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Danilo Türk

Danilo Türk
Danilo Türk 2011.jpg
3rd President of Slovenia
In office
23 December 2007 – 22 December 2012
Prime Minister Janez Janša
Borut Pahor
Janez Janša
Preceded by Janez Drnovšek
Succeeded by Borut Pahor
Ambassador to the United Nations
In office
1991–2000
President Milan Kučan
Preceded by Position established
Succeeded by Ernest Petrič
Personal details
Born (1952-02-19) 19 February 1952 (age 65)
Maribor, Yugoslavia
(now Slovenia)
Political party Independent
Spouse(s) Barbara Miklič
Children 1
Alma mater University of Ljubljana
University of Belgrade
Website Official website

Danilo Türk (pronounced [daˈníːlɔ ˈtýɾk]; born 19 February 1952) is a Slovenian diplomat, professor of international law, human rights expert, and political figure who served as the President of Slovenia from 2007 to 2012. Türk was the first Slovene ambassador to the United Nations, from 1992 to 2000, and was the UN Assistant Secretary General for Political Affairs from 2000 to 2005.

He is a visiting professor of international law at Columbia University in New York City, a professor emeritus at the Faculty of Law of the University of Ljubljana, and non-resident senior fellow of Chongyang Institute for Financial studies at Renmin University of China in Beijing. Türk is the founder of the Danilo Türk Foundation, devoted mostly to the rehabilitation of child victims of armed conflict. He is also the chairman of the Global High Level Panel on Water and Peace and the chairman of the board of the Global Fairness Initiative, a Washington-based NGO dedicated to economic and social development in developing nations.

In 2016, Türk was an unsuccessful candidate for the post of Secretary-General of the United Nations.

Türk was born in a lower-middle-class family in Maribor, Slovenia (then part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia). He attended Maribor Grammar School No. 2 (II. gimnazija Maribor). In 1971 he enrolled at the University of Ljubljana, where he studied law. After graduation (1975) he served as the secretary of the commission for minority and expatriate affairs at the Socialist Alliance of Working People (SZDL), an organisation sponsored by Yugoslav Communist Party. In December 1979 he became the chairman of that commission and a member of the executive committee of the SZDL. At the same time he continued his studies. He obtained an MA with a thesis on minority rights from the University of Belgrade's Law School. In 1978, he became a teaching assistant at the Faculty of Law in Ljubljana. In 1982, he obtained his PhD with a dissertation on the principle of non-intervention in international law at the University in Ljubljana and received a full-time job as an assistant professor at the University in Ljubljana's Faculty of Law. In 1983, he became the director of the University of Ljubljana's Institute for International Law. In the following years, he worked on human and minority rights. In the mid-1980s, he collaborated with Amnesty International to report on human rights issues in Yugoslavia.


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