Wegger Christian Strommen, who was born on June 14, 1959, in Larvik, Norway, has been ambassador to the US since October 2007. Strommen has a distinguished career in the Norwegian Foreign Service including positions as Deputy Foreign Minister and representing Norway in the United Nations Security Council. He has also practiced law as a judge and as an attorney. He earned his Master’s of Law from the University of Oslo Law School in 1984, and joined the Norwegian Foreign Service the same year. From 1984 to 1986, he worked in the Legal Department at the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and then served as a Junior District Court Judge in Mysen, Norway, from 1986 to 1987. Returning to the Foreign Ministry in 1988, he served at the Norwegian Embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel, from 1988 to 1991, and from 1993 to 1995 as Legal Advisor to Lord Owen and Thorvald Stoltenberg, the Co-Chairmen of the European Union/United Nations International Conference on the Former Yugoslavia. From 1995 to 1996, he was Head of the Legal Department in the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and then left government to practice law from 1996 to 1998. He returned to the Foreign Ministry in 1998 as a special advisor, and then served as a Deputy Foreign Minister from 1999 to 2000, and as Ambassador to the United Nations Security Council from 2000 to 2002. He came to the US in 2002 as ambassador to the United Nations, a post he held until 2005, when he was posted to Geneva as Norway’s ambassador and permanent representative to the UN and other international organizations located there. 

He has held appointments as Lecturer in International Law at Harvard Law School, Columbia Law School, New York University School of Law, the University of Bergen, Norway, and the University of Oslo, Norway. He has published several articles on international law, constitutional law and human rights. 

 

Official Biography of Christian Strommen Wegger