
Diego Arria is a former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations, former Venezuelan ambassador to the United Nations, and 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 persons 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 International Criminal Court against Hugo Chávez for crimes against humanity. “It is a complaint to defend the rights of thousands and thousands of victims of Hugo Chávez.” he said (El Universal, 2011). Chávez died before the court issued a ruling. In 2015, he gave testimony against Venezuela and other authoritarian countries’ election to the UNHRC. Ambassador 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. Arria continues to publicly condemn the Venezuelan government through his writing, social media posts and public appearances.