Mohamed ElBaradei
Mohamed Mostafa ElBaradei is an Egyptian lawyer and diplomat who served as Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency from 1997 to 2009, then as vice president of Egypt on an interim basis from 14 July to 14 August 2013.
As Director General of the IAEA, he and the organization were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005 "for their efforts to prevent nuclear energy from being used for military purposes and to ensure that nuclear energy for peaceful purposes is used in the safest possible way". At the end of his tenure, he was appointed "Director General Emeritus of the International Atomic Energy Agency". ElBaradei was featured in the Western press due to his views regarding Egyptian politics, particularly the 2011 revolution which ousted President Hosni Mubarak and the 2013 Egyptian coup d'état.
Education and early career
ElBaradei was born and raised in Giza Governorate, Greater Cairo, Egypt. He was one of five children of Mostafa ElBaradei, an attorney who headed the Egyptian Bar Association. ElBaradei's father was also a supporter of democratic rights in Egypt, supporting a free press and an independent judiciary.Following in the footsteps of his father, Mostafa, ElBaradei also studied law. He earned a bachelor's degree in law from the University of Cairo in 1962, a master's degree LLM in 1971 and a doctorate degree JSD in international law in 1974 from the New York University School of Law. His thesis was titled "The right of passage through straits in time of peace".
ElBaradei's diplomatic career began in 1964 in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he served in the Permanent Missions of Egypt to the UN in New York and in Geneva, in charge of political, legal, and arms-control issues. From 1974 to 1978, he was a special assistant to the foreign minister. In 1980, he became a senior fellow in charge of the International Law Program at the United Nations Institute for Training and Research. From 1981 to 1987, he was also an adjunct professor of international law at the New York University School of Law.
In 1984, ElBaradei became a senior staff member of the IAEA Secretariat, serving as the agency's legal adviser and Assistant Director General for External Relations. ElBaradei is currently a member of both the International Law Association and the American Society of International Law.
Public career as IAEA Director General (1997–2009)
ElBaradei's tenure has been marked by high-profile, non-proliferation issues, which include the inspections in Iraq preceding the March 2003 invasion, and tensions over the nuclear program of Iran.ElBaradei began to serve as Director General of the IAEA, which is based in Vienna, on 1 December 1997, succeeding Hans Blix of Sweden. The agency gradually came to take an active role in attempts to prevent nuclear proliferation, with its focus first centred on Iraq and Sudan, in which cases the agency claimed success, and later also on North Korea and Iran. ElBaradei was re-elected for two more four-year terms in 2001 and, despite opposition from the United States, to a third term in 2005.
In late August 2007, ElBaradei finalized a secret "divisive and risky" nuclear agreement with Iran. Diplomats from the U.S., France, Britain, and Germany filed a formal protest.
In 2009 ElBaradei stated that Iran's nuclear threat had been exaggerated and there was no evidence the country was close to building a nuclear weapon. He also rejected accusations that he had concealed Iran's nuclear ambitions. His third and last term ended in November 2009. ElBaradei faced criticism from Washington, Israel, London, Berlin, and Paris, where officials saw his actions as attempts to block their efforts to intensify pressure on Iran regarding its nuclear program.
First term as Director General
After being appointed by the IAEA General Conference in 1997, ElBaradei said in his speech that, "for international organizations to enjoy the confidence and support of their members, they have to be responsive to needs; show concrete achievements; conduct their activities in a cost-effective manner; and respect a process of equitable representation, transparency, and open dialogue."Just a couple of months before ElBaradei took office, the Model Additional Protocol was adopted, creating a new environment for IAEA verification by giving it greater authority to look for undeclared nuclear activities. When in office, ElBaradei launched a program to establish "integrated safeguards" combining the IAEA's comprehensive safeguard agreements with the newly adopted Additional Protocol. In his statement to the General Conference in 1998, he called upon all states to conclude the Additional Protocol: "One of the main purposes of the strengthened-safeguards system can be better achieved with global adherence. I would, therefore, urge all states with outstanding-safeguards agreements to conclude them, and I would also urge all states to accelerate their consideration of the Model Additional Protocol and enter into consultations with the Agency at the earliest possible opportunity. We should work together to ensure that, by the year 2000, all states have concluded outstanding-safeguards agreements and also the Additional Protocol." ElBaradei repeated this call through his years as the Director General of the IAEA. In November 2009, 93 countries had Additional Protocols in force.
ElBaradei's first term ended in November 2001, just two months after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. These attacks made clear that the more is needed to be done to protect nuclear material and installations from theft or a terrorist attack. Consequently, ElBaradei established a nuclear security program to combat the risk of nuclear terrorism by assisting member states to strengthen the protection of their nuclear and radioactive material and installations, the .
Second term as Director General
One of the major issues during ElBaradei's second term as the director general of the IAEA was the agency's inspections in Iraq. ElBaradei disputed the U.S. rationale for the 2003 invasion of Iraq from the time of the 2002 Iraq disarmament crisis, when he, along with Hans Blix, led a team of UN weapons inspectors in Iraq. ElBaradei told the UN Security Council in March 2003 that documents purporting to show that Iraq had tried to acquire uranium from Niger were not authentic.In an October 2003 interview published in the Cairo Times, he said "the ultimate sense of security will be when we come to recognize that we are all part of one human race. Our primary allegiance is to the human race and not to one particular color or border. I think the sooner we renounce the sanctity of these many identities and try to identify ourselves with the human race the sooner we will get a better world and a safer world.
ElBaradei described the U.S. invasion of Iraq as "a glaring example of how, in many cases, the use of force exacerbates the problem rather than it." ElBaradei further stated that "we learned from Iraq that an inspection takes time, that we should be patient, that an inspection can, in fact, work," and that he had "been validated" in concluding that Saddam Hussein had not revived his nuclear weapons program.
In a 2004 op-ed piece on the dangers of nuclear proliferation, in the New York Times, ElBaradei stated that "e must abandon the unworkable notion that it is morally reprehensible for some countries to pursue weapons of mass destruction, yet morally acceptable for others to rely on them for security – and indeed to continue to refine their capacities and postulate plans for their use." He went on to say "If the world does not change course, we risk self-destruction."
Third and final term as Director General
The United States initially voiced opposition to his election to a third four-year term in 2005. In a May 2005 interview with the staff of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Lawrence Wilkerson, the chief of staff to former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, charged former Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton with an underhanded campaign to unseat ElBaradei. "Mr. Bolton overstepped his bounds in his moves and gyrations to try to keep from being reappointed as head," Wilkerson said. The Washington Post reported in December 2004 that the Bush administration had intercepted dozens of ElBaradei's phone calls with Iranian diplomats and was scrutinizing them for evidence they could use to force him out. IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky said the agency worked on "the assumption that one or more entities may be listening to our conversations." "It's not how we would prefer to work, but it is the reality. At the end of the day, we have nothing to hide," he said. Iran responded to the Washington Post reports by accusing the U.S. of violating international law in intercepting the communications.The United States was the only country to oppose ElBaradei's reappointment and eventually failed to win enough support from other countries to oust ElBaradei. On 9 June 2005, after a meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and ElBaradei, the United States dropped its objections. Among countries that supported ElBaradei were China, Russia, Germany, and France. China praised his leadership and objectivity, and supported him for doing "substantial fruitful work, which has maintained the agency's role and credit in international non-proliferation and promoted the development of peaceful use of nuclear energy. His work has been universally recognized in the international community. China appreciates Mr. El Baradei's work and supports his reelection as the agency's director general." France, Germany, and some developing countries, have made clear their support for ElBaradei as well. Russia issued a strong statement in favor of re-electing him as soon as possible.
ElBaradei was unanimously re-appointed by the IAEA board on 13 June 2005.