Jón Ögmundur Þormóðsson dies at 83

Jón Ögmundur Þormóðsson, a lawyer and former office director at Iceland’s Ministry of Commerce, died on September 12 at the age of 83, mbl.is reports.

Born in Reykjavík on March 1, 1943, Þormóðsson grew up in the city. He attended Austurbæjarskóli and Gagnfræðaskóli Austurbæjar before graduating from Reykjavík Junior College in 1963. He completed his law degree at the University of Iceland in 1971, pursued postgraduate studies in international law at Harvard Law School from 1971 to 1972 and earned an LLM degree there.

After completing his studies, Þormóðsson held several positions in Iceland’s foreign service. He worked in the general and international divisions of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs from 1972 to 1974, served as an embassy secretary in Paris from 1974 to 1977, and was deputy permanent representative to the OECD and UNESCO as well as embassy secretary in Moscow from 1977 to 1979.

He then held various positions in public administration. He was a division director at the Ministry of Commerce from 1979 to 1980, worked in law and writing in Reykjavík from 1980 to 1983, and helped translate the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea in 1982 and 1983. He was appointed division director at the Ministry of Commerce in 1983 and later became its office director and deputy permanent secretary from 1988. From 2012 to 2013, he was office director at the Ministry of Industries and Innovation.

Þormóðsson worked on important projects connected to his ministry positions, including negotiations on the European Economic Area. On behalf of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, he oversaw the translation of the main text of the EEA Agreement.

He published several works, including Drög að íslenskri hraðritun – hraðritunartákn, Fegurstu kirkjuna á Íslandi and Peace and War: Niagara of Quotations, also published under the Icelandic title Friður og stríð – Hafsjór af tilvitnunum.

He devoted extensive work to the last of these books, spending an average of three hours a day on it for 33 years. He made numerous trips lasting four to six weeks to Harvard libraries to gather material for the more than 1,300-page book.

Þormóðsson competed in athletics with ÍR and won various awards.

He is survived by his wife, nurse Lilja Júlía Guðmundsdóttir, and their son, Þormóður Árni, who was born in 1983.