Yukio Takaso

Special Advisor to the Secretary General for Human Security

Japan chaired the United Nations Security Council in February 2009. Its two-year term as a non-permanent member of the UNSC began 1 January. Taking the chair, Japan's Ambassador Yukio Takasu presented clocks to the Council members as a gentle reminder to his often tardy colleagues to arrive punctually at meetings.

Takasu presides over a UNSC which will deliberate a raft of African issues. He joined UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to call for more troops for the UN's mission in Congo-Kinshasa. The UNSC has welcomed the cooperation between the transitional government and the opposition Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia but is ambivalent about sending UN peacekeepers.

Japan sits in the middle of the row over the International Criminal Court's coming arrest warrant for Sudan President Omer el Beshir: the United States backs it and would veto attempts to defer it; China and Russia want the warrant deferred; Britain and France are wavering. Takasu will also have to listen to non-permanent members Burkina Faso, Uganda, Libya and Vietnam.

Takasu knows the UN well. Involved in UN peacekeeping since his 1993-1997 tenure as Assistant Secretary General to Egypt's Boutros Boutros-Ghali, he was the administrator of the troubled UN missions to Rwanda and to the former Yugoslavia. Furthermore, he has been Japan's UN Ambassador before, from 1997 to 2000. Takasu also chairs the UN Peacebuilding Commission, which raises funds and helps to draft recovery plans for post-conflict countries and is active in Burundi, Central African Republic, Guinea Bissau and Sierra Leone.

Takasu studied law at the University of Tokyo and Oxford University, and has served as Ambassador in the USA, Britain, Indonesia and Malaysia.