Boutros Boutros-Ghali

Boutros Boutros-Ghali (14 November 1922 – 16 February 2016) was an Egyptian diplomat and scholar who became the sixth Secretary-General of the United Nations, serving from 1992 to 1996, and afterwards the first Secretary-General of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (1997–2002). He came from a prominent Coptic family of Cairo — his grandfather, Boutros Ghali Pasha, had been prime minister of Egypt — and spent three decades teaching international law at Cairo University before and alongside his diplomatic career. ^{1 2}

He took a law degree at Cairo University in 1946 and a doctorate in international law from the University of Paris in 1949, with further study at Sciences Po. From 1949 to 1979 he taught international law and international relations at Cairo University. ¹

He entered government as minister of state for foreign affairs in 1977 and was acting foreign minister in the period of the Camp David negotiations between Egypt and Israel. He remained a senior figure in Egyptian foreign policy through the following decade. ^{1 2}

He took office on 1 January 1992, succeeding Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, as Africa's turn in the informal rotation arrived. In 1992 he submitted An Agenda for Peace, his programme for how the United Nations should prevent and respond to violent conflict. His term covered the wars in Somalia, Rwanda and Bosnia, and relations with the United States deteriorated. In 1996 he ran unopposed for a second term, but the United States used its Security Council veto to block him, and he was succeeded by Kofi Annan on 1 January 1997 — the only Secretary-General denied a second term in this way. ¹

From 1997 to 2002 he led the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie. He died in Cairo on 16 February 2016, aged 93, and was given a military funeral; the Arabic article reports that the funeral prayer was led by the Coptic Pope Tawadros II. ^{1 2}

The English and Arabic texts describe the family he was born into — "a Coptic Orthodox Christian family" — and say nothing in their texts about his own affiliation. The personal description exists only in the Arabic article's infobox, which gives his religion as "Christian Orthodox"; the Wikidata item carries two religion values that contradict each other (Coptic Orthodox Church and Coptic Catholic Church). Under this museum's rule — a faith is recorded only when two independent sources attest the person himself — his faith is recorded as unknown, and the Christian (Coptic Orthodox) reading is preserved in his data record for the founder's ruling. The short Urdu article is a stub and adds only category filings, which are not evidence. ^{1 2 3}

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