Appointment confirmed of UN special adviser on responsibility to protect

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has welcomed the agreement of the Security Council to his intention to appoint Edward Luck as his new Special Adviser with a focus on the responsibility to protect.

Mr. Luck will serve in the post at the Assistant Secretary-General level on a part-time basis, UN spokesperson Marie Okabe told reporters today.

In a letter to the Council announcing his plan to appoint Mr. Luck, Mr. Ban called him “a distinguished international scholar with extensive knowledge of the United Nations system and a superb reputation for academic and practical excellence.”

Mr. Luck will be tasked with working closely with Francis Deng, Mr. Ban’s Special Adviser for Prevention of Genocide, given the complementarity of their work.

His primary roles will be conceptual development and consensus-building, in recognition of the fledgling nature of the international agreement on the responsibility to protect populations from genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes and crimes against humanity, Mr. Ban stated.