Guéhenno is the son of the French teacher, editor and writer Jean Guéhenno, author of the Occupation memoir Journal des Années Noires and a biography of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, among other works.[1][2] His mother, Annie Guéhenno, was a member of the Resistance during the Second World War and a writer.[3]
Guéhenno served as United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations from 2000 to 2008. He led the largest expansion of peacekeeping in the history of the UN, overseeing approximately 130,000 staff, on 18 missions.
Guéhenno was elected Chairman of the Henri Dunant Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (HD) board at the end of 2010. From March to July 2012, he temporarily stood down from the board to serve as Deputy Joint Special Envoy of the United Nations and the League of Arab States on Syria. He resumed his role as a Member and Chairman of the HD Centre Board in November 2012.[4]
In 2012-13, Guéhenno headed President François Hollande's review of French defense and security policies.
In 2021, Guéhenno returned to Columbia University as the inaugural Kent Visiting Professor of Conflict Resolution.[5] He is also a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
Guéhenno has published articles in many newspapers and magazines, including "The Impact of Globalisation on Strategy" in the International Institute for Strategic Studies' Survival, and "Globalisation and the International System" in the Journal of Democracy, as well as articles or chapters in Internationale Politik, Prospect, Paradoxes of European Foreign Policy, and Strategic Analysis. He is the author of The End of Democracy (1993, in French) and The Fog of Peace (2015).
L'avenir de la liberté - La démocratie dans la mondialisation ("The Future of Freedom - Democracy in Globalisation"), Paris, Flammarion, 1999, 222 pages, ISBN2-08-211579-8
Jocelyn Coulon, Jean-Marie Guéhenno, Lucien Manokou, Catherine Délice, Guide du maintien de la paix, Paris, Athéna éditions, 2006, 294 pages, ISBN2-922865-37-1
