Former attorney general and EU commissioner Peter Sutherland has been appointed as a United Nations special representative on migration.
UN secretary general Kofi Annan is due to announce Mr Sutherland's appointment later today, The Irish Times understands.
Mr Sutherland (59), who is currently chairman of BP and Goldman Sachs International, is believed to be the first Irish person to be appointed as a UN special representative.
He has been tasked with overseeing the compilation of a report on global migration, which will be presented to a special UN general assembly devoted to the issue, to be held next September.
In advance of this meeting, Mr Sutherland will lobby world leaders on the reforms in migration policy proposed in the document, which will be drawn up by a team of international experts.
It is understood Mr Sutherland, who is taking on the responsibility on a pro bono (no fee) basis, will continue in his existing jobs, though he may scale down his work for Goldman Sachs if necessary.
As the former director general of the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs and the founding head of the World Trade Organisation, Mr Sutherland is a prominent proponent of globalisation.
In September 2005, he was appointed as an honorary ambassador of the UN Industrial Development Organisation.
He now lives in London though he also maintains a home in Dublin.
The importance of migration as a policy issue has been growing in both the developed and the developing world over the past decade.
In tandem with the globalisation of world markets, growing numbers of people have been moving across national frontiers in search of work and economic betterment.
While the EU and other developed countries have increased their levels of co-operation on migration, the emigration of growing numbers of skilled workers from developing countries has become a matter of concern to their governments.
Mr Sutherland's appointment comes on foot of a UN resolution on international migration and development passed in December 2004.
This called for the protection of the human rights of migrants and their families and referred to the "uneven impact" of the benefits of globalisation and liberalisation on different parts of the world.
According to UN statistics, the number of migrants living in developed countries more than doubled from 1980 to 2000, from 48 million to 110 million, while the number of migrants in developing countries grew from 52 to 65 million.
