Bikash Chowdhury Barua, Chairman. BASUG. Netherlands.
Former UN Secretary General’s Special Representative for International Migration (SRSG)
Founding Father of the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD)
Peter was 71 years of age and died at St. James’s Hospital, Dublin on Sunday January 7th in the presence of his family. He is survived by his loving wife Maruja, née Cabria Valcarcel, his children Shane, Natalia and Ian, ten grandchildren, his sisters Jill and Karen, his brother-in-law David Brennan, his daughters-in-law, his son-in-law, his wider family and friends.
Peter was born in Dublin on April 25, 1946. He went to school at Gonzaga College SJ which helped to instill a strong religious faith and where he formed lifelong friendships. He studied law at University College, Dublin and at the King’s Inns. He was called to the Bar in 1969 and practiced law until 1981 when he became Attorney General of Ireland. He was a member of the European Commission from 1985 to 1989. Between 1989 and 1993, Peter was chairman of AIB plc and a director of CRH plc and GPA. From 1993 to 1995, he was Director General of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and subsequently the World Trade organisation. He was subsequently a Partner at and Chairman of Goldman Sachs International and Chairman of BP plc among numerous other roles in the commercial and not-for-profit sector. In 2006, he was proud to be asked to be United Nations Special Representative on Migration by then-Secretary General Kofi Annan. He was renewed in that role by Ban Ki-moon. In 2015, Peter retired from all commercial activities to concentrate on his UN work.
Tributes
Leave a tributeBikash Chowdhury Barua, Chairman. BASUG. Netherlands.
May his soul rest in peace and tranquility.
Regards,
Bikash Chowdhury Barua/Chairman/BASUG-Diaspora and Development, Netherlands
www.basug.eu
your always wise words connecting the dots are being missed....
Your memory is still afresh in our mind and it will never fade away. Stay well wherever you are. May God bless you.
Best regards,
Bikash Chowdhury Barua
Chairman
BASUG-Diaspora and Development
www.basug.eu
The Netherlands
Regine, your comrade in arms !!!
But Mr. Sutherland will always stay with us in spirit because his thoughts still lead the GFMD
Rest in peace Mr. Sutheland. You will always be remembered
It is a pitty that people like you have to die, I wish you and your family the comfort that you were not in this world in vain and left it a better place through all your many important endeavours, guided by a exceptional clarity of mind, the courage of saying what you believed to be right and your steadfast belief in a better future for all.
May His soul rest in peace!
We have learnt with deep sorrow of the passing away of Sir Peter Sutherland, Founder of GFMD.
In my capacity as Ambassador and Permanent Representative in Geneva, I had the honour and opportunity to work with Sir Peter Sutherland on migration issues and our collaboration culminated in the holding of the GFMD Meeting in Mauritius in 2012, and we have had also the opportunity to work closely with him in GFMD subsequence conferences and appreciated his leadership and guidance on GFMD issues.
We are confident that the spirit of work of Sir Peter Sutherland will remain alive among the international community through his outstanding contribution and the milestones he has set to meet the challenges of global migration.
The Embassy of the Republic of Mauritius joins me in extending our deepest condolences to all those affected by the demise of Sir Peter Sutherland, including the bereaved family.
Israhyananda Dhalladoo
Ambassador and Permanent Representative
Throughout his distinguished and varied career, Mr. Sutherland exhibited a rare ability to forge connections among both institutions and ideas. He recognized the importance of bringing to bear all the resources of society - governments, civil society, and business - to address global challenges. A man of great compassion, he understood that humanitarian crises, such as those arising from flows of migrants and refugees, are equally crises of development and economics, and that business therefore has an essential role to play in addressing migration issues. His stature and his moral example served as an inspiration to those of us privileged to know and work with him. The world is a poorer place without Peter Sutherland.
We send our sincerest condolences to Mr. Sutherland’s family and to his colleagues, and we will do our best to honor his memory by serving the cause to which he dedicated these last years of his life.
The Business Mechanism to the GFMD
Leave a Tribute
Bikash Chowdhury Barua, Chairman. BASUG. Netherlands.
May his soul rest in peace and tranquility.
Regards,
Bikash Chowdhury Barua/Chairman/BASUG-Diaspora and Development, Netherlands
www.basug.eu
SRSG and Founding Father of the GFMD
Mr. Sutherland was appointed in 2006 as the Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) for International Migration by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. In this function, Mr. Sutherland engineered the establishment of the GFMD in 2007 as an independent Forum for Member States to foster a global dialogue and cooperation on migration. Since then, until September 2016 when he fell ill, Mr. Sutherland had offered strategic advice and support to the rotating GFMD Chairmanships.
Serving as the link between the GFMD and the UN, Mr. Sutherland accompanied the evolution of the Global Forum process. He helped galvanize support from participating Member States to ensure the sustainability of the GFMD process, promote greater cooperation between and among the Global Migration Group member agencies, and strengthen the engagement of the GFMD with other vital stakeholders, notably the civil society and the private sector. Mr. Sutherland’s tireless efforts bore fruition in 2013, when the Second High Level Dialogue on international migration firmly recognized the many achievements of the Global Forum in building trust and promoting practical solutions and cooperation on migration challenges.
Deeply moved by the 2015 migration crises in the Andaman Sea and the Mediterranean, Mr. Sutherland strongly urged the global community to address the complex challenges of mixed migration. He championed the cause of protecting the human rights of both migrants and refugees, as he emphasized the need for responsibility-sharing between and among Member States, international organizations and other concerned stakeholders. He called for the inclusion of migration-related targets in the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and recognized the potential role that the GFMD could play in the implementation and follow-up of migration commitments in the 2030 Agenda.
In 2016, he provided the inspiration and crucial support for the organization of the UN High Level Summit on Large Movements of Member States and advocated for IOM to become part of the UN in order to deal with migration issues from a global cooperation angle. He also came out with a landmark report known as the “Sutherland Report,” which makes recommendations for the better management of migration through international cooperation, and proposes ways of strengthening the engagement of the United Nations on migration. In this report, he proposed that “in the immediate future, the Global Forum will serve to support consensus-building on an ambitious global compact on migration and advance the implementation of the migration-related commitments in the 2030 Agenda.” The Sutherland report is a key reference for the 54-page Thematic Recollection 2007-2017 of the GFMD which constituted the Global Forum’s contribution to the Global Compact for Migration (GCM) process.