Peter Sutherland

Peter Sutherland KCMG SC
Director-General of the World Trade Organization
In office 1 July 1993 – 1 May 1995
Preceded by	Arthur Dunkel as Director-General of the GATT
Succeeded by	Renato Ruggiero
Personal details
Born	25 April 1946(1946-04-25)
Nationality	Irish

Peter Denis Sutherland, KCMG, SC (born 25 April 1946) is an Irish international businessman and former Attorney General of Ireland, associated with the Fine Gael party (part of the European People's Party bloc). He is a barrister by profession, and is also Senior Counsel at the Irish Bar. He is also known for serving in a variety of business and political roles.

UCD's law school is to be named the Sutherland School of Law following the completion of its rebuild in 2012. He is a chairman of Goldman Sachs International.

Early life

Son of the late William "Billy" Sutherland, an insurance broker, Peter Sutherland was educated at Gonzaga College, a Jesuit day school in Dublin and then studied law at University College Dublin. He played prop forward for the UCD rugby team and was club captain, a role he later filled at Landsdowne Football Club, before retiring from the sport in his mid-20s. He remains an active member of Lansdowne F.C.

Attorney General and politics

After UCD, he studied at the King's Inns in Dublin and was called to the Bar in 1969. At the 1973 Irish general election, he stood as a Fine Gael candidate in the Dublin North–West constituency. He received 1,969 votes (6.2%) but was not elected. In 1981, aged 34, he became the youngest Attorney General of Ireland. He served under two Governments led by Garret FitzGerald. He also advised the FitzGerald government on the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland which introduced a constitutional ban on abortion, though Sutherland opposed the wording on grounds that it was ambiguous and unclear.

EU Commissioner and head of the World Trade Organisation

He was appointed to the European Commission in 1985 and had responsibility for competition policy and, initially for 1985 only, also for education. He has said that he was especially pleased to have proposed the establishment of the ERASMUS programme (European Regional Action Scheme for Mobility of University Students) that allows European University students to study in other member states.

He was Chairman of the Committee that produced The Sutherland Report on the completion of the Internal Market of the EEC, commissioned by the European Commission and presented to the European Council at its Edinburgh meeting in 1992.

He was the youngest ever European Commissioner and served in the first Delors Commission, where he played a crucial role in opening up competition across Europe, particularly the airline, telecoms, and energy sectors. Subsequently he was Director General of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (now the World Trade Organisation). Later Mickey Kantor, the US Trade Minister, credited him with being the father of globalization and said that without him there would have been no WTO.^{[citation needed]} The Uruguay round of global trade talks, concluded in 1994 with Sutherland as chair of GATT, produced the biggest trade agreement in history and established the World Trade Organisation.

Chairman of the Advisory Council to the Director General of the World Trade Organisation that produced the Report on the Future of the World Trade Organisation published in 2005.

Business

He is non-executive Chairman of Goldman Sachs International (a registered UK broker-dealer, a subsidiary of Goldman Sachs). Until June 2009 he was non-executive chairman of BP being replaced by Carl-Henric Svanberg formely chief executive officer of Ericsson. Sutherland was a director of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group until he was asked to leave the board when it had to be taken over by the UK government to avoid bankruptcy. He also formerly served on the board of ABB.

He is on the steering committee of the Bilderberg Group, he is an Honorary Chairman of the Trilateral Commission (2010 -), he was Chairman of the Trilateral Commission (Europe) (2001–2010) and was vice chairman of the European Round Table of Industrialists (2006–2009).

He was Chairman of the Board of Governors of the European Institute of Public Administration (Maastrict) from 1991 to 1996. He is Honorary President of the European Movement Ireland.

Peter Sutherland (left) speaking with Garret FitzGerald (centre) and Will Hutton (right), at the Institute of European Affairs in Dublin in 2006.

He was appointed as a member of the Hong Kong Chief Executive's Council of International Advisers in the years of 1998–2005.

He produced the Sutherland Report for the Portuguese Government on the handover of Macao to China in January 2000

He is President of the Federal Trust for Education and Research, a British think tank. He was Chairman of The Ireland Fund of Great Britain from 2001 to 2009, part of The Ireland Funds. He is a member of the advisory council of Business for New Europe, a British pro-European think-tank.

He was a member of the Commission on Human Security set up by the Japanese Government that reported to the United Nations in 2003.

In 2005, he was appointed as Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Industrial Development Organization. In Spring 2006 he was appointed Chair of London School of Economics Council commencing in 2008.

Sutherland also serves on the International Advisory Board of IESE, the eminent graduate business school of the prestigious Spanish university, the University of Navarra.

In January 2006, he was appointed by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan as his Special Representative for Migration. In this position, he was responsible for promoting the establishment of a Global Forum on Migration and Development, a state-led effort open to all UN members that is meant to help governments better understand how migration can benefit their development goals. The Global Forum was acclaimed by UN Member States at the UN High-Level Dialogue on International Migration and Development, in September 2006, and will be launched in Brussels in July 2007.

On 5 December 2006, he was appointed as Consultor of the Extraordinary Section of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (a financial adviser to the Vatican).

On 22 January 2010 he said while in Dublin that Ireland could not afford seven comprehensive top tier universities with research capabilities.

In September 2010 ahead of the Irish government budget for 2011, Sutherland said that the proposed €3bn of cuts in expenditure, “The figure of €3 billion has been postulated as the improvement to be sought in the next budget,” he said. “We are told that this is all that the political system can bear, but if all the mainstream political parties accept that more is required – although disagreeing perhaps about where to find the €3 billion – and are prepared to say it, we can find a way.” Sutherland said a default on State debts would leave the Government without the capacity to manage its affairs or raise finance. “It simply is not an option to choose,” he said.

Sutherland is also co-Chairman of the High Level Group appointed by the Governments of Germany, Great Britain, Indonesia and Turkey to report on the conclusion of the Doha Round and the future of multilateral trade negotiations. Report issued in May 2011.

2010 interview

In an interview with The Irish Times in early 2010, Sutherland revealed that in summer 2009, during a holiday, one of his children noticed a swelling on his throat while they sat on a beach. Within a week he was back home in London undergoing a major operation. Sutherland had an operation for throat cancer in August 2009 and following the operation he underwent chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

For Sutherland, a Europhile, the worst part about his illness was missing the “mortal combat” of fighting for the Yes vote in the second Lisbon referendum.

Sutherland visited Brian Lenihan to tell him what a great job he thought he was doing and to say that Lenihan had the potential to be one of the great taoisigh of the 21st century. Lenihan was taken aback, he says. Sutherland believes Ireland failed in economic terms over most of the past four decades with the exception of a “sparkling period” from 1994 to 2002 when the State took advantage of EU changes freeing up the movement of goods, capital and services across Europe.

Outside banking, Sutherland in early 2010 finished a 13-year stint as chairman of BP, Europe’s largest oil company. At one point during his tenure, the company was valued on the stock market at £236 billion (it is currently worth about £120 billion) and was making £42 million a day in profits.

He was twice offered the job of UN High Commissioner for Refugees by Kofi Annan, a fact, he says, that he has never disclosed publicly before, but he declined both times due to other commitments. He cites his work at GATT and the introduction of the Erasmus student exchange programme when he briefly held the education portfolio at the Commission in 1986 as his two most rewarding achievements.

Regarding the next stage of his career, Surtherland disclosed that he has decided to join three boards – at German insurer Allianz; Koç Holding, Turkey’s largest conglomerate; and a shipping company, BW Shipping located in Singapore.

In November 2010, he renewed his involvement in trade issues when he was appointed co-chair of an Experts Group, created by the heads of government of Germany, Great Britain, Indonesia and Turkey, to report on the priority actions to be taken to combat protectionism and to boost global trade. The Trade Experts Group's interim report was launched at Davos on January 28, 2011.

Awards, Honorary Doctorates and Prizes

• Honorary Fellow of OXONIA,The Oxford Institute For Economic Policy
• Honorary Doctorate of Law, St Louis University (1985)
• The Gold Medal of the European Parliament (1988)
• Robert Schuman Medal (1988)
• The First European Law Prize (Paris 1988)
• European Person of the Year Award (1988)
• The David Rockefeller International Leadership Award (1998),
• The Grand Cross of Civil Merit (Spain 1989)
• The Irish People of the Year Award (1989)
• The Grand Cross of King Leopold II (Belgium 1989)
• The New Zealand Commemorative Medal (1990)
• Honorary Doctorate of Law, National University of Ireland (1990)
• Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur (France 1993)
• The Consumer for World Trade Annual Award (1994)
• Commandeur du Wissam (Morocco 1994)
• Honorary Doctorate of Law, Bath University (1995)
• The Order of Rio Branco (Brazil 1996)
• The Dean’s Medal, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, (1996)
• Honorary Doctorate of Law, University of Reading (1997)
• The Grand Cross of the Order of Infante Dom Henrique (Portugal 1998)
• Honorary Doctorate of Law, Nottingham University (1999)
• Honorary Doctorate of Law, Exeter University (2000)
• Foundation Day Medal, University College Dublin (2004)
• Honorary Knighthood (UK 2004)
• Honorary Doctorate of Law, Queens University, Belfast (2004)
• Honorary Doctorate of Letters, University of Sussex, 2008
• Lifetime Achievement Award, Ireland Chamber of Commerce USA (2009)
• Honorary Fellowship of London School of Business
• Honorary Vice President of the University College Dublin Law Society (2011)

Peter has received a total of fifteen honorary doctorates from universities in Europe and America (inclusive of the above).

External links

• Lord Woolf's Inquiry into the LSE and Libya, March 2011. Make a submission.

Legal offices
Preceded by Anthony J. Hederman	Attorney General of Ireland 1981–1982	Succeeded by Patrick Connolly
Preceded by John L. Murray	Attorney General of Ireland 1982–1984	Succeeded by John Rogers
Political offices
Preceded by Richard Burke	Irish European Commissioner 1985–1989	Succeeded by Ray MacSharry
Preceded by Frans Andriessen	European Commissioner for Competition 1985–1989	Succeeded by Leon Brittan
Non-profit organization positions
Preceded by Arthur Dunkel	Director-General of the World Trade Organization 1993–1995	Succeeded by Renato Ruggiero