Maud de Boer-Buquicchio
Deputy Secretary General
Biography
 Maud de Boer-Buquicchio, Deputy Secretary General of the Council of Europe, was born in December 1944 in the Netherlands. She studied French language and literature and later law at Leiden University. She specialised in international organisations and labour law and obtained her degree with a thesis on the equality of treatment between women and men under European Community law.
She joined the Council of Europe in 1969 and began her career at the European Commission of Human Rights. Between 1972 and 1977 she was an adviser in the Private Office of the Secretary General of the Council of Europe. She continued her career at the European Commission of Human Rights and was elected Deputy Registrar of the European Court of Human Rights in 1998, in which capacity she played a crucial role in the start-up of the, at that time, new single European Court of Human Rights.
In June 2002, Maud de Boer-Buquicchio was elected Deputy Secretary General of the Council of Europe by the Organisation’s Parliamentary Assembly. It was the first time a woman was elected to this post. In June 2007, she was re-elected for a second mandate.
Throughout her mandates, she has been focusing her attention on the fight against discrimination and violence, on the rights of the most vulnerable groups in society, in particular, children. She has actively promoted three key Council of Europe Conventions: the Convention on action against trafficking in human beings, the Convention on the protection of children from sexual exploitation and sexual abuse and the Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence.
Maud de Boer-Buquicchio firmly believes in mobilising all those who can bring about change by promoting projects which allow for joint action and response to major social challenges. She has been instrumental in the launching of two major Council of Europe programmes: the programme “Building a Europe for and with children” and the programme on Human rights in the Information Society. Her political agenda includes the development of co-operation and coordination between the Council of Europe and other international organisations as well as promoting the Organisation’s standards at global level.
A natural advocate for human rights, Maud de Boer-Buquicchio has been intensively campaigning to combat violence against women and all forms of violence against children. She has been a steady and determined advocate of equal opportunities, in particular as regards gender equality, and has worked to put this value into practice both inside and outside the Council of Europe.
Maud de Boer-Buquicchio is a fluent speaker of Dutch, English, French, Italian and German.
She is married and has two sons and three grandchildren.
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