Lord Williams was the
United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon. He was appointed by United Nations Secretary-General
Ban Ki-moon in August 2008. Williams previously served as
UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process and the Secretary-General's Special Adviser on the Situation in the Middle East. Prior to that, he was the Director for the Asia and the Pacific Division in the Department of Political Affairs. From 1999 to 2005, Williams was the Special Adviser to two UK Foreign Secretaries,
Robin Cook (1999–2001) and
Jack Straw (2001–2005). He held a number of senior positions with the UN in the 1990s, including Director of Human Rights in the UN Transitional Administration in Cambodia (UNTAC) and Director of Information in the UN Protection Force in Former Yugoslavia (UNPROFOR). His previous experience ranged from working for the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the BBC World Service and Amnesty International. He was a member of the Executive Committee and Council of Chatham House (Royal Institute for International Affairs). He had written widely on Asian politics, international security and peacekeeping. He had been a Trustee of the
BBC Trust since 2011. He had served as Chair of the Trustee Board of the British humanitarian demining charity MAG (
Mines Advisory Group) since 2013. Williams was made a
life peer in the
2010 Dissolution Honours list. He was created
Baron Williams of Baglan,
of Neath Port Talbot in Glamorgan, on 23 July 2010 and, on being introduced into the
House of Lords, took his seat on the
Labour benches. He was granted a 12-month
leave of absence from the House which ended in October 2011, and sat as a crossbencher. Williams died in Britain in April 2017 aged 67. ==References==