Mr. Jan Kavan is the President of the fifty-seventh session of the United Nations General Assembly. He served as the Czech Republic's Deputy Prime Minister for Foreign and Security Policy from 1999 to 2002 and as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1998 to 2002. He is currently a Deputy in the Czech Parliament.
Education
Jan Kavan studied journalism at the Charles University, Prague and was the leader of the 1960s student movement there.
Following the Warsaw Pact invasion in Czechoslovakia in 1968, Jan was forced to emigrate to the UK. There he studied International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science and Politics at the University of Reading and in the St Anthony’s College, Oxford University.
Career
Mr. Kavan has had a notable academic career, which includes stints as Visiting Professor of Politics and History at Adelphi University (New York) from 1993 to 1994 and Karl Loewenstein Fellow in Politics and Jurisprudence at Amherst College (Massachusettes). He also lectured at universities such a Columbia and Stanford, Wellesley College and the Harvard Center for European Studies, and taught at the London Adult Education Institute for close to 15 years. He holds several honorary degrees, including Honorary Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science.The author of more than 100 articles published in the daily press and specialized periodicals in the United States, the United Kingdom and other countries of Europe, Mr. Kavan has edited two books on the Czech opposition movements and contributed to four others, all published in the United Kingdom and the United States. His recent publications include: “McCarthyism Has a New Name: Lustration”, Transition to Democracy in Eastern Europe and Russia (Praeger Publishers/Greenwood Publishing Group, Westport, Connecticut, USA, 2002); “Youth Movements and the Velvet Revolution” (co-authored), Communist and Post-Communist Studies Vol.27, No.2, June 1994 (Butterworth Heinemann, Oxford, United Kingdom); “Charter 77 and other Independent Movements”, Debates on the Future of Communism (Foreign Policy Research Institute, Macmillan Academic and Professional Publications, USA,1991); “From Spring to Winter”, Legacy of the Prague Spring, (Freedom House, New York, 1989); and “Czechoslovak Opposition Since 1968”, Part I and Part II, Poland Watch Nos.5 and 7 (Journal of the Poland Watch Center, Washington, D.C.). Mr. Kavan is the recipient of a number of medals and awards for his contribution to the struggle for human rights and democracy in his country.