Mike Smith

Mr. Mike Smith, Former Assistant Secretary-General and Executive Director, Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED), United Nations 

Mike Smith has been Adjunct Professor in the Department of Policing, Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism at Macquarie University in New South Wales, Australia since July 2014. In September 2014 he was asked to chair a UN Commission of Inquiry into alleged human rights violations in Eritrea. That commission presented its report to the UN Human Rights Council on 23 June 2015. On 3 July 2015, the Council extended the mandate of the commission for a further year to consider whether the abuses identified in the commission’s report amounted to crimes against humanity.

Until July 2013, Mike Smith was an Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations in New York and Executive Director of the UN Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate, a position he assumed in November 2007. Prior to that he was Australia’s Ambassador for Counter-Terrorism.

Mr Smith served as Australian Permanent Representative to the UN at Geneva and Ambassador to the Conference on Disarmament between 2002 and May 2006. In 2004 he was Chair of the UN Commission on Human Rights.

Between 1998 and 2002 Mr Smith was Chief of Staff to Alexander Downer MP, Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs.

Overseas, in addition to Geneva, Mr Smith has served as Australian Ambassador to Egypt and Sudan, Minister (Political) in the Australian Embassy, Washington and Ambassador to Algeria and Tunisia. Earlier in his career he had postings in Lebanon, Egypt and Syria.

In addition to his responsibilities at Macquarie University, Mike Smith pursues his continuing interest in counter-terrorism issues through his membership of the Board of Advisors of the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT) in the Hague and of the Advisory Council of the Global Center on Cooperative Security (GCCS) in Washington DC.