Born 1939 in Germany. Former UN Assistant Secretary General and United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq. BA and MA Degrees in History, Demography and Physical Anthropology.
Hans von Sponeck joined the UN Development Program in 1968, and worked in Ghana, Turkey, Botswana, Pakistan and India, before becoming Director of the European Office in Geneva. He has served thirty-two years with the organization, including at the UN HQ in New York. In his last post he succeeded Denis Halliday in charge of UN humanitarian operations in Iraq in October 1998, overseeing roughly 500 international staff and 1,000 Iraqi workers.
He was responsible for directing all UN operations in the country, managing the distribution of goods under the Oil-for-Food program and verifying Iraqi compliance with that program. Hans von Sponeck resigned in February 2000, in protest of the international policy toward Iraq, including sanctions.
von Sponeck has written numerous papers and articles in German and English in professional journals and magazines on subjects such as environment, social change and methodological/conceptual alternatives in development, sanctions and humanitarian exemptions. He is also the author of Human Development - Is There An Alternative?, New Delhi, November 1997.
In 2005 he published a comprehensive review of United Nations sanctions in Iraq. This book has been published in Arabic and German and is about to be published in Spanish and English with the title, Another Kind of War - The Sanctions Regime of the UN in Iraq.
Hans von Sponeck joined TFF as Associate in September 2002 and became member of the Board in August 2006.