The former ambassador to the United Kingdom visited the city

This week, the town of Humboldt received an important figure in Argentine diplomacy for the past 27 years. This is the diplomat Rogelio Werther who visited two local institutions and had a meeting with the head of the local executive, Duilio Rohrmann.
During his visit to Humboldt, Werther accompanied his wife and a group of friends. Argentine lawyer and diplomat was Argentina’s ambassador to the United Kingdom between 1995 and 1999, and to the Holy See from 2015 to 2019.
“Apart from our commune and its interest in historical events such as the Humboldt Revolution, he visited the Beck-Herzog People’s Library, which this year celebrates its centenary, under the direction of Viviana Chiavasa, and later the Colonial Museum, whose chief formed Robin Valdung and part of the young Thomas Falkenmayer, History student.

Professional life

Rogelio Werther graduated as a lawyer from the Universidad Nacional del Littoral, and Werther was a student of Jorge Mario Bergoglio at a Catholic school. In addition, the then pastor, when he was a professor of literature at a Jesuit college, promoted Pfirter’s book.
During his diplomatic career he held various positions in the Argentine Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 1992 he was promoted to the rank of ambassador and in the same year became Director of the Brazilian-Argentine Agency for Accountability and Control of Nuclear Materials (ABACC) and Director of the National Committee for Space Activities (CONAE). Later he was appointed Under-Secretary of State for Policy in the Argentine Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Between 1995 and 2000, he served as Argentina’s ambassador to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and in early 2002 he was Under Secretary for Foreign Policy under Foreign Minister Carlos Ruckoff.
On 25 July 2002, Werther was unanimously elected Director-General of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague, Netherlands. He was elected to a second term in 2006. Werther’s tenure has been hailed as a period of consolidation and strengthening for the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons after the departure of his controversial Brazilian predecessor, Jose Bustani, who was sacked. Pfirter garnered support for chemical weapons destruction and successfully ran the trust at zero nominal growth (ZNG) for four consecutive years. In 2010 he was succeeded by Turkish Ahmet Uzumcu.
In 2009, he co-authored the book “Disarmament Lessons from the Chemical Weapons Convention”, together with former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. After retiring in 2010, he became a member of the World Council on Weapons of Mass Destruction at the World Economic Forum.
In 2013, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon proposed Werther to lead the mission of chemical weapons inspectors in Syria to determine whether Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had used such weapons against the civilian population. President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner declined his participation. Since 2015, he has been part of the Academic Board of the Faculty of Politics, Government and International Relations of the University of Austral (Argentina).

Awards and Honors

Pfirter has received many international awards, including the Grand Cross Order of Merit from Chile, as well as the Order of Merit from the Federal Republic of Germany; French Legion of Honor officer; Commander of the Dutch Order of Orange-Nassau; The Order of the Duke of Croatia Branimir and the Order of Isabella the Catholic of Spain, as well as the medal of the Belgian city of Ypres and decorations in Italy and Colombia.
In 2018, the Connex Foundation awarded him the Connex Award – Diploma of Merit as one of Argentina’s most important diplomats of the past decade, according to El Litoral.