Mary Robinson

Mary Robinson, the first woman President of Ireland (1990-1997) and more recently United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (1997-2002), has been a human rights advocate for most of her life. She is currently founder and president of Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative. Born Mary Bourke in Ballina, County Mayo (1944), the daughter of two physicians, she was educated at the University of Dublin (Trinity College), King’s Inns Dublin, and Harvard Law School, to which she won a fellowship in 1967.

As an academic (Trinity College Law Faculty 1968-1990), legislator (Senator 1969-1989), and barrister (1967-1990; Senior Counsel 1980, English Bar 1973), Mary Robinson has always sought to use law as an instrument for social change, arguing landmark cases before the European Court of Human Rights as well as in the Irish courts and the European Court in Luxembourg. A committed European, she has also served on expert European Community and Irish parliamentary committees.

The recipient of numerous honors and awards throughout the world, Mary Robinson is Chair of the Council of Women World Leaders and Vice President of the Club of Madrid. She chairs the International Board of the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and the Fund for Global Human Rights, and is Honorary President of Oxfam International and Patron of the International Community of Women Living with AIDS (ICW).  She is also a member of the Elders, a group of world leaders who seek to offer a catalyst for the peaceful resolution of conflict, seek new approaches to seemingly intractable global issues, and who seek to share their wisdom with the next generation of leaders and amplify voices for good all over the world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Klaus Schwab

Dr. Klaus Schwab, Executive Chairman and Founder of the World Economic Forum, has been dedicated for more than thirty years to improving the state of the world.  He is the recipient of numerous international and national honors for initiatives undertaken in the spirit of entrepreneurship in the global public interest and for peace and reconciliation efforts in several regions.  His work at the World Economic Forum has been providing a collaborative framework for leaders of the world to address global issues, engaging particularly its corporate members in global citizenship.

Dr. Schwab holds numerous positions of civic, academic, and editorial leadership.  He currently serves as Trustee for the Peres Center for Peace in Israel and the Ibrahim Hussein Museum and Cultural Foundation in Malaysia. His academic activities include: Professor for Business Policy, University of Geneva; Member, Overseers’ Visiting Committee, JFK School of Government; Advisory Board Member, Center for International Development, Harvard University; Member of the Corporate Visiting Committee, MIT; and Member of the Royal Academy of Morocco.  He is also a Member of the Editorial Board for Foreign Policy, Chairman of the Editorial Board for World Link Magazine, and author of the annual Global Competitiveness Report, in addition to numerous articles and several books.

Stuart Eizenstat

Stuart Eizenstat, Deputy Secretary of the Treasury in the Clinton Administration and former Ambassador to the European Union, is currently partner of Covington & Burling. He has held a number of key positions during his decade and a half of government service. From 1977 to 1981 he was President Jimmy Carter's Chief Domestic Policy Adviser and Executive Director of the White House Domestic Policy Staff. In addition to Deputy Treasury Secretary, Mr. Eizenstat has served as Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs and Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade. He was Ambassador to the European Union from 1993 to 1996. He received the highest departmental awards for his service from Secretary of State Christopher, Secretary of State Albright, and Secretary of the Treasury Summers. Mr. Eizenstat also has practiced law for twenty years in Atlanta and Washington.

During the Clinton Administration, he had a prominent role in the development of key international initiatives, including the negotiation of the Transatlantic Agenda with the European Union (establishing the framework for the United States' relationship with the EU); the negotiation of agreements with the European Union regarding; the negotiation of the Japan Port Agreement; and the negotiation of the Kyoto Protocol on global warming. He acted as the Administration's lead official in anti-money laundering initiatives. He received his J.D. from Harvard University in 1967 and a BA in political science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Dennis Ross

Ambassador Dennis Ross is director and Ziegler distinguished fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. For more than twelve years, Ambassador Ross played a leading role in shaping U.S. involvement in the Middle East peace process and in dealing directly with the parties in negotiations. A highly skilled diplomat, Ambassador Ross was this country's point man on the peace process in both the Bush and Clinton administrations. He was instrumental in assisting Israelis and Palestinians in reaching the 1995 Interim Agreement; he also successfully brokered the Hebron Accord in 1997, facilitated the Israel-Jordan peace treaty, and intensively worked to bring Israel and Syria together.

A scholar and diplomat with more than two decades of experience in Soviet and Middle East policy, Ambassador Ross worked closely with Secretaries of State James Baker, Warren Christopher, and Madeleine Albright. Prior to his service as special Middle East coordinator under President Clinton, Ross served as director of the State Department's Policy Planning office in the first Bush administration. In that position, he played a prominent role in developing U.S. policy toward the former Soviet Union, the unification of Germany and its integration into NATO, arms control negotiations, and the development of the Gulf War coalition. He served as director of Near East and South Asian affairs on the National Security Council staff during the Reagan administration, and as deputy director of the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment.

A 1970 graduate of UCLA, Ambassador Ross wrote his doctoral dissertation on Soviet decisionmaking and from 1984 to 1986 served as executive director of the Berkeley-Stanford program on Soviet International Behavior. He has received UCLA's highest medal and has been named UCLA alumni of the year. He has also received honorary doctorates from the Jewish Theological Seminary and Syracuse University.

President Clinton awarded Ambassador Ross the Presidential Medal for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service, and Secretaries Baker and Albright presented him with the State Department's highest award.

He is the author of The Missing Peace, about his experiences in the pursuit of peace.

 

Her Majesty Queen Noor of Jordan

Her Majesty Queen Noor of Jordan is an international humanitarian activist and an outspoken voice on issues of world peace and justice.  She has played a major role in promoting international exchange and understanding in the areas of Middle Eastern peace and development, Arab-Western relations, conflict prevention and recovery issues such as refugees, missing persons, poverty and disarmament.

Since 1980, the initiatives of the Noor Al Hussein Foundation (NHF) which she chairs have advanced and modernized development thinking in Jordan progressing beyond traditional charity-oriented social welfare practices to integrate social development strategies more closely with national economic priorities. NHF, founded in 1985 by royal decree, was established to consolidate Her Majesty’s diverse, expanding development work. NHF programs are internationally recognitionized models for the Arab and Muslim world in the areas of poverty eradication, women’s economic empowerment, micro-finance, and cross cultural exchange.

Queen Noor also chairs the King Hussein Foundation (KHF), and its partner, the King Hussein Foundation International (KHFI) founded in 1999 to promote and build on King Hussein’s humanitarian vision and legacy in Jordan and abroad. The foundations promote cross-cultural dialogue and understanding and are advancing social, economic and political opportunity throughout the region. KHFI, headquartered in the United States sponsors the annual King Hussein Leadership Prize (KHLP) which recognize individuals, groups or institutions that demonstrate inspiring and courageous leadership in their efforts to promote sustainable development, human rights, tolerance, equity and peace.

 

Saeb Erekat

Saeb Erekat has been negotiating the interim agreement of the Oslo peace process with Israel since it's signing in 1995. In 1996, Yasser Arafat appointed Erekat to head the Palestinian Negotiation Steering and Monitoring Committee. Erekat holds the post of Minister of Local Government in the Palestinian Authority. He was elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) in 1996 on the Fatah slate representing Jericho.

Born in Jerusalem in 1955, Erekat obtained his M.A. in Political Science from the University of San Francisco and his doctorate in Peace Studies from England's Bradford University. He returned to lecture in Political Science at the An-Najah University in the West Bank town of Nablus.

A former journalist, Erekat served for 12 years on the editorial board of Al-Quds newspaper, the Palestinian daily. Erekat is the author of eight books and numerous research papers on foreign policy, oil and conflict resolution. He also served as secretary general of the Arab Studies Society.