Oral history interview with Gert Rosenthal, 2001.

Biographical Note

Foreign minister, Guatemala

Scope and Contents

Early years: born in Amsterdam, raised in Guatemala; undergraduate and graduate studies in development economics at University California Berkley; Career: first job in Guatemala's Ministry of Planning; head of an economic integration research project in Central America thru UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD); job with the Central American Common Market secretariat, Secretaría Permanente del Tratado General de Integración Económica Centroamericana (SIECA); 1974 director of Mexico office for UN's Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC); 1988-97 Executive secretary of ECLAC; 1999-2004 Guatemala's permanent representative to the UN; 2006 Guatemala's foreign minister; Themes: Central American economic integration and industrialization; development and the public sector; admiration for Raúl Prebisch, UNCTAD Secretary-General; import substitution; ECLAC secretariat reformist and nationalist in Chile; "Group of High-Level Experts" commission; G-77 militancy and North-South tensions; Chile's influence on ECLAC secretariat; US opposition to ECLAC formation; ECLAC's focus on the environment and development; gender equality and social justice; academia and the UN; lack of accountability and poor intergovernmental structure at the UN; UN bilateral and multilateral experience; efficacy of past and current Secretary Generals

Subjects

• Central America--Economic integration.
• Environmental policy--Latin America.
• Foreign ministers--Guatemala--Interviews.
• Group of 77.
• Interviews.
• Latin America--Economic policy.
• Oral histories (literary works)
• Permanent Secretariat of the General Treaty for Central American Economic Integration.
• Rosenthal, Gert--Interviews.
• Social justice--Economic aspects--Latin America.
• United Nations--History.
• United Nations--Officials and employees--Interviews.
• United Nations. Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean.
• Weiss, Thomas G. (Thomas George), 1946- interviewer.--http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/relators/ivr
• Women--Government policy--Caribbean Area.
• Women--Government policy--Latin America.

Access Conditions

Copyright by the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies, The Graduate Center, The City University of New York, 2001