Goran Svilanović

Who is Goran Svilanović?

Goran Svilanović is a Serbian politician, the Chairman of Working Table I of the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe.

Svilanović's father Tihomir holds a doctoral degree in agricultural science while mother Stavrula is an accountant. He spent his childhood in Kosovo before prior to his family moving to Belgrade when he was seven.

He graduated from the University of Belgrade's Law School with an LL.B. and LL.M. He studied at the Institute for Human Rights in Strasbourg and received the Sasakawa Foundation fellowship in 1990. He also studied at the Faculty of Law in Saarbrücken and at the European Peace University in Austria. Svilanović was dismissed from the University of Belgrade when he publicly opposed the controversial University law in 1998, where he worked as a teaching assistant. He also worked for several human rights and anti war organizations in Serbia.

Active in politics in way or another since 1993, he became the vice-president of the Civic Alliance of Serbia in 1998, and became the party's president in 1999. News of this promotion found him on location in uniform during NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, as he was drafted and had to serve.