Johan Santesson

On 11 May 2001, Johan Santesson died after a long illness, which he had fought with enormous courage. Johan Santesson got his basic academic training as a chemist at the University of Uppsala, Sweden. In 1969 he received a PhD. During military service, which he did at the Swedish National Defence Research Establishment (FOA), he got involved in disarmament issues for the first time in the spring of 1971 when asked to prepare a working paper for the negotiations on a biological and toxin weapons convention, going on in the Geneva. After his military service he started the Mass Spectrometry Laboratory at the University of Uppsala. In 1975 he returned to the National Defence Research Establishment, which was then located in Stockholm. When the NBC division was relocated in 1979 to Umeå in the northern part of Sweden, he stayed on as head of the chemistry department and later became program manager for the chemical defence programme.

In 1981 Johan Santesson for the first time got involved in international investigations of alleged use of chemical weapons as a consultant for the United Nations' expert group to investigate various such allegations. Together with the expert group he traveled extensively but because of the political nature of the investigation the team never got access to the alleged sites of CW usage. When the UN investigations of use of CW against Iran began in 1984, his participation in the earlier investigation made him politically unacceptable for some states and he worked mainly with coordinating the Swedish contributions, including sample analyses, to the investigations, which lasted until 1988. Once again, in 1992, Johan Santesson got involved in UN field investigations of alleged CW use, this time initiated by Armenia, which claimed that Azerbaijani claims of Armenia CW use were without any foundation.

When on the basis of Security Council Resolution 687 (1991) United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) was set up in late April 1991 to implement the destruction of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles with a range of more than 150 kilometers, Johan Santesson got involved as a consultant for the World Health Organisation. In this capacity he both planned and conducted UNSCOM inspections, and also participated in other types of UNSCOM visits to Iraq. Altogether during 1991-1993 he made 10 trips to Iraq, half of them as chief inspector for chemical or biological inspection teams.

From the late '70s the discussions at the Committee of the Conference of Disarmament in Geneva on a chemical weapons convention became more intense and, beginning in 1976, some meetings with the participation of technical experts were arranged, meetings in which Dr. Santesson took part as a national expert.

An Ad hoc Group on Chemical Weapons was established, which Sweden chaired in 1984, 1987 and 1990, and Johan Santesson spent a considerable time in Geneva as a technical adviser, not only during the Swedish chairmanship but also during the years in between. His activities included chairing some of the meetings with industry experts, organizing and evaluating trial inspections at chemical industries to test the proposed inspection procedures.

On 14 September 1993 he began working at the Provisional Technical Secretariat as Head of the Technical Cooperation Branch in the Technical Cooperation and Assistance Division. He played a crucial role as Secretary to the Expert Group on Technical Cooperation and Assistance and despite the sometimes acrimonious debates he endeared himself to both delegates and staff by his efficiency and humour. He played a leading role in the development of international cooperation programmes that were to be implemented by the Organisation after entry into force of the Convention, and in the development of National Authorities' Course curricula and scenarios. Many in National Authorities who went through the courses will remember him as a vibrant and effective communicator with boundless energy.

After entry into force of the Convention, the Division was renamed the International Cooperation and Assistance Division and he was appointed as the Head of the Assistance and Protection Branch, and later as Head of the Protection Branch when the Branch was split into two. At the end of 2000, the Division was again reorganised and he was again in the familiar territory of Head of the International Cooperation Branch where he remained until the end.

Johan Santesson leaves behind his wife, Anne, their three children, Jessica, Rebecka and Peter, and four grandchildren.