Janis Karklins

Janis Karklins

Ambassador of Latvia, Chair of the MAG
Joined on January 7, 2015
Total Post Views: 34,146

About

Before assuming duties as the Director of the Center of Excellence for Strategic Communications, Ambassador K?rkli?š served as the Assistant Director General of Communication and Information of UNESCO. Ambassador K?rkli?š has a long career in the Latvian diplomatic service. He has served as the Latvian Ambassador to France, Andorra, Monaco and UNESCO after being the Permanent Representative of Latvia to the United Nations in Geneva.

During his stay in Geneva he presided over the Preparatory Committee of the Tunis Phase of the World Summit on the Information Society. He also served as a Chairman of the Council of the International Organization for Migration (IOM). He has held several elected posts in the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and UN Commission of Science and Technology for Development, as well as presided over the Group of Governmental Experts on Cluster Munitions within the framework of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW).

Ambassador K?rkli?š represented Latvia in the Governmental Advisory Committee of ICANN and Chaired this Committee from 2007 until June 2010, at the same time being a member of ICANN Board of Directors. In 2014 the UN Secretary General appointed Ambassador K?rkli?š to be the Chair of the Multi-stakeholder Advisory Group of the Internet Governance Forum.

Prior to the posting in Geneva, he served as the Under-secretary of State in the Latvian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He also worked as Counsellor in the Latvian Embassies in both France and Finland. He has an engineering degree from the Riga Technical University in Latvia and attended an Executive Education
Program for Eastern European diplomats at the Hoover Institute at Stanford University in the USA.

Except where otherwise noted, all postings by Janis Karklins on CircleID are licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Featured Blogs

Enhanced Cooperation v2005 is Dead; Long Live Enhanced Cooperation

The page with the WSIS version of enhanced cooperation of Internet governance, developed in 2005, was turned forever on 30 September 2016 with the expiration of the IANA contract between the NTIA and ICANN. The IANA arrangement was the last issue that remained unchanged since the WSIS Tunis phase where the international community discussed Internet governance related issues for the first time. On 1 October 2016, the concept of enhanced cooperation as defined by the Tunis Agenda ceased to exist. more

IGF 2015 Takes Action, Developing Best Practices to Address Internet Issues

After many months of hard work and preparation, the IGF community has published draft Best Practices on a range of key issues, complementing other intersessional efforts such as Policy Options for Connecting the Next Billion, and Dynamic Coalitions. Best Practices Forums (BPFs) offer the Internet governance community tangible ways to address Internet issues. more

IGF 2015 Tackling the Next Billion Online Challenge

Just two weeks ago, the United Nations hosted the Sustainable Development Summit (SDS) where the international community embraced a new global agenda. I was very pleased that ICTs were recognized as a crucial platform for the implementation of this agenda, which sets an ambitious goal to "significantly increase access to information and communications technology and strive to provide universal and affordable access to the Internet in least developed countries by 2020" (paragraph 9c of the text for the new Sustainable Development Goals). more

55 Days Remain Until the 10th Internet Governance Forum in Joao Pessoa, Brazil

On behalf of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) Multistakeholder Advisory Group (MAG) I would like to extend the official invitation from the United Nations Secretary-General which cordially invites and encourages all stakeholders to participate in the upcoming 10th annual meeting of the Internet Governance Forum, being held this year in the beautiful coastal city of João Pessoa, Brazil. more

The 2015 IGF Brazil Will Focus on Empowering Sustainable Development

The preparations of the Brazil Internet Governance Forum (IGF) meeting are well under way. After consulting the wider Internet community and discussing the overarching theme of the 2015 IGF meeting, the Multistakeholder Advisory Group (MAG) decided to retain the title "Evolution of Internet Governance: Empowering Sustainable Development". This theme will be supported by eight sub-themes that will frame the discussions at the Joao Pessoa meeting... more