A diplomat, lawyer and fierce conservative advocate, Ambassador Bolton has had a distinguished career in the public service. From August 2005 to December 2006, he served as the United States Permanent Representative to the United Nations.  The Economist called Bolton “the most controversial Ambassador ever sent by America to the United Nations.”

From June 2001 to May 2005, Ambassador Bolton served as Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security. In this role, a key area of his responsibility was the prevention of proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Previous positions he has held are Assistant Secretary for International Organization Affairs at the Department of State, 1989-1993; Assistant Attorney General, Department of Justice, 1985-1989; Assistant Administrator for Program and Policy Coordination, U.S. Agency for International Development, 1982-1983; General Counsel, U.S. Agency for International Development, 1981-1982.

Bolton led the Bush administration’s opposition on constitutional grounds to the International Criminal Court, negotiating with many countries to sign agreements with the U.S. to exempt Americans from prosecution by the Court, which is not recognized by the U.S. He has said the decision to pull out of the ICC was the “happiest moment” of his political career so far.

Bolton has been a prominent participant in some neoconservative groups such as the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), and the Committee for Peace and Security in the Gulf (CPSG). But Bolton disputes the label “neo-conservative,” pointing out that he was a conservative since high school, when he worked on the 1964 Goldwater campaign.

John R. Bolton currently serves as a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

“We ought to be concerned about this so-called right of humanitarian intervention – a right of intervention that is just a gleam in one beholder’s eye but looks like flat-out aggression to somebody else.”