Hall of Honor Class of 2024 | D. Stephen Mathias ’73

D. Stephen Mathias ’73 – a founding member of the Delone Catholic International Relations Club and a four-year participant in Model U.N., whose career has made him one of the highest-ranked lawyers in the United Nations. As a freshman, he won the best novice debater award in his first tournament on the way to capping his career in the National Forensic League’s national tournament as a senior. He was elected by his peers as Student Council representative as a freshman, class president as a sophomore and junior, and student body president as a senior. He went on to earn a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service from Georgetown University and a Juris Doctorate from Columbia University. Following a short-lived career in private law practice, he realized that public service law was a better fit. He spent the vast majority of his career from 1987-2010 working for the State Department, including a significant stint posted at the Hague, where he worked on the creation of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, which ultimately indicted and tried over 160 people accused of war crimes, and crimes against humanity including genocide. He has received Senior Executive Service Awards from both the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, a Presidential Meritorious Service Award in 2003, and the Director-General’s Medal from the Multinational Force of Observers, a peacekeeping force helping to carry out the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. Since 2010, he has been the Assistant Secretary-General for Legal Affairs at the United Nations, overseeing the operations of international criminal tribunals, legal oversight of U.N. peacekeeping operations, providing advisory opinions for the International Court of Justice, the development of new U.N. legal agreements, and many other related matters.