Social, Humanitarian & Cultural Issues (Third Committee)
Chairperson of the 78th Session
His Excellency Alexander Marschik, Permanent Representative of Austria to the United Nations
Ambassador Alexander Marschik was appointed Permanent Representative of Austria to the United Nations in 2020.
Before his appointment, Mr. Marschik was Director-General for Bilateral Affairs and European Union-Common Foreign and Security Policy and Political Director in his country’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs since 2018. He previously served as Director-General for International Affairs and Political Director from 2015 to 2018, Ambassador to the European Union’s Political and Security Committee in Brussels from 2011 to 2015 and Director for Disarmament, Arms Control and Non-Proliferation in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs from 2007 to 2011. At the Permanent Mission of Austria to the United Nations in New York, he was Deputy Permanent Representative from 2003 to 2006 and Legal and Political Counsellor from 1999 to 2003. He also served as Head of the General Affairs Council Unit of the European Union Division of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs from 1997 to 1999 and First Secretary to the Permanent Mission of Austria to the United Nations in Geneva in 1997.
Throughout his diplomatic career, he was elected or appointed to various functions and served as facilitator or chair of multilateral negotiations. Since taking up his duty as Permanent Representative of Austria in 2020, he co-facilitated the review process of the Economic and Social Council and the High-level Political Forum together with the Permanent Representative of Senegal during the 75th Session of the UN-General Assembly. During the 76th Session he served as facilitator of the review of the ICC-Prosecutor appointment procedure together with the Ambassador of Serbia to The Netherlands. In 2023 he served as Co-Chair of the Intergovernmental Negotiations on Security Council reform together with the Permanent Representative of Kuwait. Most recently, he was elected to serve as chairman of the Third Committee during the 78th Session of the UN-General Assembly, and as Co-Chair of the PrepCom for the 3rd LLDC Conference in Rwanda 2024. Before his appointment as PR in New York, he had served inter alia as Vice-Chairman of the 6th Committee (Legal) during the fifty-sixth session of the UN-General Assembly from 2001 to 2002, Rapporteur of the Assembly of States Parties to the International Criminal Court from 2002 to 2005, as well as Chairman of Subsidiary Body 1 (Disarmament) at the NPT-Review Conference in 2010.
Mr. Marschik holds masters and doctoral degrees in law from the University of Vienna, where he also held lectures on international law from 1990 to 1998. He has published extensively (under the name Axel Marschik) on international law and international relations.
List of publications (extract):
-
The Politics of Prosecution: European National Approaches to War Crimes, in McCormack/Simpson (eds.), The Law of War: National and International Approaches, Kluwer Law International (1997), 65-101.
-
Subsystems in International Law - Is the European Union a “self-contained regime”? (1997). (Doc.thesis; in German).
-
Too much order? – The Impact of Special Secondary Norms on the Unity and Efficacy of the International System, European Journal of International Law 9 (1998), 212-239.
-
Legislative Powers of the Security Council, in Macdonald/Johnston (eds.), Towards World Constitutionalism: Issues in the Legal Ordering of the World Community (2005), 457-492.
-
Hard Law Strikes back – How the recent focus on the rule of law promotes compliance with norms in international relations, in Buffard/Crawford/Pellet/Wittich (eds), International Law between Universalism and Fragmentation (2008), 61-84.
-
The Administration of Arms Control: Ensuring Accountability and Legitimacy of Field Operations, International Organizations Law Review 6 (2009), 627-653.
-
The UN Security Council and Iraq, in Faure (ed.), Unfinished Business: Why International Negotiations Fail (2012), 19-42.
-
The UN Security Council and the Rule of Law, in Genser and Stagno Ugarte (eds), The United Nations Security Council in the Age of Human Rights (2014), 247-273.
-
EU Foreign, Security and Defence Policies at a Crossroads: Superpower, Superpartner, Superfluous?, in Frank/Matyas (eds.), Strategie und Sicherheit 2014: Europas Sicherheitsarchitektur im Wandel (2014), 149-159
-
The Vienna Convention and the Law of Treaties and Karl Zemanek, ARIEL 24 (2019), 9-15.
