Dr. E. Vetere has been Vice President of the International Association of Anti-Corruption Authorities (IAACA) since October 2006, more recently serving also as its Secretary-General. Member of the Board of Governors of the International Anti-Corruption Academy (IACA), in 2016 became its Chairman and, as one of the Founding Members of the UNODC Anti-Corruption Academic Initiative (ACAD), has contributed to the design and development of relevant educational and training curricula.

Having worked as a Research Officer at the UN Crime and Justice Research Institute (Rome, 1969 – 1975), as Social Affairs Officer with the UN Department of International Economic and Social Affairs (New York and Vienna, 1976 – 1984), and as Senior Programme Officer with the UN Fund for Drug Abuse Control (Vienna, 1984 – 1987), he has headed from 1987 to 1997 the UN Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Programme in the United Nations Office at Vienna (UNOV), appointed as the first Director of the United Nations International Crime Prevention Centre from 1997 to 2002 and, from 2003 to 2005, as Director of the Division for Treaty Affairs of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). He also served as Executive Secretary of the Eight, Ninth and Eleventh UN Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Congresses, held respectively in Havana (1990), Cairo (1995) and Bangkok (2005). In such capacities he had the overall responsibility not only to overview all the preparations, with related relevant documentation, for the General Assembly, the Economic and Social Council, The Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice and the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, but also to direct the servicing of those bodies, as well as to implement their recommendations, including the development of the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, with its three Protocols, and the United Nations Convention against Corruption.

Dr. Vetere was involved in several UN peace-keeping missions, covering important managerial positions, including as Provincial Director of Phnom Penh with the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia, being also Officer-in-Charge for Public Security, responsible for re-establishing Cambodia’s criminal justice infrastructure ( UNTAC, 1992 – 1993); as Director of the Office of the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General in Iraq (Baghdad, 1998 – 1999); and as Chairman of the Identification Commission of the UN Mission for the Referendum on Western Sahara and Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General (MINURSO, 1999 – 2001).

Dr. Vetere, a national of Italy, was born in Castrovillari on 30 August 1945 and studied at the High School there (Liceo Classico G. Garibaldi). He received his doctorate in Law/Jurisprudence at the University “La Sapienza” in Rome, with specialization in criminal law and criminology at the Universities of Cambridge and Rome. Author of several books and publications, he has lectured in many Universities in different parts of the world. He is married, with two children and three grand-children.