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Ruud Lubbers
Prime Minister of the Netherlands
In office November 4, 1982 – August 22, 1994
Preceded by	Dries van Agt
Succeeded by	Wim Kok
Born	7 May 1939 (1939-05-07) (age 68)
Political party	Christen-Democratisch Appèl

Rudolphus Franciscus Marie Lubbers or Ruud Lubbers (born May 7, 1939) was prime minister of the Netherlands from 1982 – 1994. A political conservative, Lubbers was regarded by many during his time in office as an ideological heir to Margaret Thatcher; one of his campaign slogans was: "meer markt, minder overheid" (more market, less government). After that, he was the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, from 2001 until February 20, 2005, when he resigned because of continuous press attention about an allegation of sexual harassment. In July 2006, Lubbers acted as informateur of a new cabinet, after the second Balkenende cabinet handed over its resignation to the Dutch Queen.

Contents 1 Life and career 1.1 Dutch Politics 1.2 Ecological Activities 1.3 Academic 1.4 UN High Commissioner 1.4.1 Refugees 1.4.2 Resignation After Negative Media Coverage Regarding an Unsubstantiated Complaint 1.5 Honorary doctorate 2 External links 3 References

Life and career

Lubbers was born in Rotterdam. He studied economics at the Erasmus University Rotterdam and was a student of the first Nobel Prize Laureate in economics Jan Tinbergen. As suggested by the title of his 1962 thesis - "The influence of differing productivity trends in various countries on the current account of the balance of payments" - his main interest was in monetary affairs. He originally planned an academic career, but was compelled by family circumstances to join the management of Lubbers' Construction Workshops and Machinery Fabricators Hollandia B.V.

Dutch Politics

From 11 May 1973 to December 19, 1977 he was Minister of Economic Affairs in the Den Uyl-government and a member of the Catholic People's Party (KVP). He was an effective, if sometimes somewhat bad-tempered minister. He chose to return to Parliament on the formation of the Van Agt-government in 1977, becoming Senior Deputy Parliamentary Leader of the CDA, the alliance between the KVP and the other two main denominational parties. His career got an unexpected boost when the leader of the parliamentary faction of the CDA, Willem Aantjes, had to resign in 1978 on accusations that he served in the Germanic-SS during the Second World War. Lubbers took over the position of Aantjes and suddenly found himself in a powerful political position.

In 1982 after the general election won by Prime Minister Dries van Agt, a similar thing happened when Van Agt suddenly announced he would not be available for a third term. Lubbers took over the post, a position he held three successive governments through to 1994, making him the longest serving prime minister in the history of the Netherlands.

Major aspects of his time in office:

• Extensive cutbacks in public spending
• The launch of far-reaching deregulation and privatization programs
• A massive demonstration in The Hague (1983) against the planned installation in the Netherlands of nuclear-armed US cruise missiles (which was cancelled after all due to arms reduction talks between the US and the Soviet Union)

After leaving office, was put forward as a candidate for the head of NATO, but the US vetoed his appointment.

Ecological Activities

In the follow-up of the Earth Summit in 1992, Mr. Lubbers engaged with the Earth Charter Initiative in cooperation with Michael Gorbachov and Maurice Strong. The Earth Charter document was launched in the Peace Palace in The Hague in June 2000. Mr. Lubbers is an active member of the international Earth Charter Commission and reaches out, especially to youth in the Netherland, with the message of the Earth Charter for a sustainable and peaceful world.

Academic

From 1995 to 2000, he taught Globalization Studies at Tilburg University in the Netherlands and at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in the United States. He was also vice-chairman of the Independent World Commission on the Oceans and chair of Globus, the Institute for Globalization and Development based in Tilburg.

UN High Commissioner

On January 1, 2001 he became the ninth United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. He succeeded Mrs. Sadako Ogata of Japan. In October 2003, his three year term was extended for another two years, to December 31, 2005. He annually donated some $300,000 to the refugee agency since he assumed his post in 2001, thereby covering his own $167,000 annual salary and travel expenses. He resigned for this job on February 20, 2005 due to a sexual harassment allegation.

Refugees

At the end of the year 2000, Mr. Lubbers was appointed by the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Mr. Kofi Annan, to succeed Mrs. Sadako Ogata as UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Mr. Lubbers was appointed 1 January 2001 to head an organization which was concerned with an estimated 21 million refugees and internally displaced in over 120 countries world wide. He led a UN agency that comprised over 5,000 employees who work across the globe. During his tenure, the number of refugees worldwide decreased by almost 22% from 21.8 million in 2001 to close to 17.1 million at the beginning of 2004.

Mr. Lubbers also favoured a generous refugee policy for the Netherlands and he was critical of the Foreign Citizens Law (Vreemdelingenwet). Part of his achievement is that since he took on his duties as High Commissioner, the persistent criticism of UNHCR dating from before that time, subsided.^{[citation needed]} He also managed to stabilise UNHCR’s financial situation and to greatly increase the financial means for the sheltering of refugees.^{[citation needed]}

Resignation After Negative Media Coverage Regarding an Unsubstantiated Complaint

Mr. Lubbers resigned as UN High Commissioner for Refugees (“UNHCR”) “in the interest of the organization” in February 2005, even though UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan had concluded in July 2004, and publicly stated repeatedly afterwards, that the sexual harassment complaint filed against Mr. Lubbers by a UNHCR employee earlier in 2004 was unsubstantiated. After having received an incriminating report from the United Nations Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), which was investigating the complaint, as well as the response of Mr. Lubbers and an analysis of the OIOS-report by Dutch Minister of State (Minister van Staat) Max van der Stoel strongly criticizing the report’s violations “of fundamental principles of law” and procedural guarantees, Kofi Annan consulted Stephen Schwebel, an American judge and former President of the International Court of Justice. Following Schwebel’s assessment that the accusations were unsubstantiated, Kofi Annan came to the conclusion that the complaint against Mr. Lubbers could not be sustained, clearing him of the allegations.

Notwithstanding Kofi Annan’s dismissal of the complaint, in February 2005 the case was in the news again when the British daily The Independent published the incriminating report of OIOS, which was leaked to the press in violation of UN policies. Under pressure of the ongoing negative media coverage based on leaked UN documents, the “oil-for-food” problem affecting the position of Kofi Annan, and absent support from the UN Secretariat, Mr. Lubbers on 20 February 2005 decided to resign. The UN Secretary-General’s office issued a statement the same day which said that the High Commissioner’s resignation was in the best interests of the UNHCR. In his letter of resignation Mr. Lubbers stated that his resignation constituted no expression of guilt, but that he had become the victim of smearing, adding that he had resigned “in the interest of the organization”. In a letter to UNHCR staff, Kofi Annan wrote, “My decision to accept his resignation should not be interpreted as a finding of guilt”.

During a farewell meeting for Mr. Lubbers as High Commissioner for Refugees he received from Acting High Commissioner Wendy Chamberlin the first annual UNHCR Achievement Award for exceptional services to UNHCR and for the world’s refugees.

After having filed a formal appeal against the decision of Kofi Annan to close the case against Mr. Lubbers within the UN’s internal justice system in October 2004, the complainant voluntarily withdrew her appeal shortly after its filing. Notwithstanding the withdrawal, the complainant and a colleague petitioned the United States Supreme Court and the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in May 2006. In addition to Mr. Lubbers, the 2006 complaint named the United Nations, former Secretary-General Kofi Annan and former Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees Wendy Chamberlin as defendants, accusing them of sexual harassment and/or retaliation. The Supreme Court dismissed the case outright. The District Court invited the UN Office of Legal Affairs to submit its views on the threshold question of the defendants’ immunity from suit, on which a hearing was held in New York on 31 October 2007.

Honorary doctorate

On September 6, 2004, Ruud Lubbers received an honorary doctorate from the Radboud University Nijmegen.

External links

• UNHCR website
• http://www.ruudlubbers.nl/ Ruud Lubbers Unofficial

References

v • d • e Prime Ministers of the Netherlands since 1877
Kappeyne van de Coppello • Van Lynden van Sandenburg • Heemskerk Azn. • Mackay • Van Tienhoven • Roëll • Pierson • Kuyper • De Meester • Heemskerk • Cort van der Linden • Ruijs de Beerenbrouck • Colijn • De Geer • Gerbrandy • Schermerhorn • Beel • Drees • De Quay • Marijnen • Cals • Zijlstra • De Jong • Biesheuvel • Den Uyl • Van Agt • Lubbers • Kok • Balkenende