Francis Deng

Francis Mading Deng (born 1938) is a South Sudanese politician and diplomat. He played an important role in advancing a Responsibility to Protect (R2P) when he was the UN's Special Representative on Internally Displaced Persons (1992–2004).

Educated as a lawyer, Deng was posted as Ambassador of Sudan to the United States, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden over the period 1972 to 1976. From 1976 to 1980, he was Sudan's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs. After leaving Sudan's diplomatic service, he held several academic positions before becoming the United Nations' first Special Representative on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons in 1992. where he founded and directed the Africa Project for 12 years. He was then appointed distinguished professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York before joining Johns Hopkins University in 2002.

From 1992 to 2004, Deng served as the United Nations' first Special Representative on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons.

In 2005, Deng was named a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the John W. Kluge Center of the Library of Congress. From 2006 to 2007, Deng served as director of the Sudan Peace Support Project based at the United States Institute of Peace. He also was a Wilhelm Fellow at the Center for International Studies of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a research professor of international politics, law and society at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies.

On 29 May 2007, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced the appointment of Deng as the new Special Advisor for the Prevention of Genocide, a position he held until 17 July 2012 at the level of Under-Secretary General.

Among his numerous awards in his country and abroad, Deng is co-recipient with Roberta Cohen of the 2005 Grawemeyer Award for "Ideas Improving World Order" and the 2007 Merage Foundation American Dream Leadership Award. In 2000, Deng also received the Rome Prize for Peace and Humanitarian Action.

From 2012 to July 2016, he served as South Sudan's first Permanent Representative of South Sudan to the United Nations.