Ambassador Jürg Lauber: The Human Rights Council Between Law & Politics
The Human Rights Council: Between Law & Politics in a Changing International Environment
Ambassador Jürg Lauber
President of the Human Rights Council for 2025
The United Nations Human Rights Council plays a critical role in the promotion and protection of human rights globally. However, it faces increasing challenges, between its core legal mission and the political influences that impact its functioning. These geopolitical tensions reflect the complexity of human rights work in an international system marked by competing interests and national priorities.
During this lecture, Ambassador Jürg Lauber, President of the Human Rights Council for 2025, will analyze the challenges and opportunities facing the Council as a body that must combine legal requirements and geopolitical balances, while fulfilling its mandate.
About Ambassador Lauber
Since September 1, 2020, Jürg Lauber has been the Permanent Representative of Switzerland to the United Nations and to the other international organizations in Geneva. On December 9, 2024, Mr. Lauber was elected President of the Human Rights Council for 2025.
From 2015 to 2020, he served as Permanent Representative of Switzerland to the United Nations in New York. Between 2011 and 2015 he served as head of the United Nations and International Organizations Division in Bern. Between 2009 and 2011 he was Deputy Permanent Representative of Switzerland to the United Nations and other international organizations in Geneva and Permanent Representative of Switzerland to the Conference on Disarmament.
Between 2007 and 2009 he served as chef de cabinet to the President of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands. As a diplomat he was posted in Bangkok, Bern, Beijing and the Permanent Mission of Switzerland to the United Nations in New York. Before joining the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA) in 1993 he worked in peacekeeping missions in Namibia (UNTAG) and Korea (Panmunjom). Jürg Lauber has a law degree from the University of Zurich. He was born in 1963 in Horgen, Switzerland.
The event will feature framing remarks by Pablo de Greiff, Senior Fellow & Director of the Prevention Project at the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, and Commissioner of the UN Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine.
Hosted by the NYU Center on International Cooperation, the NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, and the Center for Human Rights & Global Justice at the New York University School of Law.