Australia’s Julie Bishop, the Chancellor of the Australian National University (ANU) and a former Foreign Minister, was named by U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres as the Special Envoy on Myanmar.

“I am deeply honoured to be appointed Special Envoy of the Secretary General of the United Nations on Myanmar to help deliver on the mandate of the General Assembly and the Security Council Resolution of December 2022,” said Bishop.

Guterres appointed Bishop on Friday following a Security Council open briefing on April 4 that excluded Myanmar’s Permanent Representative to the U.N. Ambassador Kyaw Moe Tun, and deferred action on the crisis to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and its Five Point Consensus – adopted in April 2021 but never implemented by Min Aung Hlaing, the military general who led the 2021 coup and installed himself at the head of a regime in Naypyidaw.

Bishop replaces Noeleen Heyzer, a former U.N. Undersecretary-General from Singapore, who left her post as Special Envoy on Myanmar after 20 months at the end of her contract in June 2023. The job has been left vacant for the last 10 months. The U.N. stated that Bishop brings “extensive political, legal management and senior leadership experience to the role.”