Colum Murphy is a native and citizen of Ireland. He is single and lives in Geneva. He has a grown son and daughter from an earlier mariage.

Murphy is the president and owner of the Geneva School of Diplomacy & International Relations, a private university in Switzerland. Formerly, Murphy served the United Nations and the international community for more than 32 years. For 15 of those years he served as a UN Human Rights Officer.

He has served on the staff of several Secretaries-General of the United Nations and worked for years in the UN Security Council and in peacekeeping. He is a specialist not only in human rights but in negotiations in conflict areas. He served the cause of peace in a number of wars - including in Somalia, Liberia and in Bosnia.

As UN Deputy Head of Political Affairs inside Bosnia, Murphy negotiated the Winter Ceasefire and later, the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement in Bosnia in 1994. He spent a total of four years in Bosnia and his book “ ‘Aza Beast’ - Attacking the Roots of War ” won world-wide acclaim. Reviewing and praising the book in Foreign Affairs, Harvard’s Stanley Hoffmann described Murphy as “a deeply moral man”.

More information on Colum Murphy may be found on this website and on the GSD university website, www.genevadiplomacy.com. Dr. Murphy was educated at University College Dublin, at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government (master’s degree) and at the University of Geneva (doctorate in International Relations). As a professor at numerous universities, Murphy has taught courses such as “Human Rights in the Past and in the Future”; Human Rights and Surviving the 21st Century”; “the Origins of War and Peace”; “Building Harmony Between East and West”; Human Rights and the North/South, East/West Divide”.