Michael von der Schulenburg

Member of the European Parliament, Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations

Michael von der Schulenburg is a Member of the European Parliament and former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations. After fleeing the German Democratic Republic in 1969, he pursued his studies in Berlin, London, and Paris. He subsequently spent more than thirty four years working and living in peacebuilding and development missions of the United Nations, and briefly for the OSCE, in countries weakened by war, internal conflict involving armed non state actors, and foreign military intervention.

His long term assignments included missions in Afghanistan, Haiti, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, and Sierra Leone, alongside shorter deployments in Syria, Somalia, the Balkans, Central Asia, and the Sahel region. Drawing on this extensive field experience, he has written widely on United Nations reform, intra state armed conflict, and contemporary crises including those in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Ukraine. In 2017, he published On Building Peace, Rescuing the Nation State and Saving the United Nations with Amsterdam University Press.