Thorvald Stoltenberg

Thorvald Stoltenberg (8 July 1931 – 13 July 2018) was a Norwegian politician and diplomat. He served as Minister of Defence from 1979 to 1981 and Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1987 to 1989 and again from 1990 to 1993 in two Labour governments. From 1989 to 1990, Stoltenberg served as the Norwegian ambassador to the United Nations. In 1990, he became the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, serving for one year after which he rejoined the Norwegian government. In 1992, Stoltenberg, together with nine Baltic ministers of foreign affairs and an EU commissioner, founded the Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS) and the EuroFaculty. In 1993, he was appointed Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for the former Yugoslavia and U.N. Co-Chairman of the Steering Committee of the International Conference on the former Yugoslavia. Thorvald Stoltenberg was also the UN witness at the signing of Erdut Agreement. In 2003 he was appointed chairman of the board of the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA). Between 1999 and 2008, he was President of the Norwegian Red Cross, the only president to serve three terms. He was also a member of the Trilateral Commission, and held a seat on their executive committee. At the local level, Stoltenberg was elected to the Oslo City Council in 2015.