Arvid Pardo
Encyclopedia
Arvid Pardo was a Maltese
diplomat, scholar, and university professor. He is known as the "Father of the Law of the Sea Conference".
Pardo was born in Rome
. His Maltese father died of typhus
while on a relief mission in the Soviet Union
in 1922. His Swedish mother died a year later during an appendectomy and his brother was killed in an automobile accident. He became the ward
of his uncle, Italian
diplomat Bernardo Attolico, who served as Ambassador to Brazil
, the Soviet Union, Germany
and the Vatican
. Attolico sent him to school at Collegio Mondragone, Frascati
, and the young Pardo spent his vacations with Attolico at the latter's various diplomatic posts.
Pardo spoke Italian
, English
, French
, Swedish
and Spanish
fluently, and knew German
fairly well. As a student in pre-war Rome, he met Margit Claeson, a Swedish textile designer. In 1947, once his finances were secure, he went to Sweden to find her (they had lost touch during the war) and married her. They had three children: Christina (1949, m. Menez), Lars (1950) and David (1951), all educated in England. His wife and children all outlived him.
Pardo received a degree in diplomatic history from the University of Tours
, France in 1938 and a doctorate in international law from the University of Rome
in 1939. When World War II
began, he commenced underground activities as an anti-Fascist
organizer but was arrested by the Italian authorities in 1940. After the fall of Benito Mussolini
's government, he was freed in September 1943, but was re-arrested at once by the Gestapo
and kept in Alexanderplatz Prison, Berlin
under a sentence of death. In 1945, as the Red Army
approached Berlin, the Swiss
officials and the International Committee of the Red Cross
arranged his release. After the Soviets entered Berlin, Pardo was arrested again and interrogated. Once released, he crossed the Elbe
, walking to the Allied lines, and made contact with British and American forces. He was sent to London
, where he arrived penniless.
At first Pardo worked as a dishwasher and waiter in a London restaurant chain until he sought out a friend of his father's, David Owen, who was then helping to set up the United Nations
in London. Owen hired him as an assistant in the documentary section, and despite holding a doctorate, he worked as a junior clerk in charge of archives in 1945–6. He then served in the Department of Trusteeship and Non-Self-Governing Territories
until 1960. He then joined the Secretariat of the Technical Assistance Board (forerunner of the UNDP
) and served as deputy representative in Nigeria
and Ecuador
, where he was stationed before being selected in 1964 as the first Permanent Representative of Malta to the United Nations by the newly-independent country that he had visited only briefly during his life.
During his time as UN delegate, which ended in 1971 after Dom Mintoff
's return to office, Pardo's lasting achievement was his work to reform the law of the sea. On 1 November 1967, he made an electrifying speech before the General Assembly
calling for international regulations to ensure peace at sea, to prevent further pollution and to protect ocean resources. He proposed that the seabed constitutes part of the common heritage of mankind
, a phrase that appears in Article 136 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, and asked that some of the sea’s wealth be used to bankroll a fund that would help close the gap between rich and poor nations. It was Pardo who initiated the fifteen-year process that would culminate in 1982, when the Convention was opened for signatures, and in the early years, he continued a dedicated effort to promote the issue, for instance helping achieve near-unanimous passage of GA Resolution 2749 on December 17, 1970. This resolution embodied principles regarding the seabed and its resources that would later be incorporated into the Convention. Pardo was unhappy with the final instrument's provision for an Exclusive Economic Zone
, lamenting that the common heritage of mankind had been whittled down to "a few fish and a little seaweed".
From 1967 to 1971, Pardo was also Malta's Ambassador to the United States. During the same period served as Ambassador to the USSR and was High Commissioner to Canada
from 1969 to 1971. He was Malta’s representative at the Preparatory Commission of the Law of the Sea conference in 1972 and led the Maltese delegation to the UN Seabed Committee from 1971 to 1973.
From 1972 to 1975 Pardo was coordinator of the ocean studies program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
in Washington, D.C.
From 1975 to 1990 he was on the USC
faculty, teaching political science (1975–81) and international relations (1981–90). For those fifteen years, he was a senior fellow at the Institute of Marine and Coastal Studies.
Pardo was made a Knight of Malta
in 1992. He was resident in Seattle when he died there in 1999 (some sources claim he was living in Houston and died there).
Malta
Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...
diplomat, scholar, and university professor. He is known as the "Father of the Law of the Sea Conference".
Pardo was born in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
. His Maltese father died of typhus
Typhus
Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...
while on a relief mission in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
in 1922. His Swedish mother died a year later during an appendectomy and his brother was killed in an automobile accident. He became the ward
Ward (law)
In law, a ward is someone placed under the protection of a legal guardian. A court may take responsibility for the legal protection of an individual, usually either a child or incapacitated person, in which case the ward is known as a ward of the court, or a ward of the state, in the United States,...
of his uncle, Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
diplomat Bernardo Attolico, who served as Ambassador to Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
, the Soviet Union, Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
and the Vatican
Vatican City
Vatican City , or Vatican City State, in Italian officially Stato della Città del Vaticano , which translates literally as State of the City of the Vatican, is a landlocked sovereign city-state whose territory consists of a walled enclave within the city of Rome, Italy. It has an area of...
. Attolico sent him to school at Collegio Mondragone, Frascati
Frascati
Frascati is a town and comune in the province of Rome in the Lazio region of central Italy. It is located south-east of Rome, on the Alban Hills close to the ancient city of Tusculum. Frascati is closely associated with science, being the location of several international scientific...
, and the young Pardo spent his vacations with Attolico at the latter's various diplomatic posts.
Pardo spoke Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, Swedish
Swedish language
Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
and Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
fluently, and knew German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
fairly well. As a student in pre-war Rome, he met Margit Claeson, a Swedish textile designer. In 1947, once his finances were secure, he went to Sweden to find her (they had lost touch during the war) and married her. They had three children: Christina (1949, m. Menez), Lars (1950) and David (1951), all educated in England. His wife and children all outlived him.
Pardo received a degree in diplomatic history from the University of Tours
Tours
Tours is a city in central France, the capital of the Indre-et-Loire department.It is located on the lower reaches of the river Loire, between Orléans and the Atlantic coast. Touraine, the region around Tours, is known for its wines, the alleged perfection of its local spoken French, and for the...
, France in 1938 and a doctorate in international law from the University of Rome
University of Rome La Sapienza
The Sapienza University of Rome, officially Sapienza – Università di Roma, formerly known as Università degli studi di Roma "La Sapienza", is a coeducational, autonomous state university in Rome, Italy...
in 1939. When World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
began, he commenced underground activities as an anti-Fascist
Italian Fascism
Italian Fascism also known as Fascism with a capital "F" refers to the original fascist ideology in Italy. This ideology is associated with the National Fascist Party which under Benito Mussolini ruled the Kingdom of Italy from 1922 until 1943, the Republican Fascist Party which ruled the Italian...
organizer but was arrested by the Italian authorities in 1940. After the fall of Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
's government, he was freed in September 1943, but was re-arrested at once by the Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
and kept in Alexanderplatz Prison, Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
under a sentence of death. In 1945, as the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
approached Berlin, the Swiss
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
officials and the International Committee of the Red Cross
International Committee of the Red Cross
The International Committee of the Red Cross is a private humanitarian institution based in Geneva, Switzerland. States parties to the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols of 1977 and 2005, have given the ICRC a mandate to protect the victims of international and...
arranged his release. After the Soviets entered Berlin, Pardo was arrested again and interrogated. Once released, he crossed the Elbe
Elbe
The Elbe is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Krkonoše Mountains of the northwestern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia , then Germany and flowing into the North Sea at Cuxhaven, 110 km northwest of Hamburg...
, walking to the Allied lines, and made contact with British and American forces. He was sent to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, where he arrived penniless.
At first Pardo worked as a dishwasher and waiter in a London restaurant chain until he sought out a friend of his father's, David Owen, who was then helping to set up the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
in London. Owen hired him as an assistant in the documentary section, and despite holding a doctorate, he worked as a junior clerk in charge of archives in 1945–6. He then served in the Department of Trusteeship and Non-Self-Governing Territories
United Nations Trusteeship Council
The United Nations Trusteeship Council, one of the principal organs of the United Nations, was established to help ensure that trust territories were administered in the best interests of their inhabitants and of international peace and security...
until 1960. He then joined the Secretariat of the Technical Assistance Board (forerunner of the UNDP
United Nations Development Programme
The United Nations Development Programme is the United Nations' global development network. It advocates for change and connects countries to knowledge, experience and resources to help people build a better life. UNDP operates in 177 countries, working with nations on their own solutions to...
) and served as deputy representative in Nigeria
Nigeria
Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
and Ecuador
Ecuador
Ecuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border...
, where he was stationed before being selected in 1964 as the first Permanent Representative of Malta to the United Nations by the newly-independent country that he had visited only briefly during his life.
During his time as UN delegate, which ended in 1971 after Dom Mintoff
Dom Mintoff
Dom Mintoff is a Maltese politician, journalist and architect, who served as leader of the Labour Party from 1949 to 1984, Prime Minister of Malta from 1955 to 1958 and again, post-Independence, from 1971 to...
's return to office, Pardo's lasting achievement was his work to reform the law of the sea. On 1 November 1967, he made an electrifying speech before the General Assembly
United Nations General Assembly
For two articles dealing with membership in the General Assembly, see:* General Assembly members* General Assembly observersThe United Nations General Assembly is one of the five principal organs of the United Nations and the only one in which all member nations have equal representation...
calling for international regulations to ensure peace at sea, to prevent further pollution and to protect ocean resources. He proposed that the seabed constitutes part of the common heritage of mankind
Common heritage of mankind
Common heritage of mankind is a principle of international law which holds that defined territorial areas and elements of humanity's common heritage should be held in trust for future generations and be protected from exploitation by individual...
, a phrase that appears in Article 136 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, and asked that some of the sea’s wealth be used to bankroll a fund that would help close the gap between rich and poor nations. It was Pardo who initiated the fifteen-year process that would culminate in 1982, when the Convention was opened for signatures, and in the early years, he continued a dedicated effort to promote the issue, for instance helping achieve near-unanimous passage of GA Resolution 2749 on December 17, 1970. This resolution embodied principles regarding the seabed and its resources that would later be incorporated into the Convention. Pardo was unhappy with the final instrument's provision for an Exclusive Economic Zone
Exclusive Economic Zone
Under the law of the sea, an exclusive economic zone is a seazone over which a state has special rights over the exploration and use of marine resources, including production of energy from water and wind. It stretches from the seaward edge of the state's territorial sea out to 200 nautical...
, lamenting that the common heritage of mankind had been whittled down to "a few fish and a little seaweed".
From 1967 to 1971, Pardo was also Malta's Ambassador to the United States. During the same period served as Ambassador to the USSR and was High Commissioner to Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
from 1969 to 1971. He was Malta’s representative at the Preparatory Commission of the Law of the Sea conference in 1972 and led the Maltese delegation to the UN Seabed Committee from 1971 to 1973.
From 1972 to 1975 Pardo was coordinator of the ocean studies program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars , located in Washington, D.C., is a United States Presidential Memorial that was established as part of the Smithsonian Institution by an act of Congress in 1968...
in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
From 1975 to 1990 he was on the USC
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...
faculty, teaching political science (1975–81) and international relations (1981–90). For those fifteen years, he was a senior fellow at the Institute of Marine and Coastal Studies.
Pardo was made a Knight of Malta
Knights Hospitaller
The Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta , also known as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta , Order of Malta or Knights of Malta, is a Roman Catholic lay religious order, traditionally of military, chivalrous, noble nature. It is the world's...
in 1992. He was resident in Seattle when he died there in 1999 (some sources claim he was living in Houston and died there).