Who's Who Editorial Information

The most serious flaw in every edition of Who’s Who in International Organizations, in the opinion of the editors, is the limited amount of information included in most of the biographical entries. There are several reasons for this.

The structure of many organizations works against the collection and establishment of a list of its officers for a publication of this sort. Many organizations elect or appoint new officers annually, others bi-annually, still others at irregular and sometimes unannounced intervals. This makes it difficult, if not impossible, to be sure of including the right person at the right time in a publication with a fixed date such as this one. In many cases, therefore, there was time only to attempt to include the names of those whom the editors believe to be the current officers, and no time to collect any biographical information.

It is because of the impossibility to claim to be totally up-to-date that the editors have chosen, as of the 3rd edition, to deliberately include people who have held but who no longer hold a significant position in an international organization, providing there is some additional information available.

Some organizations are publicly represented by individuals who do not hold the most significant positions in terms of the development or operation of the organization. Even in the case of such organizations being known as such to the editors, it is not always possible to gather information on anyone other than the publicly known representative.

While the sole criteria for inclusion in Who’s Who in International Organizations is holding or having held a significant position in an international organization listed in the Yearbook of International Organizations, the current officers of some organizations listed in the Yearbook are nonetheless not included here. There are several reasons for this:

  • up-to-date information on the organization’s officers has not been received recently, whether directly from the organization itself or from other reliable sources
  • new officers have been appointed since the last information was received
  • the organization does not give out information on its officers

Editorial constraints may have given rise to a number of other limitations:

  • In the case of those biographees who sent an extensive curriculum vitae or other biographical material, the editors were obliged to be selective in extracting information.
  • In some cases, material was available only in a language unfamiliar to the editors. While every effort was made to extract the maximum amount of information, the degree of selectivity here was undeniably greater.
  • Occasionally the material received included acronyms and abbreviations or hand-written messages which the editors were unable to decipher.
  • Due to the restrictions of time it was not possible to send final proofs to any but a very few biographees for editorial errors to be detected and corrected by the biographees concerned.
  • In some cases two people may be listed as holding the same position at the same time in the same organization. While this may be occasionally accurate.
  • Some organizations have, for example, two secretaries-general – it is usually due to conflicting information received from the people or organization concerned.
  • While great effort has been made to avoid duplication, some is, unfortunately, unavoidable. Even the most careful checking does not pick up every variation (or inadvertent typing error) in names.

In general, the editors took people at their word. Information contained in a biographee’s curriculum vitae or other biographical material was assumed correct. This means that positions and affiliations with organizations in particular are described in the terms the biographee uses. This may have led, in some cases, to vague or misleading statements.

The final evaluation of the information presented here must be left to the users.

Thanks

The editors wish to take this opportunity to thank all those who replied to their requests for information. Without this assistance this publication could not exist. The quality and quantity of information received, and almost always with an exemplary promptitude, made the editing of this edition a lively and inter-active activity.