Who is the candidate Nawaf Salam?

This morning, President Joseph Aoun began his consultations with the parliamentary blocs to choose a person who will form a new government, facing major challenges at the political and economic levels.

Although several candidates were willing to take over this position, which belongs to the Sunni community in Lebanon, the competition was mainly confined to caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and veteran diplomat Nawaf Salam, who currently holds the position of President of the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

Who is Nawaf Salam?

He was born on December 15, 1953 in Beirut to a well-known political family. His father, Abdullah Salam, was one of the founders of Middle East Airlines, the Lebanese national airline, and represented the family on its board of directors between 1956 and 1983.

Salam is married to Sahar Baasiri, a journalist and Lebanese ambassador to UNESCO, and he has two sons, Abdullah and Marwan.

His grandfather, Salim Ali Salam, was mayor of Beirut and a deputy in the Ottoman Council of “Envoys” in Istanbul and one of the founders of the “Reform Movement in Beirut” against Turkish policy in the East. He was also a member of the Great Arab Government founded by King Faisal bin Hussein and director of its office in Beirut. .

His uncle, Saeb Salam, headed the Lebanese government 4 times between 1952 and 1973, and his cousin Tammam Salam headed the government in the period 2014 and 2016.

Salam is popular among young people and change-makers.

Salam began his academic career by obtaining a diploma from the School of Higher Studies in Social Sciences in Paris in 1974, then a doctorate in history from the Sorbonne University in Paris in 1979.

After that, he obtained a bachelor’s degree in law from the University of Beirut in 1984, then a master’s degree in law from Harvard Law School in 1991, then a state doctorate in political sciences from the Institute of Political Studies in Paris in 1992.

He worked in the field of law in 1984 as an appellate lawyer, a member of the Beirut Bar Association, and a consultant and representative of many international, local, public and private bodies in Beirut in two periods, 1984-1989 and 1992-2007. He also worked in the American city of Boston as a legal representative for a number of international institutions in the period between 1989-1992.

Before that, he had embarked on a career in academia, serving as a lecturer at the Sorbonne from 1979 to 1981, where he studied the contemporary history of the Middle East, and in 1981 he was a visiting fellow at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University. Between 1985 and 1989, he worked as a lecturer at the American University of Beirut.

After returning to Beirut in 1992, he worked as a lawyer at Takla Law Firm, and in parallel with his law practice, he began teaching international law and international relations at the American University of Beirut and headed the Department of Political Studies and Public Administration at the same university in the period 2005-2007.

He also worked as a lecturer at several universities, including Harvard Law School, the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, the International Peace Institute in New York, Yale Law School, the German University of Freiburg, and Boston University, and at Arab universities in Rabat, Cairo, and Abu Dhabi.

He was elected a member of the Executive Office of the Economic and Social Council in Lebanon between 1999 and 2002. The mission of this council was to provide advice, suggestions and recommendations in projects of an economic and social nature that it received from the government.

In 2005, the Council of Ministers appointed him as a member and rapporteur in the National Commission for Election Law Reform, where he contributed to the preparation of a draft of a new electoral law after Syria ended its military presence in Lebanon.

This body, which was known as the Boutros Committee after its head, the late Minister Fouad Boutros, submitted a law proposal in 2006 that included many reforms, most notably the adoption of a mixed electoral system that elects 77 representatives according to the majority system and 51 according to the proportional system.

Salam was elected President of the International Court of Justice in The Hague in February 2024 for 3 years after the end of the term of US President Judge John Donoghue, thus becoming the second Arab to preside over this court since its establishment in 1945.

In 2018, he joined this court, which consists of 15 judges elected by the Security Council and the United Nations General Assembly.

Salam is considered a veteran diplomat, as he was Lebanon’s ambassador and permanent representative to the United Nations between 2007 and 2017, its representative in the Security Council, President of the Security Council between May 2010 and September 2011, Vice President of the 67th session of the United Nations General Assembly from September 2012 to September 2013, and Lebanon’s representative in the Economic Council. United Nations Social Council in 2016 and 2018, and he was also a member of Security Council field missions to several countries, such as Ethiopia, Sudan, Kenya, Uganda, and Afghanistan.

He wrote many books and articles in the fields of international and constitutional law, politics and history, including:

• “Possible reform and desired reform, research and articles on the Lebanese crisis,” University Institute for Studies and Publishing, 1989.
• “Beyond Taif, Essays on the State and Reform,” 1998.
• “Taif Agreement, cash recovery” in 2003.
• “Options for Lebanon,” a joint book published in 2004.
• “Lebanon in the Security Council 2010-2011” in 2013.
• “Lebanon Between Yesterday and Tomorrow” in 2021, and was published in two versions in Arabic and French.