Nawaf Salam (Arabic: نواف سلام, born December 15, 1953) is a Lebanese diplomat, academic, and jurist. He is currently serving as Lebanon's Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York.
Background and Education
editSon of Abdallah Salam and Reckat Beyhum, Nawaf was born into a prominent family from Beirut, Lebanon. His grandfather, Selim Salam, the leader of the “Beirut Reformist Movement,” was elected deputy of Beirut to the Ottoman parliament in 1912. His uncle, Saeb Salam, fought for Lebanon’s independence from the French Mandate of Lebanon and subsequently served four times as Prime Minister of Lebanon between 1952 and 1973. He is married to Sahar Baassiri who is a columnist at the Lebanese An-Nahar newspaper. He has two sons, Abdallah and Marwan.
Salam received a doctorate in Political Science from the Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris (1992), an L.L.M. from Harvard Law School (1991), and a doctorate in History from Sorbonne University (1979).
Career
editFrom 1979 to 1981, Salam was a lecturer on the contemporary history of the Middle East at Sorbonne University. In 1981, he left Paris to spend an academic year as a visiting scholar at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University. Between 1985 and 1989, he was a lecturer at the American University of Beirut, during which time he also practiced law as an associate at the Takla law firm. He was a visiting researcher at the Harvard Law School from 1989 to 1990, and a foreign legal consultant at Edwards & Angell LLP from 1989 to 1992. He resumed his practice at the Takla law firm in 1992 as well as his teaching of International Law and International Relations at the American University of Beirut. He was appointed as Visiting Associate Professor of Political Science in 2003, and later as Associate Professor of Political Science in 2005. From 2005 to 2006, he was the Chairman of the Political Studies and Public Administration Department.
Salam has also served as a member of the Executive Bureau of the Economic and Social Council of Lebanon from 1999 to 2002 and as a member of the Lebanese National Commission of UNESCO from 2000 to 2004. In 2005 and 2006, he was a member and Secretary General of the Lebanese National Electoral Law Commission which was entrusted with the task of preparing the draft of a new electoral law for Lebanon. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies (LCPS).
As of July 2007, he has been serving as Lebanon’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York.
Permanent Representative to the United Nations
editHis mandate at the UN has been marked by his repeated interventions before the Security Council calling for security and stability in South Lebanon through the implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, and for an end to impunity through the establishment of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon in the matter of the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, pursuant to United Nations Security Council resolution 1757.
Main Publications
editBooks and Booklets
- Editor and Contributor: Le Moyen-Orient à l’Epreuve de l’Irak, Actes-Sud/Sindbad, Paris, 2005.
- Editor and Contributor: Options for Lebanon, I.B.Tauris, London and New York, 2004. (Arabic version published by Dar An-Nahar).
- Co-editor with Theodor Hanf and Contributor: Lebanon in Limbo, Nomos, Baden-Baden, 2003.
- Co-editor with Fares Sassine, Lebanon. A Century in Pictures (Trilingual English-French-Arabic), Dar An-Nahar, Beirut, 2003.
- Civil Society in the Arab World: The Historical and Political Dimensions, Islamic Legal Studies Program, Harvard Law School, Occasional Publications, Cambridge, 2002.
- La condition libanaise. Communautés, citoyen, Etat; suivi de: La citoyenneté en pays d’Islam. Dar An-Nahar, Beirut, 1998. (2nd ed. 2001).
- Mythes et Politiques au Liban. Trois Essais, Fiches du Monde Arabe, Beirut, 1987.
- Prospects for Lebanon. An Essay on Political Opportunities and Constraints, C.L.S., Oxford, 1987.
Chapters in Books and Articles in Refereed Journals
- “Taif’s Dysfunctions and the Need for Constitutional Reform” in Youssef Choueiri, Breaking the Cycle: Civil Wars in Lebanon, Stacey International, London, 2007.
- “Note sur le système confessionnel au Liban” in Abdel-Wahab Bouhdiba (ed.), Mélanges en l’honneur de Dominique Chevallier, Paris-Tunis, 2006, pp. 77-86.
- “The War in Lebanon: its origins and courses” in Peter Molt and Helga Dickow, Comparing Cultures and Conflicts, Baden-Baden, 2006, pp. 290-299.
- “The Emergence of Citizenship in Islamdom” in Arab Law Quarterly, Vol. 12, part 2, 1997, pp. 125-147.
- “Between Repatriation and Resettlement: Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon” in Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. XXIV/1, n° 93, 1994, pp. 18-27. (French version in Revue d'Etudes Palestiniennes [53] 1, automne 1994)
- “Is the Exceptio non adimpleti contractus part of Lex Mercatoria?” Co-author with Philip D. O'Neill, Jr. in Emmanuel Gaillard (ed.), Transnational Rules in International Commercial Arbitration, International Chamber of Commerce/International Law Association, Paris, 1993, pp. 147-159.
Doctoral Dissertations
- Conflits et perceptions politiques dans le Liban contemporain, Institut d’études politiques de Paris (Sciences Po.), 1991.
- L’Insurrection de 1958 au Liban, Université de Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV), 1979.