Area of Expertise: Relations between countries in the Northern and Southern hemispheres, Middle East, developing world, United Nations, environment, human rights, population, preventive diplomacy; fluent in Arabic and French

Additional Information: Clovis Maksoud, former ambassador and permanent observer of the League of Arab States at the United Nations and its chief representative in the United States for more than 10 years, is director of AU’s Center for the Global South. The center, founded in 1991, examines issues affecting the developing countries of the world, characterized as the Global South. The center has hosted forums at the UN conferences in Beijing, Copenhagen, Cairo, and Istanbul. A lawyer, journalist, and diplomat, Maksoud served as the League of Arab States' ambassador to India and Southeast Asia from 1961 to 1966. Maksoud was also the League of Arab States' special envoy to the United States in 1974. Currently, he is a member of the United Nations Development Program advisory board on Arab human development reports. As a journalist, Maksoud was senior editor of the daily Al-Ahram in Cairo, Egypt, and editor in chief of Al-Nahar, an Arabic-language weekly published in Beirut, Lebanon. He is the author of several books on the Middle East and developing countries, including The Meaning of Nonalignment, The Crisis of the Arab Left, Reflections on Afro-Asianism, and The Arab Image. He teaches classes on the Middle East, Global South issues, international organizations, and preventive diplomacy at both the School of International Service and AU’s Washington College of Law. Maksoud is fluent in French and Arabic.
 

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