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United Nations - Office of Legal Affairs
Activities of the Legal Counsel of the United Nations

United Nations Legal Counsel, Mr. Miguel de Serpa Soares, visits Cyprus, Israel and Lebanon

28 February to 10 March 2016


From 28 February to 10 March 2016, the United Nations Legal Counsel, Mr. Serpa Soares, visited Cyprus, Israel and Lebanon.

In Cyprus, he visited the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) and the Office of the Special Adviser of the Secretary-General (OSASG) for Cyprus at the invitation of Ms. Lisa Buttenheim, SRSG, Head of Mission and DSASG.
Visit to Cyprus

From 1 to 5 March, he visited Israel at the invitation of the Government of Israel.
Visit to Israel

From 5 to 10 March, he visited the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) at the invitation of the Force Commander and Head of Mission, Major General Luciano Portolano.
Visit to Lebanon

The main objective of this mission was to visit UNFICYP and UNIFIL in order to get a better understanding of how those peacekeeping missions operate on the ground, so that the Office of Legal Affairs (OLA) can optimally target its advice in the area of peacekeeping. The visit to Israel perfectly complemented the visit to UNIFIL and allowed the Legal Counsel to discuss current legal issues in the relationship between the United Nations and the State of Israel with a number of top officials of the Israeli Government.

In the margins of the mission, Mr. Serpa Soares took the opportunity of his presence in the region to meet with the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Mr. Nickolay Mladenov, in Jerusalem, and with the United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Ms. Sigrid Kaag, and with the Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), Ms. Rima Khalaf, in Beirut.