Ian Martin is an English human rights activist/advisor and sometime United Nations official. His most recent UN assignment was as the Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya. He is currently Executive Director of Security Council Report.
Martin has held a number of senior positions with the United Nations and other international organizations. While working at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, he was asked to serve as Director of Human Rights and Deputy Executive Director of the UN/OAS International Civilian Mission in Haiti. After leaving Haiti, Martin was named Chief of United Nations Human Rights Field Operation in Rwanda from 1995 to 1996.
Martin was appointed Special Adviser on Human Rights Field Operations to the High Commissioner on Human Rights in 1998, then Deputy High Representative for Human Rights in the Office of the High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1998 to 1999. During the United Nations Mission in East Timor that garnered world-wide attention in 1999, Martin served as Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for the East Timor Popular Consultation. From 2000 to 2001 he was appointed Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General in the United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea. In 2006, he served as Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Timor-Leste.