Background
He was born in Bergen, and graduated Bachelor from Copenhagen School of Economics.
He was born in Bergen, and graduated Bachelor from Copenhagen School of Economics.
University of California, Berkeley.
He was a postgraduate student at the College of Europe, and received his Master of Arts in Political Science, from University of California Berkeley. He started working for the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1963, and was the Norwegian ambassador to Iraq from 1983 to 1988. He was then the Norwegian ambassador to Indonesia from 1988 to 1994, chief negotiator to the World Trade Organization from 1994 to 1997 and ambassador to South of Korea from 1997 to 2001.