Peace Negotiation Summer School Experts

Learn more about the experts who provided lectures or participated in panel discussions during PILPG’s July 2024 Peace Negotiation Summer School by reading their biographies below.

Axel Addy

Axel M. Addy is best known for his remarkable accomplishment as the Minister of Commerce and Industry of Liberia and Chief Negotiator of Liberia’s historic accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) concluding several bilateral and multilateral trade negotiations. The Liberia’s Accession is recognized as one of the fastest accessions for an LDC in the history of the WTO.
As a strong advocate for the multilateral trading system, in 2017, in Buenos Aires, at the WTO’s MC11, he successfully rallied members’ sponsorship of the Declaration on Investment Facilitation and ITC led Declaration on Women and Trade. He also co-sponsored the Declaration on the g7 Plus WTO Accession Group to support and promote currently acceding governments including supporting the development of the WTO Trade for Peace Program, advocating for trade for peace in fragile and conflict-affected states (FCS). He currently serves as the host of the WTO’s first podcast, Trade for Peace, showcasing the work of policymakers and entrepreneurs operating on the frontline of the trade and peace nexus in FCS. He is also a member of the Friends of Multilateralism Group (FMG), a Geneva based “think tank of independent experts firmly committed to promoting multilateralism and shared growth in the multilateral trading system (MTS).”
He is the Founder/CEO of Ecocap Investment Group (EIG) where he provides advisory services for acceding governments, companies exploring investment opportunities in Africa and multilateral institutions supporting trade for development and peace initiatives. He also serves as mentor for young entrepreneurs innovating solutions in response to the SDGs. He has co-authored several articles and a chapter in a book, “WTO, Trade Multilateralism in the 21st Century.”

David Crane

David Crane is a Professor at the Syracuse University College of Law and was the founding Chief Prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone from 2002 to 2005. With the rank of Undersecretary General, Dr. Crane’s mandate was to prosecute those who bear the greatest responsibility for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other serious violations of international human rights committed during the civil war in Sierra Leone during the 1990’s. Among those he indicted was the President of Liberia, Charles Taylor, the first sitting African head of state to be held accountable. Prior to this position, he served over 30 years in the Senior Executive Service of the United States government. Dr. Crane teaches international criminal law, international law, international humanitarian law, and national security law. He speaks around the world and publishes extensively on international humanitarian law and founded the Global Accountability Network in 2017.

Amb. Keith Harper

Ambassador Keith M. Harper is a Partner at Jenner & Block where he is Chair of the Native American Practice and Co-Chair of the Human Rights and Global Strategy Practice. From 2014 to 2017, he served as United States Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the U.N. Human Rights Council. From 2010 to 2014, Ambassador Harper served as Commissioner on the President’s Commission on White House Fellows. He has taught law as an adjunct at both American University Washington College of Law and Catholic University Columbus School of Law.

Colonel (ret.) Fredrick Lorenz

Rick Lorenz is a PILPG Senior Peace Fellow and a Senior Lecturer at the Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington and Adjunct Senior Lecturer at the Law School. He previously served as a judge advocate for the US Marine Corps, including a tour as an infantry company commander. He was the senior legal advisor for the US military intervention in Somalia in 1992, and returned there as senior legal advisor for the UN evacuation in 1995. In 1996 he served in Bosnia as a senior legal advisor for the NATO implementation force, and went on to teach Political Science at the National Defense University (NDU). He developed and taught the first course in Environmental Security at NDU in 1997. After his retirement from the Marine Corps as a colonel in 1998 he spent a year as a Fulbright Senior Scholar in St Petersburg, Russia, teaching courses in international law, environmental law and US foreign policy. In 2000 he served as a United Nations legal affairs officer in Kosovo, working in the UN Civil Administration.

Amb. Amina C. Mohammed

Amb. Amina Mohamed has had a distinguished career in the Kenyan Public Service spanning over thirty-five years. She served in three Government Ministerial portfolios. She was Cabinet Secretary in the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and International Trade; Education, Science and Technology; and Sports, Culture and Heritage. She was also Permanent Secretary for Justice, National Cohesion and Constitutional Affairs and ASG/Deputy Executive Director of UNEP. Prior, she was Ambassador/Permanent Representative of Kenya to the UN, WTO, and the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, Switzerland.
Amb. Amina has received awards at both the national and international level, including most recently the Tropics Magazine 2024 Women of the Year Award.

Robert Perito

Robert Perito is the Director of the Perito Group, which advises the U.S. and foreign governments on security sector reform. Mr. Perito brings expertise gained at the State, Justice and Commerce Departments, the White House, Congress and the United Nations to his work on security sector transformation, counter terrorism. community security and combating radicalization. In April 2016, Perito addressed the NATO Parliamentary Assembly meeting in Rabat on security challenges in North Africa. Previously, he served on the State Department’s Security Governance Initiative team for Niger, addressed a World Bank conference on urbanization in North Africa and conducted SSR seminars in Tunisia, Morocco and Malta and for the Syrian Free Army on the Turkish border. He lectured at the Center of Excellence for Countering Violent Extremism in Abu Dhabi. He worked with police forces in Mexico, Pakistan and Morocco and the Tunisian National Guard. Mr. Perito is a senior adviser on doctrine development for the UN Police, speaking to UN conferences in Amman Jordan and Pretoria South Africa and conducting seminars on UN peacekeeping for congressional staff. Mr. Perito is uniquely qualified to provide the expert guidance required for security assessments, strategic planning and training programs for countries in conflict.

Mr. Perito is the author of Where is the Lone Ranger? America’s Search for a Stability Force (Second Edition, 2013) and The American Experience with Police in Peace Operations; co-author of Police at War: Fighting Insurgency, Terrorism and Violent Crime; editor of a Guide for Participants in Peace, Stability and Relief Operations.

Amb. Joachim Rücker

Joachim Rücker has served as Special Representative of the Federal Government for the Middle East Stability Partnership from 2016-2017, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of the Federal Republic of Germany to the Office of the United Nations and to the other International Organizations in Geneva from 2014 to 2016, and President of the UN Human Rights Council in 2015.

Prior to these appointments, Mr. Rücker had served as Inspector General at the Federal Foreign Office of Germany in Berlin, and as Germany’s Ambassador to Sweden.
Mr. Rücker served as Special Representative of the Secretary-General at the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) from 2006 to 2008. He served as Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General of the UNMIK/EU Pillar for Economic Reconstruction from 2005 to 2006. From 1993 to 2001, Mr. Rücker served as Mayor of the City of Sindelfingen. He worked as a Foreign Policy and European Integration Adviser, Social Democratic Parliamentary Group, German Bundestag in Bonn from 1991 to 1993.

Mr. Rücker has also held various postings with the Federal Foreign Office of Germany from 1979 to 1991, including serving in Vienna, Dar es Salaam and Detroit. Mr. Rücker has a degree and a PhD in economics from the University of Freiburg.

Amb. Yvette Stevens

Ambassador Yvette Stevens has a vast experience, working for 28 years in six United Nations entities, covering humanitarian assistance globally, as well as development and peace and security in Africa.

Following her retirement from the United Nations, as the United Nations Assistant Emergency Relief Coordinator, she returned home to Sierra Leone and served as Policy Adviser to her government for three years, before being appointed as Ambassador and Permanent Représentative to the United Nations and other organizations in Geneva. In this capacity she represented her country at the Human Rights Council, first as observer and later as observer. At the HRC, she was very active, inter Alia, in the human rights of women, people living with albinism and prevention.

After her retirement as Ambassador, she was appointed by the President of the HRC, to serve as Chair/Rapporteur of a group of three to spearhead widespread consultations among stakeholders on how the HRC can enhance its role in the prevention of human rights violations. She presented her report to the Council in March of 2020.

Dr. Paul R. Williams

Dr. Paul R. Williams holds the Rebecca I. Grazier Professorship in Law and International Relations at American University where he teaches in the School of International Service and at the Washington College of Law. Dr. Williams is also the co-founder of the Public International Law & Policy Group (PILPG), a pro bono law firm providing legal assistance to states and governments involved in peace negotiations, post-conflict constitution drafting, and the prosecution of war criminals. As a world renowned peace negotiation lawyer, Dr. Williams has assisted over two dozen parties in major international peace negotiations and has advised numerous parties on the drafting and implementation of post-conflict constitutions. Several of Dr. Williams' pro bono government clients throughout the world joined together to nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Dr. Williams has served as a Senior Associate with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, as well as an Attorney-Adviser for European and Canadian affairs at the U.S. Department of State, Office of the Legal Adviser. He received his J.D. from Stanford Law School and his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge. Dr. Williams is a sought-after international law and policy expert. He is frequently interviewed by major print and broadcast media and regularly contributes op-eds to major newspapers. Dr. Williams has authored six books on various topics concerning international law, and has published over three dozen scholarly articles on topics of international law and policy. He has testified before the U.S. Congress on a number of occasions relating to specific peace processes, transitional justice, and self-determination. Dr. Williams is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations, and has served as a Counsellor on the Executive Council of the American Society of International Law. In 2019, Paul was awarded the Cox International Law Center's Humanitarian Award for Advancing Global Justice. More information about Dr. Williams can be found at www.drpaulrwilliams.com.

Amb. Juan Esteban Aguirre

Ambassador Aguirre is the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Paraguay and former Permanent Representative, Head of the Mission of Paraguay to the United Nations Office in Geneva. He was Vice President of the UN Human Rights Council in 2015.
In addition to these posts, Ambassador Aguirre has held positions as Paraguay’s Ambassador to Canada, the United States, and Brazil. Ambassador Aguirre also spent part of his career working for the United Nations, with posts including a resident representative for Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela and resident representative for Guatemala, to the United Nations Population Fund.

Meg DeGuzman

Judge Professor Margaret deGuzman is a Senior Peace Fellow with PILPG, James E. Beasley Professor of Law at Temple University’s Beasley School of Law, and Co-Director of Temple’s Institute for International Law and Public Policy. Her scholarship focuses on the role of international criminal law in the global legal order, with a particular emphasis on the work of the International Criminal Court. In 2022, Judge Professor deGuzman was appointed by the United Nations Secretary General to the roster of Judges of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals. She has worked as an international expert in a group studying the proposed addition of criminal jurisdiction to the mandate of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and is currently working on a project researching the impact of the Extraordinary African Chambers in the Courts of Senegal on national, regional, and global justice norms. Prior to joining Temple’s faculty, Judge Professor deGuzman clerked on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and practiced law in San Francisco for six years, specializing in criminal defense. Judge Professor deGuzman also served as a legal advisor to the Senegal delegation at the Rome Conference where the International Criminal Court was created and as a law clerk in the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia. She was a Fulbright Scholar in Darou N’diar, Senegal.

Christopher Goebel

Christopher Goebel is a Senior Peace Fellow with PILPG. As one of PILPG’s original members, he has consulted during peace processes and other transitions on transitional justice, constitutions, security, and humanitarian issues, focusing recently on Syria and Sudan, with additional experience concerning Kenya, Libya, Yemen, Chad, Senegal, the Balkans and elsewhere. His most recent experience includes advisor to judges and lawyers from a wide range of areas in Libya on their strategies for engaging Libyan civil society on potential transitional justice and accountability efforts at a grassroots level.
As a long-time member of PILPG’s negotiation support team for the Geneva peace process, he has regularly contributed expertise to the Syrian opposition leaders on accountability issues, including options for prosecuting atrocity crimes. Most recently, he advised a committee of Syrian opposition and civil society leaders formulating strategies for transitional justice and accountability during a constitutional drafting process.

Herman von Hebel

Mr. von Hebel is a Dutch lawyer with extensive experience in international human rights law, international criminal and humanitarian law, and the promotion and protection of the rule of law on a national and international level. For over 17 years, Mr. von Hebel served in four different international criminal tribunals, of which over 5 years as a Senior Legal Officer in the Chambers of the Yugoslav tribunal and 12 years as (Deputy) Registrar at the Special Court for Sierra Leone, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, and the International Criminal Court.Prior to this, Mr. von Hebel served as a representative for the Dutch Government before the European Court of Human Rights and participated in the elaboration of the ICC Rome Statute. He chaired the working group on the definition of war crimes at the 1998 Rome Conference. From 1999-2000, he chaired the working group on the Elements of Crimes.

Since 2018, Mr. von Hebel serves as an independent expert on the strengthening of the rule of law and participated in projects in, amongst others, Ukraine, Georgia, Albania, Moldova, and Northern-Macedonia. He is also a part time judge in a Dutch Court of Appeal in criminal matters.

Dr. Igor Lukšić

Dr. Igor Lukšić is the former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs and European Integration (2012-2016). He also served as the Minister of Finance 2004-2010, Member of Parliament of Montenegro 2001-2003, and Member of Parliament of Serbia and Montenegro 2003-2006.
Luksic stood as an official candidate for the UN Secretary General in 2016 advocating for a more efficient and effective United Nations, able to respond to the SDG agenda along with peace operations. He also advocated for the stronger voice of the youth.
Spending almost 18 years of his professional career in the public sector and serving in several governmental positions, Dr. Luksic was committed to political and economic freedoms giving boost to many economic and political reforms based on rule of law and a business friendly environment. Dr. Luksic advocated for transparency, and put emphasis on dialogue and proactive approach both related to domestic and foreign relations. While Prime Minister of Montenegro, Dr. Luksic opened accession talks with the EU and completed accession to WTO. As Finance Minister Montenegro, Dr. Luksic pursued significant public finance management and tax reforms, obtained first ever credit rating, sold first Eurobonds and made significant steps to improve Doing Business ranking, and took part in different projects attracting FDI to the country and coordinated efforts to implement anti-crisis economic policy during the crisis 2008-2009. As Foreign Minister, Dr. Luksic was among the key cabinet members working to meet NATO membership conditions and was crucial in launching the Western Balkans 6 initiative. As a new in-house initiative, he set up an economic diplomacy structure within the ministry.
Currently, Dr. Luksic serves on boards and as an advisor in different business and academic entities dealing with sustainable development, business acceleration and impact financing.

Berhanemeskel Nega

Mr. Nega has over thirty-five years of professional experience in international affairs and multilateral diplomacy, mediation, peacekeeping and peacebuilding. From 2015 to 2020, Mr. Nega served as the Head of Office and Director of Political Affairs at the United Nations in Sudan, where he worked to support the Juba and Doha peace processes and to facilitate the national dialogue and reconciliation processes. Prior to that role he served as the Chief of Staff for the United Nations Peacebuilding Mission in Guinea Bissau. Mr. Nega also served as the Chief of Staff, Deputy Head of Mission, and Acting Executive Representative of the United Nations Secretary General in Sierra Leone.

Prior to these deployments, Mr. Nega served as a Diplomat in the Ethiopian Foreign Service, including as the representative to the United Nations and other international forums. Mr. Nega has extensive experience in the negotiations of international instruments, including the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

Amb. Donald Planty

Ambassador Donald J. Planty is a Senior Peace Fellow at Public International Law & Policy Group (PILPG). Ambassador Planty is also a Senior Advisor of the Albright Stonebridge Group (ASG), where he advises clients on international issues. He is also President and CEO of Planty & Associates LLC, his own consulting firm. He is former Senior Foreign Service Officer of the United States and U.S. Ambassador to Guatemala with 40 years of experience in the public and private sectors. Ambassador Planty is an expert on Latin American affairs and European security issues, drawing on his experience living and working in Panama, Chile, Mexico, Guatemala, Norway, Italy, and Spain. As Ambassador to Guatemala, he was instrumental in facilitating negotiation of the historic 1996 Peace Accords, which ended four decades of internal conflict in that country.
Ambassador Planty was a co-founder of Port Security International, a homeland security solutions firm, and a Senior Managing Director at Manatt Jones Global Strategies, an international consulting firm in Washington, D.C. Prior to that, Ambassador Planty was Chairman of the Board of the Worldwide Responsible Apparel Production (WRAP) and served as the Executive Director of Caribbean/Latin American Action (C/LAA), a non-profit organization promoting U.S. trade and investment in Latin America and the Caribbean. Ambassador Planty’s senior diplomatic positions included Deputy Chief of Mission of the U.S. Embassy in Oslo, Norway; Counselor for Political-Military Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Madrid, Spain and Deputy Personal Representative of the President and Deputy Chief of Mission of the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See.
Ambassador Planty is considered one of the foremost experts on Spain and one of the most experienced military base rights negotiators. He was awarded the U.S. State Department’s Superior Honor Award in 1982 for his work on the Treaty of Friendship, Defense and Cooperation between the U.S. and Spain.
Ambassador Planty also has extensive Washington experience. He served as Legislative Management Officer in the Bureau of Congressional Relations at the U.S. Department of State, Staff Assistant for Operations in the Executive Office of the Secretary of State and Legislative Assistant to Senator John Chafee (R-RI).

Michael Scharf

Dean Michael P. Scharf is the Co-Founder of the Public International Law & Policy Group (PILPG). He is also the Co-Dean of the Case Western Reserve University School of Law and the Joseph C. Hostetler—BakerHostetler Professor of Law.
Scharf has led USAID-funded transitional justice projects in Uganda, Cote d’Ivoire, Libya, and Turkey (for Syria), and maritime piracy projects in Kenya, Mauritius, and The Seychelles. During a sabbatical in 2008, Scharf served as Special Assistant to the Prosecutor of the Cambodia Genocide Tribunal and during the elder Bush and Clinton Administrations, he served in the Office of the Legal Adviser of the U.S. Department of State, where he held the positions of Attorney- Adviser for Law Enforcement and Intelligence, Attorney-Adviser for United Nations Affairs, and delegate to the United Nations Human Rights Commission.
A graduate of Duke University School of Law (Order of the Coif and High Honors), and judicial clerk to Judge Gerald Bard Tjoflat on the Eleventh Circuit Federal Court of Appeals, Scharf is the author of over 100 scholarly articles and 20 books, four of which have won national book of the year honors. A past recipient of the Case Western Reserve University School of Law Alumni Association's "Distinguished Teacher Award" and Ohio Magazine's "Excellence in Education Award," Scharf continues to teach International Law and was ranked as among the most cited authors in the field since 2010 by the 2016 and 2019 Sisk/Leiter studies. Since 2013, Scharf has been the producer and host of "Talking Foreign Policy," a radio program broadcast on WCPN 90.3 FM and other NPR affiliates across the country. Scharf was recently elected President-elect of the American Branch of the International Law Association.

Mohammed Al Ta’ishi

Mohammed Hassan Osman al-Ta’ishi is a former member of the Sovereignty Council of Sudan - an eleven-member transitional council which acted as the collective Head of State in the aftermath of Sudan’s 2019 popular revolution. In that role, he made substantial contributions to the transitional government’s endeavors to restructure, reform, and democratize the Sudanese state. He was ex officio a member of the government’s Security and Defense Counsel and the Higher Council for Peace.

Among his many roles as a Member of the Sovereignty Council, Mohammed was the Chief Negotiator and main architect of the Juba Agreement for Peace in Sudan, signed by the transitional government and the Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF) in October 2020. He thereafter took on the role of Chair of the High Committee for Monitoring and Evaluating the Implementation of the Juba Peace Agreement (Darfur Track), as well as Chair of the Conference on Governance High Committee.

Prior to this, Mohammed worked at the Darfur Compensation Commission and the Darfur Reconstruction and Development Fund - two organizations established in accordance with the Abuja Peace Agreement (2006)’s aims of ending the conflict in Darfur.

He has authored a book chapter on the role of students in the political struggle in Sudan, and published numerous articles on various topics including immigration, demographic changes, peace and democratization in Sudan.

Heba Bawaieh

Heba Bawaieh is a Program Manager and Middle East and Northern Africa (MENA) regional expert at the Public International Law & Policy Group, focusing on peace negotiations and empowering civil society in Sudan. Her professional journey includes roles within the United Nations, where she contributed to international legal frameworks on counterterrorism efforts in the MENA region at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, and developed strategies for civilian protection at the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations. Heba has also worked with refugees in Moria Camp and Zaatari Camp, addressing various issues including the information and representation of migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees throughout the asylum procedure, as well as family reunification in EU Member States.

Mohamed Eln'uman

Mohamed Elnu’man is a PILPG Senior Legal and Technical Advisor and a Former Senior Legal Advisor to the Minister at Sudan’s Ministry of Justice.

Dr. Alush Gashi

Dr. Alush Gashi is a professor of Anatomy and a Specialist in General Surgery. Dr. Gashi was a professor of Anatomy at the University of Prishtina (Kosova) from 1974 - 2017, served as the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at University of Prishtina from 1988 - 1992, and was a visiting scientist at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) School of Medicine from 1981 - 1984.A signatory to the Declaration of Independence of Kosova (2008), Dr. Gashi served as the Secretary of Foreign Affairs of the Democratic League of Kosova, Senior Advisor to President Ibrahim Rugova, Majority Leader of the Parliament of Kosova, Foreign Policy Advisor to the Prime Minister, and the first Minister of Health of the Republic of Kosova. Dr. Gashi later served as a Political and Foreign Policy Advisor to the Prime Minister from 2020 - 2021.As a well-known human rights activist, Dr. Gashi has documented and published inhumane actions of the Serbian regime. When the Serbian regime closed schools and organized the systematic firing of Albanians in all sectors, Dr. Gashi was highly active in the organization of the so-called “parallel system”, which enabled the continuation of education and services in private homes. For decades, Dr. Gashi was the face of Kosova in Washington D.C., establishing a strong connection between the United States and Kosova, and testifying about the crimes of the Serbian regime in Congressional Hearings. After Kosova gained independence, he continued his support for people seeking freedom and justice.He is the founder of the Institute on Foreign Relations (IFR) in Kosova and serves as the Chairman.

Yoonie Kim

Yoonie is currently a Senior Political Affairs Officer/Team Leader for the Gulf at the United Nations’ Departments of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs and Peace Operations in New York. Prior to serving as a Political Affairs Officer, Yoonie worked at the UN as a Human Rights Officer at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and before that as a Rule of Law Officer.

Notably, Yoonie served as the Special Assistant to the UN Special Envoy to Yemen, from 2011 - 2015.

Dr. Patrick Maluki

Dr. Patrick Maluki holds a PhD in Peace and Conflict Studies, a Masters degree in International Studies, a PGD in Mass Communication and a Bachelors Degree in Education. He is an experienced trainer and researcher in Diplomacy and International conflict Management, International Negotiation, Mediation, human rights and governance and peace building issues. Dr. Maluki is a Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Diplomacy and International Studies, University of Nairobi and at the National Defence College (Karen). He also trains at the Kenya School of government and the Defence Staff College-Karen. He is the chairman of the Diplomacy Scholars Association of Kenya and editor of the Africa Journal of International Studies. Dr. Maluki is also the Associate Editor of the IDIS Journal of Diplomacy and International Studies.

Dr. Greg Noone

Dr. Gregory P. Noone is the Executive Director of the Public International Law and Policy Group (PILPG). Dr. Noone currently leads the Yemen track two diplomacy team and served as the Senior Legal Advisor for the Human Rights Documentation Solutions project. Dr. Noone has conducted PILPG justice system assessments in Uganda and Côte d’Ivoire as well as provided transitional justice assistance in post-Gaddafi Libya and to the Syrian opposition. Dr. Noone was also part of the international effort investigating the Myanmar government’s atrocities committed against their Rohingya population. He worked as an investigator in the refugee camps in Bangladesh and as one of the legal experts on the report’s findings. Previously, Dr. Noone worked as a Senior Program Officer for the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), served as a Captain in the United States Navy, as the Commanding Officer of the Defense Institute of International Legal Studies (DIILS) reserve unit, and as the Commanding Officer of the Navy JAG International and Operational Law reserve unit as well as the Director of the Department of Defense’s Periodic Review Secretariat (PRS).

Betsy Popken

Betsy Popken is the Executive Director of the Human Rights Center (HRC) at UC Berkeley School of Law, where she leads a team conducting a global human rights assessment of generative AI and spearheads HRC's work on international peace negotiations, collaborating with the United Nations Institute on Training and Research (UNITAR) and the Public International Law & Policy Group (PILPG). Betsy also manages HRC's developing work in the climate and human rights space. Drawing from her real-world experience, Betsy teaches courses on Technology & Human Rights and International Peace Negotiations at Berkeley Law.
Previously, Betsy co-founded and co-led the Business & Human Rights practice at the law firm of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP.
She served on the World Economic Forum’s Steering Committee for the Responsible Use of Technology and published numerous articles on the intersection of technology and human rights.
Betsy also worked on United Nations-mediated peace and ceasefire negotiations in Darfur, Syria, and Yemen through PILPG, leading PILPG’s work with the Syrian opposition negotiation team. Betsy also founded and led PILPG’s Istanbul office in 2015-2016, and worked at this time throughout the Middle East and at the Palace of Nations in Geneva. Prior to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Betsy advised Ukraine's Parliament on how to vet the public sector. She currently serves as a Senior Peace Fellow for PILPG. Betsy previously taught negotiations at Stanford Law School and previously worked for California Rural Legal Assistance, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the Pacific Council on International Policy.

Matthew T. Simpson

Originally from Toronto, Canada and a past National Law Journal “40 Under 40” awardee, Matt leads Mintz’s global Private Equity practice and helps his clients navigate complex corporate transactions including mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, growth equity, venture capital and other minority investments, and restructurings. Prior to joining Mintz, Matt worked for Torys LLP and Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP.

In addition to his corporate practice, Matt is a recognized international negotiator and legal advisor. In 2010, the United Nations and African Union appointed Matt the Principal Legal Advisor to the Darfur Delegation in the Darfur Peace Negotiations. Embedded in Doha, Qatar as an official member of the Darfur delegation, Matt led a team of over two dozen legal and policy advisors on all aspects of the peace negotiations including the negotiation of a $2 billion development fund, the return of IDPs and refugees, and the formation of a regional government for Darfur. Since 2006 Matt has affiliated with the Public International Law & Policy Group (PILPG) in Washington, DC where he has advised on over a dozen post-conflict legal and policy initiatives including leading the first-ever surrender to the International Criminal Court, war crimes prosecution efforts in Uganda, and the Iraqi constitution. Matt currently serves in a pro bono capacity as a PILPG Senior Peace Fellow advising on various peace processes and post-conflict initiatives.

Anna Triponel

Anna Triponel is an internationally renowned business, human rights and climate expert and the founder of Human Level. She is also an international lawyer.
Anna was previously the director of PILPG’s New York office, and she also led the PILPG team advising on Libya’s post-conflict constitutional process – following on from work with other post-conflict countries including Tunisia, Kenya and Cote d’Ivoire. Anna is now a Senior Peace Fellow with PILPG.

Amb. Carey Cavanaugh

Cavanaugh had a Foreign Service career centered on peace efforts and humanitarian issues. This included diplomatic postings in Berlin, Moscow, Tbilisi, Rome and Bern, and domestic assignments in the State Department, the Pentagon, and on Capitol Hill. In 1992, he led the team that established the American Embassy to the new Republic of Georgia. Under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, Cavanaugh spearheaded or helped advance peace initiatives involving Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece, Moldova, Tajikistan and Turkey. The US Senate confirmed him in 2000 as Ambassador/ Special Negotiator responsible for Eurasian conflicts and US Co-Chair of OSCE’s Minsk Group (tasked with assisting peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict). In 2006, Cavanaugh became full professor at the University of Kentucky and director of its Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce. He led this 60- year old masters degree program for a decade before taking sabbatical in Europe as visiting fellow at Cambridge University (Clare College) and as an executive-in-residence at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy. His teaching ranges from conflict mediation and ethics to US-Russian relations and the diplomacy surrounding nuclear weapons. His research and policy writing focus primarily on diplomacy and peace efforts in the South Caucasus. Cavanaugh remains active in conflict resolution, consulting with governments — as well as the EU, OSCE and UN — and assisting peacebuilding NGOs with track-two diplomatic efforts and civil society initiatives. From 2014-2018, he served as a trustee of Conciliation Resources (London). In 2018, he became chairman of International Alert (London). Alert maintains offices in 19 countries, partnering with local organizations to support people and institutions to better anticipate and manage conflict without violence.

Kate Gibson

Kate Gibson is Senior Legal Advisor at the Public International Law & Policy Group and currently the co-counsel of Mr. Bosco Ntaganda before the International Criminal Court. She was the Co-Counsel of the former President of the Republika Srpska, Radovan Karadzic, before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, and the Co-Counsel of Liberian President Charles Taylor before the Special Court for Sierra Leone. Kate was the youngest person to be appointed as Lead Counsel in a genocide case before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. She spent 10 years representing the former Vice President of the Congo, Jean-Pierre Bemba, before the International Criminal Court, and also represented victims in the first case before the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. She currently is part of the legal team of former Kosovan President Hashim Thaci before the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague.

Amb. Jorge Lomonaco

Ambassador Jorge Lomonaco is a career diplomat of 30 years, awarded the rank of Ambassador of Mexico in 2009. Ambassador Jorge Lomonaco has a record of success as an international negotiator on human rights, democracy, disarmament and international justice, including chief negotiator and lead proponent of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, recognized by the Nobel Peace Prize of 2017.

Ambassador Lomonaco has been involved in managing complex organization and extensive collaboration with representatives of all nations, members of civil society, international organizations’ officials, think tanks, the academy, international courts, expats, media, local communities, advocates and victims of human rights violations.

Amb. Zorica Maric Djordjević

Ambassador Zorica Maric Djordjević is a Senior Peace Fellow and Chair of the Circle of Former Ambassadors to the United Nations Human Rights Council at PILPG. She was until recently the Head of the Permanent Mission of Montenegro to the World Trade Organization. Her career in public service and diplomacy spans 40 years. She has held various leadership positions including Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Montenegro (1989-92) and the Chief Policy Adviser to the Prime Minister (1992-1997). She served as the Special Envoy of Prime Minister and President Milo Djukanovic to the United States and the Head of Montenegro Trade Mission in Washington DC (1998-2006). She was responsible for coordinating USAID assistance and was the liaison to the US Congress, State Department, and the Pentagon for the Government of Montenegro. Through these positions, Ambassador Maric Djordjević made the case for Montenegro's independence.

Ambassador Maric-Djordjević holds a Master’s Degree in European Integration from the Institute of European Studies at the University of Amsterdam (1981-1982). She is multilingual, fluent in Montenegrin, Serbo-Croatian-Bosnian, and English, with basic knowledge of French.

She is currently a pro-bono Senior Peace Fellow at the Public International Law Policy Group (PILPG), a Washington DC-based non-profit organization providing support to democratic systems in post-conflict areas. In this capacity, Ms. Maric was sent to a special mission in South Sudan and worked on several projects related to Sierra Leone. In addition to her Senior Peace Fellow role at PILPG, Amb. Maric is the Chair of PILPG’s Circle of Former Ambassadors to the United Nations Human Rights Council, convened in March 2022.

She is a champion of the UNHRC approach to transitional justice, the “Trade for Peace” initiative (WTO and ITC), and a strong advocate of trade and commercial diplomacy as part of the toolbox for peace building. She is the author of numerous studies, white papers, analyses and comments in the field of international economic relations and diplomacy.

Vartan Oskanian

Vartan Oskanian served as minister of foreign affairs of the Republic of Armenia from 1998 to 2008. Prior to his ministerial appointment, he held several high level positions in the ministry, and has been Armenia’s chief negotiator for the Nagorno Karabakh conflict with Azerbaijan from 1995 till the end of his ministerial tenure.
After leaving his ministerial position in April 2008, Mr Oskanian established the Civilitas Foundation, a think tank and center for public advocacy in Yerevan, which remains one of the most reputable institutions in Armenia. Mr Oskanian was elected to the Armenian Parliament in 2012, where he served for five years.
Mr Oskanian has taught a course “Politics of Self-Determination and Secession,” at the Center of Armenian Studies at the University of Southern California and at Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts.
Since 2019, Mr Oskanian is serving as advisor to the CEO of RECOM, a renewable energy company with solar projects globally.
Mr Oskanian has an MS in Government Studies from Harvard’s extension program and an MA in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Tufts University.

Amb. Stephen Rapp

Ambassador Stephen Rapp is a Senior Peace Fellow at PILPG. He is a Senior Visiting Fellow of Practice with the Blavatnik School’s Institute for Ethics, Law, and Armed Conflict’s Programme on International Peace and Security. He also currently serves as Distinguished Fellow at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Center for Prevention of Genocide, and as Chair of the Commission for International Justice and Accountability, which has collected and analysed more than 750,000 pages of documentation from Syria and Iraq to prepare cases for future prosecution.
From 2009 to 2015, he was Ambassador-at-Large heading the Office of Global Criminal Justice in the US State Department. During his tenure, he travelled more than 1.5 million miles to 87 countries to engage with victims, civil society organisations, investigators and prosecutors, and the leaders of governments and international bodies to further efforts to bring the perpetrators of mass atrocities to justice.
Ambassador Rapp was the Chief Prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone from 2007 to 2009, where he led the prosecution of former Liberian President Charles Taylor. From 2001 to 2007, he served as Senior Trial Attorney and Chief of Prosecutions at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, where he headed the trial team that achieved the first convictions in history of leaders of the mass media for the crime of direct and public incitement to commit genocide.

Milena Sterio

Milena Sterio, the Charles R. Emrick Jr. - Calfee Halter & Griswold Professor of Law at Cleveland State University’s Cleveland-Marshall College of Law and Managing Director at the PILPG. She is a leading expert on international law, international criminal law and human rights. Sterio leads PILPG’s Thought Leadership Initiative.
Sterio is one of six permanent editors of the prestigious IntLawGrrls blog, and a frequent contributor to the blog focused on international law, policy and practice. In the spring of 2013, Sterio was selected as a Fulbright Scholar, spending the semester in Baku, Azerbaijan, at Baku State University. While in Baku, she had the opportunity to teach and conduct research on secession issues under international law related to the province of Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh. Serving as a maritime piracy law expert, she has participated in meetings of the United Nations Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia as well as in the work of the United Nations Global Counterterrorism Forum. Sterio has also assisted piracy prosecutions in Mauritius, Kenya and the Seychelles Islands. Sterio is a graduate of Cornell Law School and the University of Paris I, and was an associate in the New York City firm of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton before joining the ranks of academia full time. She has published seven books and numerous law review articles. Her latest book, “The Syrian Conflict’s Impact on International Law,” (co-authored with Paul Williams and Michael Scharf) was published by Cambridge University Press in 2020.

Visuvanathan Rudrakumaran

Visuvanathan Rudrakumaran is the prime minister of the Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam, which aims to realize accountability for crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide committed by Sri Lanka against the Tamil minority and to create a separate Tamil state, called Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka. He was the former legal advisor to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). By profession he is a lawyer in the United States.