The Board of Trustees of the Raoul Wallenberg Institute has appointed Morten Kjaerum as the Institute’s new Director. Mr. Kjaerum will take up his position in the first half of 2015.
Mr. Kjaerum is currently the Director of the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) in Vienna. During his six years at the agency, he is credited for having brought FRA into the foreground of the European human rights landscape.
Before his appointment as Director of FRA in 2008, Mr. Kjaerum was the founding Director of the Danish Institute for Human Rights. During his 17 years of leadership, he developed Denmark’s national human rights institution into a large internationally recognized institution
“We are pleased to welcome Morten to the Institute and are confident that with his wide experience he will contribute to further enhance the Institute’s contributions to development and promotion of international human rights law,” says Lennart Svensäter, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the RWI.
Mr. Kjaerum was a member of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) from 2002 to 2008, and a member of the EU network of independent experts who monitor compliance with the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights from 2002 to 2006. He was elected chair of the International Coordinating Committee for National Human Rights Institutions in 2004.
Mr. Kjaerum has also written extensively on many human rights issues, including refugee law, the prohibition against racial discrimination and the role of national human rights institutions.
(Photo on first page courtesy of FRA – Pictures Wolfgang Voglhuber)