On 9 September 1999, Rød-Larsen was appointed as
UN Secretary-General
Kofi Annan's personal representative to the
PLO and
Palestinian Authority on the
West Bank and the
Gaza Strip. He was also the UN Special Coordinator for peace negotiations in the
Middle East. He subsequently left the post in 2004 to become president of the International Peace Academy, a
NYC-based think tank, and was also designated as UN Special Representative on 3 January 2005 for the implementation of Security Council
Resolution 1559, which calls
for Syrian withdrawal of Lebanon and the disarmament of Hezbollah.
[...]
Association with Jeffrey Epstein
Rød-Larsen was a close associate of
Jeffrey Epstein and has worked to bolster contact between the
MAGA movement and the
European far right. A January 2026 release as part of the
Epstein files indicated that each of Rød-Larsen's children were to be given $5 million in Epstein's will. In a statement, Rød-Larsen's wife said that the family
had not been aware of the contents of the will before the document release and declined to comment further. Within the files, Rød-Larsen described Epstein as "my best friend" and "a thoroughly good human being". As of February 2026 Rød-Larsen
is under investigation for corruption in Norway.
Norwegian authorities alerted U.S. Epstein investigators in 2019 after reports that Terje Rød-Larsen's think tank, the
International Peace Institute,
allegedly brought in young and unqualified women from Eastern Europe on very short internships whose photos were shared with Epstein, despite the institute having received extensive Norwegian state funding.
Morits Skaugen, a since-bankrupt shipowner, said he was forced to sell his large
Frogner apartment for half its value to Rød-Larsen
and Juul, with Epstein acting as the middle man, stating that the sale was not voluntary and that his family was threatened on Rød-Larsen's
and Juul's behalf by Epstein. Epstein showed Skaugen pictures of himself with the chairman of the bank that Skaugen's company had lent money from and a detailed map of all his business connections around the world, and also threatened to fire one of Skaugen's relatives from the International Peace Institute unless Skaugen sold Rød-Larsen the apartment for half its value, stating that they could not continue "with one of your family members working for us". He described the actions taken by Rød-Larsen
and Juul with the help of Epstein as "mafia methods".
Aftenposten described him as the central node in Epstein's network in Norway.
