He was named Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Kosovo[1] and head of UNMIK on 16 July 2004.
[citation needed] A lawyer and journalist by training, Jessen-Petersen began his service in the United Nations (UN) in 1972 with the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Africa.
In 1989, he served as Special Adviser to the Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, and as a member of the Secretary-General's Task Force on Namibian independence.
Between August 1994 and January 1998 he was Director of the UNHCR Liaison Office at the UN Headquarters in New York, while serving as the High Commissioner's Special Envoy to the former Yugoslavia, based in Sarajevo (December 1995 and September 1996).
[2] He then served as the Chairman of the European Union Stability Pact's Migration, Asylum, Refugees Regional Initiative (MARRI), where he initiated and directed a strategy to manage population movements in the Western Balkans.