Tor Wennesland

Mr. Tor Wennesland of Norway was appointed by UN Secretary-General António Guterres as his new Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process and Personal Representative to the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority. In this capacity, Mr. Wennesland will be the Envoy of the Secretary-General to the Quartet.

A career diplomat who joined the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1983, Mr. Wennesland was Norway’s Special Representative to the Middle East Peace Process, which includes the responsibility for Norway’s chairmanship of the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee for Palestine. He has extensive experience in the Middle East going back to 1994 when he was Adviser on the Middle East Desk in the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs during the process that led to the Oslo II Agreement. He has also served as Norway’s Representative to the Palestinian Authority from 2007 to 2011 and as Norwegian Ambassador to Egypt and Libya from 2012 to 2015. He was the Aid Coordination Adviser to the Office of the Quartet Representative from 2007 to 2008 and was previously involved in the work to establish transboundary water agreements for the Euphrates River and the Jordan River Basin and, has been the Secretary General of the International Water Academy. He has also been posted to the Norwegian Mission to the United Nations in Geneva and the Norwegian Embassy in Dublin.

Mr. Wennesland earned a Master of Divinity from the Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society in Oslo and holds degrees in Philosophy and Sociology from the University of Oslo.

Lynn Hastings

UN Secretary-General António Guterres appointed Ms. Lynn Hastings as Deputy Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, where she will also serve as the United Nations Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory.  

Ms. Hastings brings to this position over twenty years of experience in humanitarian affairs, development coordination and political affairs.  Since 2018 she has served as Deputy Director in the Operations and Advocacy Division of OCHA in New York.  Previously, she was Senior Adviser in the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) (2014-2018), Country Director for Pakistan in the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) (2011-2014) and Chief of Staff in the Office of the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process (UNSCO) (2003-2011). 

Ms. Hastings has also served as United Nations representative to the Office of the Middle East Quartet Envoy for the Gaza Disengagement, and in senior roles in the United Nations peacekeeping missions in Kosovo and East Timor, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).  Prior to joining the United Nations, she practiced law in the private sector and conducted legal research for the International Commission of Jurists.

Born in Canada, Ms. Hastings holds a Master of Laws from the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom, a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Windsor as well as a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Windsor in Canada.