Staffan de Mistura (born 25 January 1947) is an Italian-Swedish diplomat, United Nations official and former member of the Italian government.

This experience was something he found profoundly shocking, but it also stirred up a sense of 'constructive outrage' as he has described it; a desire to study humanitarian emergency relief and dedicate his life to working for the peaceful resolution of conflict.

In addition, he was given special humanitarian assignments to Dubrovnik, Sarajevo, Sudan, Ethiopia, Vietnam and the Lao People's Democratic Republic.

[9] In June 2000, de Mistura was Special Rapporteur during the Fribourg Forum on Regional Cooperation and Coordination in Crisis Management for Europe and the Newly Independent States.

During his tenure, he was keen to portray an optimistic view of Iraq and its chances of recovery, highlighting the hard work the UN were putting in behind the scenes to provide Iraqis with a better standard of living.

[11] After that, he became director of the UN Staff College in Turin, Italy, a post he retained until 11 September 2007, when Ban Ki-moon appointed him as his Special Representative (SRSG) for Iraq.

[14] In July 2009, de Mistura left Iraq to become the deputy executive director for External Relations of the World Food Programme in Rome.

[16] The New York Times noted in an editorial that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon had also been considering Jean-Marie Guéhenno of France and Ian Martin of Britain for the Kabul mission.

[20] In May 2013, the Italian Government appointed him, then serving as deputy foreign minister, as the Special Envoy of the Prime Minister of Italy to resolve the case of two Italian Navy marines, held in India since February 2012, who were accused by the Indian authorities for allegedly killing by mistake two Indian fishermen, believing that they were pirates, when deployed on an Italian-flagged merchant vessel Enrica Lexie.

De Mistura has been mandated to find a "fair, positive and acceptable solution" with Indian judicial authorities to ensure a quick trial and return of Massimiliano Latorre and Salvatore Girone to Italy.

[22] On 10 July 2014, the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced that he had appointed de Mistura as the new special envoy tasked with seeking a peaceful resolution of the conflict in Syria.

[26] In his last briefing to the Security Council, on 20 December 2018, Staffan de Mistura highlighted the various attempts made during the four and a half years of his mandate to move forward the political process.