Diego Arria is a former assistant secretary general at the United Nations, a former Venezuelan ambassador to the United Nations, and a former chairman of the United Nations Security Council. He is known for initiating the eponymous “Arria formula,” a consultation process that affords members of the Security Council the opportunity to hear people in a confidential, informal setting. He was a witness in the trial of Slobodan Miloševic, where he testified that the defendant and the Serbian authorities were aware of the genocide against the Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica from 1993 to 1995. In 2011, he filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court against Hugo Chávez for crimes against humanity. Arria is on the board of advisors for Freedom Now, the Center for International Policy and Ethics at Brandeis University, and the School of International Service at American University in Washington, D.C. He was also a diplomatic fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
