Zeid bin Ra'ad

Prince Zeid bin Ra'ad bin Zeid al-Hussein (زيد ابن رعد الحسين; born 26 January 1964) is a Jordanian former diplomat who is the Perry World House Professor of the Practice of Law and Human Rights at the University of Pennsylvania.

He is also the president and CEO of the International Peace Institute.

He was educated in England at Reed's School, Surrey, then in the United States at Johns Hopkins University, where he was a member of the university's rugby club and graduated with a B.A. in 1987.

Zeid received a commission as an officer in the Jordanian desert police (the successor to the Arab Legion) in 1989, and saw service with it until 1994.

He then spent two years as a political officer in UNPROFOR, the UN force in the former Yugoslavia.

He was then a research student at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he gained a PhD in 1993.

He also served as a political affairs officer in UNPROFOR in the former Yugoslavia from 1994 to 1996.

Zeid served as Jordan's Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations from 1996 to 2000.

With reference to the International Criminal Court, and from 1996 to 2010, he was:

A career diplomat, he served as Jordan's Permanent Representative to the United Nations from 2000 until 2007, when he was appointed as Jordan's Ambassador to the United States and non-resident Ambassador to Mexico.

In August 2000 he was appointed Permanent Representative at the United Nations, serving until 2007.

He played a central role in the establishment of the International Criminal Court, and was elected the first president of the Assembly of State Parties of the International Criminal Court in September 2002.

Whilst at the UN, he further chaired the Consultative Committee for the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) from 2004 to 2007, and, in 2004, was named Advisor to the Secretary-General on Sexual Exploitation and Abuse in UN Peacekeeping.

During his two-year tenure, he issued a report on eliminating such abuse from all peacekeeping operations, which became known as the 'Zeid Report'.

In 2006, he was nominated by Jordan as a candidate for selection as the next United Nations Secretary-General.

From 2007 to 2010 he was Jordan's Ambassador to the United States of America, then in 2010 returned to the UN as Jordan's Permanent Representative.

He delivered the Grotius Lecture at the 102nd Annual Meeting of the American Society of International Law in April 2008, entitled For Love of Country and International Criminal Law.

He was re-appointed Permanent Representative in 2010 and served until 2014, resigning shortly before his selection as High Commissioner.

From 16 September 2010 to 7 March 2012, Zeid was the Chairman of the Country-Specific Configuration of the UN Peace Building Commission for Liberia.

He also chaired the search committee for the selection of the second prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in 2011.

He was also a member of the World Bank's Advisory Council for the World Development Report 2011 and the International Advisory Board of the Auschwitz Institute for Peace and Reconciliation.

He also served as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2014 to 2018.

In January 2014, Zeid became president of the United Nations Security Council and chaired the Security Council's 1533 and 1521 committees, with regard to two sanctions regimes: the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Liberia.

On 6 June 2014, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon proposed that Zeid replace Navi Pillay as the United Nations' human rights chief based in Geneva.

The nomination, which was subsequently approved by the 193-nation U.N. General Assembly, made him the first Muslim to lead the UN Human Rights Office.

Full texts of all his statements are available at the website of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

In that capacity he has stated: "There is no justification ever, for the degrading, the debasing or the exploitation of other human beings – on whatever basis: nationality, race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability, age or caste."

On 8 September 2014, in his maiden speech to the UN's 47-member Human Rights Council at the body's 27th session in Geneva, Zeid strongly criticized the so-called Islamic State group, saying it was trying to create a "house of blood".

He called on the international community to combat the spread of the movement in Iraq and Syria, asking, "[Do] they believe they (ISIS) are acting courageously, barbarically slaughtering captives?"

The massacres, beheadings, rape and torture "reveal only what a Takfiri (i.e. 'excommunicator' in Arabic) state would look like, should this movement actually try to govern in the future", he said.

"It would be a harsh, mean-spirited house of blood, where no shade would be offered, nor shelter given to any non-Takfiri in their midst".

In a speech at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Commissioner said that lessons from the Holocaust provide a key to understanding ISIS.

He said: "If we have learned anything from our collective history, it is this: Scrambling only for ourselves, our people, our political or religious ideology, or for our own kind will only scramble it all — eventually, sometimes horrifyingly so — for everyone."

According to press accounts, he said "The solution he proposed for avoiding atrocities such as the Holocaust was human rights education for every child in the world, beginning before the age of nine. 'In this way, from Catholic parochial schools to the most secular public institutions, and indeed Islamic madrassahs, children could learn — even in kindergarten — and experience the fundamental human rights values of equality, justice and respect.'"

In 2016, he was made an Honorary Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge.

In 2019, Zeid was invited to join The Elders, an independent group of global leaders working for peace, justice and human rights founded by Nelson Mandela.

He is the son of Prince Ra'ad bin Zeid, Lord Chamberlain of Jordan, and Swedish-born Margaretha Inga Elisabeth Lind, subsequently known as Majda Raad.

As the United Nations does not permit the use of royal or other titles by its officials in the context of their official work, he was known as Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein in his capacity as United Nations High Commissioner.

He is the apparent first in line to the thrones of the defunct Kingdom of Iraq and Arab Kingdom of Syria according to the mainstream claim.

Zeid was born in Amman, Jordan.