Hans Blix was born in the city of Uppsala in 1928. He got a law degree at the university of Uppsala in 1951 and continued his studies abroad. He studie public international law at Cambridge in England and at Columbia university in New York earning a Ph.D in Cambridge in 1958.
Hans Blix as head of IAEA.
In 1962 he was appointed expert of public international law at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Sweden and also worked as advisor for Alva Myrdal at the disarmament talks in Geneva the same year.
In 1978-1979 he was in Swedish Minister for Foreign affairs in the Ola Ullsten government. From 1981 to 1997 he was the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna. In that position he was the first foreigner to visit Chernobyl in 1986 shortly after the nuclear accident. He lead the work by IAEA to bring clarity of the accident as well as set new standards regarding information and assistance in the event of nuclear accidents.
In the year 2000 Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations, asked Hans Blix to lead the inspections in Iraq. This was a response to the accusations of Iraq manufacturing weapons of mass destruction.
As the head of the inspections Hans Blix became world famous during 2002 and 2003. In the United Nations Security Council he reported that after over 700 inspections no weapons of mass destructions had been found. A coalition of countries with the United States in the front still chose to invade Iraq. During this time Hans Blix were interviewed in media from all over the world. In his book "Disarming Iraq" one can read him telling about the development up until the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
During the years Hans Blix has been awarded several Swedish and foreign orders and medals. A part of that collection is now being sold by Auktionshuset Kolonn. The auction ends Sunday 28th of April.
Welcome to explore an auction with a piece of contemporary history.
