About John

My name is John Duncan and I became the UK's Ambassador for Multilateral Arms Control and Disarmament in 2006. It is a roving ambassador role, so while most of our work is in Geneva, we also work in New York and other places as far apart as Wellington and Dublin.

I was born in Dundee, Scotland, and brought up in Kenya, and as a boy worked on the farm where “Out of Africa” was filmed. I was educated at Wycliffe College (Gloucestershire), Keele University and the Université de la Sorbonne, Paris and I am also a graduate of the NATO Defence College Rome (1992).

Work

I joined the FCO in 1980, a career which has taken me to Paris, Sudan, Brussels, Albania, and Kosovo.

Crisis management was an early theme of my career. In 1985 I was sent to Sudan, seconded to the UK’s ODA (now DfID) during the famine. Just over ten years later I was seconded to the NATO military as a Political Advisor to General Wesley Clark, the NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) and his deputy Sir Rupert Smith during the Kosovo conflict.

I spent 5 years in Multilateral Diplomacy, both from London and overseas covering the development of European Defence and in the operational arm of counter proliferation. Combating Project Babylon, Saddam Hussein’s attempt to develop a Supergun was only one of the more interesting areas of our work.

I have also worked in more traditional bilateral diplomacy in Paris and Albania, where in 1992 I set up the first joint Anglo-French Diplomatic Mission. From 2001-2006 I was UK Trade and Investment Director for France based in Paris working with British Business and French investors in our third largest market.

From 1990-1991 I was Assistant Private Secretary to the Minister of State for Overseas Development and Africa (Baroness Chalker).

Interests and family

As a keen military historian I am a frequent visitor to the battlefields of the Somme, tracing the endeavours of both sides of our family in that terrible conflict.

My wife is French and we have 2 children.