Mohamed ElBaradei

Mohamed ElBaradei (born June 17, 1942, Cairo, Egypt) is an Egyptian lawyer and government official who was director general (1997–2009) of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and briefly served as the interim vice president of Egypt (2013). In 2005 ElBaradei and the IAEA were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace for their efforts to prevent the use of atomic energy for military purposes.

Following in the footsteps of his father, Mostafa, a former president of the Egyptian Bar Association, ElBaradei also studied law. He received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Cairo in 1962 and a doctorate in international law from New York University in 1974. During the 1960s he was a member of the Egyptian diplomatic service, twice serving on missions to the UN in New York City and in Geneva. From 1974 to 1978 he was assistant to Egypt’s foreign minister. In 1981 he became a senior fellow in charge of the International Law Program at the UN Institute for Training and Research, and he was an adjunct professor in international law (1981–87) at New York University.

In 1984 ElBaradei began working for the IAEA. The agency gradually came to take an active role in attempts to prevent nuclear proliferation, with efforts first centred on Iraq and Sudan, in which cases the agency claimed success, and later on North Korea and Iran. ElBaradei worked as counsel and, beginning in 1993, as assistant director general for external relations. Appointed director general of the agency in 1997, he was reappointed to a second term in 2001 and, despite opposition from the United States, to a third term in 2005.

Although ElBaradei sometimes took a tough stance toward uncooperative governments, he was also known as an advocate of patient diplomacy. In 2002 he challenged U.S. claims that Iraqi Pres. Ṣaddām Ḥussein had restarted Iraq’s nuclear program—allegations that were later proved false—and he resisted U.S. efforts to impose sanctions on Iran. (See Iraq War.) ElBaradei retired as director general of the IAEA in 2009; he was succeeded by Amano Yukiya.

ElBaradei returned to Egypt in 2010 and soon became involved in domestic politics as a critic of Pres. Ḥosnī Mubarāk’s regime and an advocate for reform. He formed the National Association for Change, a nonpartisan group advocating reforms to Egyptian election law. After Mubarāk’s National Democratic Party (NDP) won a sweeping victory over the opposition in legislative elections fraught with irregularities in November 2010, ElBaradei condemned the result, warning that political repression in Egypt had the potential to trigger violent upheaval.

In January 2011, as protests against the Mubarāk regime broke out in Egypt, ElBaradei returned to Cairo from his residence in Vienna, saying that he planned to join the demonstrators. After participating in a large demonstration on January 28, ElBaradei was briefly placed under house arrest. After rejoining the protests, ElBaradei received the endorsement of several opposition groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood, to serve as the interim leader of the opposition in any negotiations with the government.

Following Mubarāk’s ouster in February and the establishment of a transitional government, ElBaradei announced in March that he intended to run for president of Egypt as soon as it became possible to formally file for candidacy. However, he said that he would enter the race only if democratic reforms guaranteeing a fair election were implemented. As the transition progressed, ElBaradei frequently expressed his disappointment with Egypt’s interim government, which he accused of continuing the Mubarāk regime’s authoritarian tactics. Unhappy with Egypt’s progress toward an authentic democratic system, ElBaradei announced in January 2012 that he would not seek the presidency. After Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood-led government was ousted in July 2013, ElBaradei was appointed to the country’s transitional administration as interim vice president. He resigned from the position in protest in August 2013 after the new government carried out a bloody crackdown against demonstrations by supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood.

In 2011 ElBaradei published the memoir The Age of Deception: Nuclear Diplomacy in Treacherous Times.