in Europe.

Editor of the SIPRI Yearbook: Armaments, Disarmament and International Security from 1991 to 2002. He has written more than 20 chapters on global and regional security systems and European and transatlantic security structures for the SIPRI Yearbook. Initiated the Warsaw Reflection Group (2004) and chaired the series of reports on the UN reform, multilateral European security institutions and on arms control, non-proliferation and denuclearization.

Appointments

In his capacity as Director of SIPRI, appointed in 1992 as Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office to elaborate the political settlement of the conflict in the Trans–Dniester region of Moldova; the recommended basic principles for the political solution of the conflict in his report were approved by the OSCE Council of Ministers and conflicting parties.

Since 2001 member of the President’s National Security Council, Poland.

Became Undersecretary of State at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA, Warsaw) in November 2001; in June 2003 appointed Secretary of State; Minister of Foreign Affairs between January 2005 and November 2005.

Since 2006 member of the UN SG's Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters (chaired 2008).

Since 2008, former Foreign Minister Rotfeld has been Co-Chairing Polish-Russian Group For Difficult Issues, in particular Katyn massacre, together with Rector of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (University) – Anatoly V. Torkunov.

Memberships

Member of different academies and boards: the Royal Swedish Academy of War Studies (appointed in 1996); the Governing Board of the Hamburg Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg (IFSH, appointed in 1995); Advisory Board of Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF, appointed in 2001); Geneva Security Policy Center (2003), and many other research centers. Member of the European Council on Foreign Relations (since 2009).

Since March 2011 professor at the Warsaw University, Institute of Interdyscyplinary Research (Collegium Artes Liberales). Lectured at many universities and academic institutions in Europe, the United States, Russia, China and Japan.

As Former Polish minister for integration he recently signed the Soros' open letter calling for more Europe in the single currency turmoil.[1]

References

External links


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