Prior to that Ambassador Strohal served as Permanent Representative to the OSCE in Vienna and at the UN Office, the Conference on Disarmament and other international organisations in Geneva. 

From 2003 to 2008 he was Director of OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR). In his previous career, he worked as representative to the UN Commission on Human Rights, as a delegate to the UN General Assembly, and as a representative to the EU Working Group on Human Rights, and as Ambassador for the UN World Conference for Human Rights. 

From 1994 to 2000, he was Director for Human Rights, International Humanitarian Law, and Minority and Gender Issues at the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Before his time as head of the ODIHR, he was the Austrian Ambassador to Luxembourg. 

Ambassador Strohal has conducted numerous negotiation processes in a broad range of international organisations. He was educated in Vienna, London and the Geneva Graduate Institute (1975-1976) and holds a Dr.iur. from the University of Vienna. He has been teaching at different institutions, published a number of articles and is member of the International Institute of Human Rights.

Since 2018 Ambassador Christian Strohal has been a Non-resident Fellow of the Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination at Princeton University.