Emeka Anyaoku Nigeria
Former President of the World Wide Fund for Nature, and
Secretary-General of the Commonwealth (1990-2000).
Emma Bonino Italy
Current member of the Italian Senate. Former Member of the European Parliament and the
former Commissioner of Humanitarian Affairs and Fisheries.
From 1995-1999 Ms. Bonino
was the Secretary-General of the Transnational Radical Party
and played a leading role in promoting the International Criminal
Court.
Frene Ginwala South
Africa
Chancellor of the University of KwaZulu-Natal and Former Speaker of the National Assembly of the
Parliament of the Republic of South Africa. Served as Co-Chairperson of the
Global Coalition for Africa and is a member of the UN Secretary-General’s
Advisory Panel of High-Level Personalities on African Development.
George Soros United
States
Chairman of the Open Society Institute and founder of a network of philanthropic organizations that are
active in more than 50 countries. M
Jose Ramos-Horta East
Timor
Current President and former Prime
Minister of East Timor who won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1996. After his 1975 exile from East Timor
he became the permanent representative of FRETILIN (Revolutionary
Front for an Independent East Timor) at the UN, a position
he held until 1989.
Madeleine K. Albright United
States
Madeleine K. Albright is a Principal of The Albright Group LLC, a global strategy firm, and Chair and Principal of Albright Capital Management LLC, an investment advisory firm focused on emerging markets. In 1997, she was named the first female Secretary of State and became, at that time, the highest ranking woman in the history of the U.S. government. From 1993 to 1997, Dr. Albright served as the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations and as a member of the President’s Cabinet. Her latest book, Memo to the President: How We Can Restore America's Reputation and Leadership was published in 2008.
Michel Rocard France
Member of the European Parliament. Served as the Prime
Minister of France from 1988-1991. He has a long history of
social service and was first elected to the French Parliament
in 1969. Served as Secretary-General
of the Parti Socialist Unife and the Parti Socialiste.
Mohamed Sahnoun Algeria
Former Special Advisor to the Secretary-General
of the United Nations. Served as the Joint Representative of
the United Nations and the Organization of African Unity (OAU)
in the Great Lakes Region and Central Africa. Served as Algeria’s Ambassador to Morocco
and Secretary to the Maghreb Union, Ambassador
to the United States, Chief of Algeria’s Mission
to the United Nations, Ambassador to France
and Ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany.
Pavol Demes Slovakia
Director for Central and Eastern Europe
of the German Marshall Fund of the United States based in
Bratislava, Slovakia. Previously served as Foreign Policy Advisor of the President
of the Slovak Republic and was the
Minister of International Relations in the Government of the
Slovak Republic.
Samira A.S. Omar Kuwait
Environmental activist and advocate for women’s
rights. Member of the board to the Women Cultural
and Social Society whose mission is to promote the role of
Kuwaiti women in social, culture and economic development.
Served as a consultant to the UNDP, World Bank, and
the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences.
Sergey Kovalev Russia
Russian human rights activist and former member of the Russian Duma. Former Chairman of the President’s Human Rights
Commission and human rights commissioner for the Russian Parliament
and an outspoken critic of the Russian war in Chechnya. Founder of the first
human rights associations, the Imitative Group for the Defense
of Human Rights in the USSR.
Sonia Picado Sotela Costa
Rica
President of the Inter-American Institute
of Human Rights. Served
as President of the UN International Commission of Human Rights
in East Timor and was the first woman judge on the Inter-American
Court of Human Rights.
Surin Pitsuwan Thailand
Secretary General of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Thailand and member of the Parliament of Thailand.
Lisa
Anderson
Dean, School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia
University and authority on the Middle East, including democratic
reform in the Islamic world.
Michael Chege
Director of the Center for African Studies, University of
Florida at Gainesville. Served with the Ford Foundation in
Southern Africa. Strong background on democracy and human
rights.
Margaret Crahan
Professor at Hunter College; expert in religion, human rights
and democratization in Latin America.
Larry Diamond
Author of influential books/articles on strengthening democratic
rule globally, with particular expertise on Africa (e.g. Nigeria)
and Asia. Currently at the Hoover Institute, Stanford University.
Morton H. Halperin
Former senior government official at State, NSC and
Pentagon and author of numerous articles on democracy, foreign
policy and civil liberties.
Orville Schell
Prolific writer and commentator on Asian affairs and Dean,
UC Berkeley School of Journalism.
In Memoriam
Bronislaw Geremek (1932-2008) Poland
Former foreign minister of Poland and member of Parliament. Founding member of the
Democratic Union and from 1994-1997 chaired the Freedom
Union’s Parliamentary Caucus.
Valentin Paniagua (1936-2006) Peru
Former Interim President of Peru after
the collapse of the Fujimori regime, leading the country
toward new elections which brought Alejandro Toledo to power.
Served as member of Parliament, Secretary
of Justice, Chairman
of the House of Representatives, Secretary of Education, General
Secretary of the Accion Popular party, and Chairman of Congress.
*Invited
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