User:Vicomras

Victor D.Comras (born 1943) pursued a public service career in international law and diplomacy, and is an internationally recognized expert and frequent speaker on international sanctions and the global effort to combat terrorism. He joined the US Foreign Service in December 1966 rising to the senior rank of Minister Counselor. As a Senior Foreign Service Officer he held several senior positions at the U.S. State Department dealing with strategic trade regulation and bilateral and international economic and financial issues. He was a principal architect of the international economic sanctions against Yugoslavia during the Bosnia and Kosovo wars, and was appointed by President Clinton in January 1994 to serve as the first U.S. envoy and Chief of Mission to the Republic of Macedonia. His other diplomatic assignments as a Senior Foreign Service Officer included postings in Africa, Europe and Canada, and at the United Nations, the Council of Europe, the European Union and COCOM. He also served as the first State Department Coordinator for the Restitution of World War II (Holocaust) Assets. He is recipient of 10 Superior and Meritorious Honor Awards from the Department of State and the President's Medal from the Council of Europe.

Following the 9/11 attack on the United States Victor Comras was asked by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to serve as one of five international monitors charged with overseeing the implementation of Security Council sanctions measures against al Qaeda and the Taliban. And, in 2009 he was appointed to serve as the US member of the UN Security Council's special Panel of Experts on UN sanctions imposed on North Korea.

Victor Comras is a partner of, and serves of counsel to, the Comras and Comras Law Firm in Fort Lauderdale. He also serves as special counsel to the Eren Law Firm in Washington DC. He has been actively engaged since the mid 1970’s, both inside and outside the U.S. government, in advising government agencies, international organizations, foreign governments, and private clients concerning matters related to sanctions, combating terrorism, terrorism financing, money laundering, foreign corrupt practices, arms trafficking, WMD proliferation, and other illicit trans-national activities. He has also taught university level courses on these topics.

Mr. Comras received his LLM from Harvard University in 1975 and his J.D. (with honors) from the University of Florida Law Center in 1966, where he was on the Law Review. He earned his B.S. from Georgetown University in 1964. He is admitted to the bar in Florida and before U.S. Federal Courts.

Victor Comras is the author of Flawed Diplomacy: The United Nations and the War on Terrorism (Potomac Books, 2010), a co-author of Pressure: Coercive Economic Statecraft and U.S. National Security (CNAS 2011), a contributing author of Terrorism Financing and State Responses (Stanford Univ. Press 2007) and to the soon-to-be released Understanding and Combating Terrorist Financing (CRC Press 2013).