Learn more about the experts who provided lectures or participated in panel discussions during PILPG’s July 2025 Post-Conflict State Building: The Case of Syria Summer School by reading their biographies below.

Ammar Abdulhamid

  • Over the last two decades and as part of his drive to facilitate the processes of modernization in his native country, Syria, Ammar had to assume many roles including that of a poet, an author, a teacher, a blogger, a journalist, a human rights activist, a motivational speaker, and political analyst. His activities included briefing the President of the United States, offering Congressional testimonies, and advising various governments on events in Syria. Ammar also served as a fellow in various think tanks and worked as a consultant to various private sector firms that have interests in the Levant and the broader Middle East.

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.

Dr. Mai Hassan

  • Dr. Mai Mamoun is a Senior Researcher (Associate Professor) in forest ecology and a prominent advocate for women's rights and gender justice in Sudan. She is the co-founder of the Sudanese Women in Science Organization (SWSO), the Sudanese Women’s Movement, and the Together Against Rape and Sexual Violence campaign.

    Dr. Mamoun serves as the coordinator for the platform on rape and sexual violence within the Women’s Coordination Platform to Stop the War and Build Peace, where she plays a central role in documenting violations and advancing survivor-centered responses. She is also an expert in the implementation of the SAGA (STEM and Gender Advancement) project, promoting gender equity in scientific research and academia.

    She has delivered presentations at international conferences including Accelerating Gender Equality through Economic Empowerment (WASD) and The Role of Women in Transitional Societies (AGYA). Her contributions to workshops have covered critical issues such as access to justice for victims of sexual violence in Sudan (OHCHR), monitoring and evaluation of UN Security Council Resolution 1325, mapping women-led peace initiatives, and integrating gender into transitional justice processes.

    Dr. Mamoun’s work bridges science, advocacy, and policy, and reflects a deep commitment to building a just, inclusive, and peaceful Sudan.

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.

Knox Thames

  • Knox Thames was the Special Advisor for Religious Minorities in the Near East and South / Central Asia at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C. The first to serve in this capacity, he received a civil service appointment in September 2015 and leads State Department efforts to address the situation of religious minorities in these regions.

    For over a decade and a half, Mr. Thames has worked in various U.S. government capacities, including at two different U.S. government foreign policy commissions, and is an expert on a range of international affairs issues, including human rights, religious freedom, counter extremism, and international organizations. His country expertise covers the Middle East and South and Central Asia. Before joining the State Department, he was the Director of Policy and Research at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Prior to that, he served in the Office of International Religious Freedom at the State Department and was Counsel for six years at the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (the Helsinki Commission). In addition, the U.S. Army War College appointed him as an Adjunct Professor from 2013-2016 and the State Department appointed him from 2004-2012 to the OSCE Panel of Experts on Freedom of Religion or Belief.

    Mr. Thames holds a Bachelors of Arts from Georgetown College, a Juris Doctorate from American University’s Washington College of Law, and a Masters in International Affairs from American University’s School of International Service. He also studied at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland. An author of numerous articles, his writing has been featured in the Yale Journal of International Affairs, ForeignPolicy.com, and Small Wars Journal. He has been interviewed by the Associated Press, Agence France Presse, the Christian Science Monitor, CNN, FOX News, and the Washington Post.

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.

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.

Amb. Robert Ford

  • Amb. (ret.) Robert S. Ford is currently a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington where he writes about developments in the Levant and North Africa. Amb. Ford  retired from the U.S. Foreign Service in 2014 after serving as the U.S. Ambassador to Syria from 2011 to 2014. In this role, Amb. Ford was the State Department lead on Syria, proposing and implementing policy and developing common strategies with European and Middle Eastern allies to try to resolve the Syria conflict. Prior to this, Amb. Ford was the deputy U.S. Ambassador to Iraq from 2008 to 2010, and also served from 2006 until 2008 as the U.S. Ambassador to Algeria, where he boosted bilateral education and rule of law cooperation. Amb. Ford served as deputy chief of mission in Bahrain from 2001 until 2004, and political counselor to the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad from 2004 until 2006 during the tumultuous establishment of the new, permanent Iraqi government. In 2014 he received the Secretary’s Service Award, the U.S. State Department’s highest honor.  He also received in April 2012 from the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston the annual Profile in Courage Award for his stout defense of human rights in Syria.  He has appeared on CNN, PBS, Fox, MSNBC, NPR, the BBC and Arabic news networks as well as in The New York Times and Foreign Policy.

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.

Ivan Nielsen

  • Ivan M. Nielsen is a former senior Danish diplomat with a legal background, specializing in conflict and transitional contexts focusing on peace and constitution-making processes.  He started his career as human rights adviser to South Africa’s Constitutional Assembly, where he was instrumental in conceptualizing a value-based constitutional process.  He returned to Cape Town as strategic adviser to the South African Parliament, and he was with the Danish Institute for Human Rights and the United Nations for over a decade, providing value-based strategic planning and organizational development to human rights institutions across Africa, Asia, and Latin America.  He joined the Danish diplomatic service in 2007, where he focussed on state fragility and the nexus between foreign and security policy, including in senior positions in Afghanistan (both Kabul and Helmand), Libya and, for more than eight years, as Special Envoy for Syria until he left the the Danish Foreign Ministry in 2021.  As an independent Adviser, Ivan has since been providing strategic, political and leadership advice to a variety of state, political and civil society actors across the world. Ivan is a co-founder of Good people for change.

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.

Ryan Westlake

  • Ryan J. Westlake is the Director of Peacebuilding Strategy and Policy at the Public International Law & Policy Group (PILPG), where she leads PILPG’s capacity-building initiatives to support parties’ engagement in peace negotiations and post-conflict state building processes. She also directs the organization’s strategic communications and has helped launch the annual summer school initiative. At PILPG, Ryan has worked closely with peace process teams focused on Syria, Ukraine, Ethiopia, Sudan, Yemen and Southern Cameroon, and has co-authored scholarship on international law and peace processes. She received her BA in International Politics with a Concentration in National Security and an enhanced minor in the Arabic Language at The Pennsylvania State University.

Emma Bakkum

  • TBD

Adrienne Fricke

  • Adrienne Fricke is a Senior Peace Fellow at PILPG, a Fellow at the Middle East Initiative at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and a consultant specializing in human rights and policy-related issues in the Middle East and Africa. Her interdisciplinary scholarship draws from the fields of law, social science, and international development to address political issues in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Sudan. Since 2007, she has worked with non-governmental organizations, including Refugees International, Physicians for Human Rights, and the Institute of International Education, serving as an expert on Syria and Sudan. Her past projects include policy analysis of medical and nursing education in northwest Syria; access to higher education for Syrian refugees; the rule of law and transitional justice in Sudan, focusing on civilian inclusion in peace processes; and Yemeni public opinion on peacebuilding and negotiations. Ms. Fricke has conducted field research in Chad, Jordan, Lebanon, Sudan, Syria, and Turkey. She holds a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, an M.A. in Near Eastern Studies from New York University, and a B.A. in African Studies from Yale University. Ms. Fricke is fluent in Arabic, French, and Spanish.

Dr. Muhammad Bakr Ghbeis

  • Dr. Bakr Ghbeis (Muhammad Bakr Ghbeis) is a board member of C4SSA. Dr. Ghbeis was born and raised in Damascus, Syria. He is a graduate of Damascus University’s School of Medicine. He immigrated to the US in the early 2000s. Dr. Ghbeis is a cardiac critical care physician and instructor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. Since the early years of the Syrian Uprising, he has been traveling regularly to the Middle East, and has experienced firsthand the socio-political developments. He authored several OpEds about the region and Syria in particular which were published in Foreign Policy, Newsweek, The Hill, The Washington Times, The National Interest, the Middle East Institute, among others.

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.

Joud Monla-Hassan

  • Joud Monla-Hassan is the Director of Citizens for a Secure and Safe America (C4SSA), a Syrian American nonprofit advancing justice, accountability, and a democratic transition in Syria. A Syrian American of Circassian heritage with family roots in Aleppo, she has spent over a decade working at the intersection of grassroots advocacy, survivor-centered justice, and high-level policy engagement. Joud previously served as a Program Officer at the National Democratic Institute and as a Research Analyst at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), where she was a founding member of the Syria Study Group.

    Her fieldwork has taken her across refugee communities in the region, where she has documented survivor testimonies and researched issues including child marriage in displacement settings, with several published articles informing global advocacy. She has spoken widely—including at The Citadel University and international conferences—on the future of post-Assad Syria, stabilization, and the role of global actors. Through her work with U.S. institutions, the United Nations, and civil society networks, Joud continues to advocate for a survivor-informed and Syrian-led international response that is inclusive, credible, and grounded in local realities.

Andrew Mann

  • Andrew (Drew) Mann, J.D., is a Senior Peace Fellow and Strategic Advisor for the Public International Law and Policy Group (PILPG).  Drew served as the Senior Legal Advisor for the Sri Lanka Project, which developed training modules to enhance the professionalism of human rights documenters.  He has also provided training on documentation and international human rights standards to participants in the South Sudan Human Rights Documentation Initiative.  In 2019, he conducted a security and policy assessment of the PILPG Kenya Office.  Furthermore, Drew served as the Senior Legal Advisor for the 2018 Bangladesh/Rohingya Documentation project investigating atrocities committed against the Rohingya. 

    In over 35 years of government service, primarily with the State Department, Drew worked under eight Presidents with assignments in nine countries and the United States and with the UN, retiring as a Senior Foreign Service Officer in 2017.  As a political officer, he spent much of his career in countries transitioning from conflict, such as Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan (Darfur), and Bosnia. 

    During his Foreign Service career, Drew used his legal experience while on detail to the Office of European Affairs, Legal Adviser’s Office at the U.S. State Department.  He was subsequently seconded as an Expert-on-Mission to the Office of the Prosecutor, International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in 1994.  While in Afghanistan in 2007, he served as the Deputy Coordinator in the Rule of Law Office at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.     

    As a Pearson Fellow in 1996, Drew taught courses in human rights and international law at the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington.  He later attended The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, as a State Department Fellow.  In 2013, Drew was honored to teach diplomacy and the interagency at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College as the Commandant’s Distinguished Chair of Diplomacy.  Finally, he served as the State Department’s Diplomat in Residence for the North Central region at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan.

    In 1994, the American Foreign Service Association presented the William R. Rivkin Award for constructive dissent to Drew and his colleagues working on Yugoslav issues for protesting U.S. policy towards Bosnia in 1992-93.

    A cum laude graduate of Wake Forest University and the University of Idaho College of Law, where he was editor-in-chief of the law review, Drew clerked for the Hon. Paul H. Roney, US Court of Appeals for the Fifth/Eleventh Circuit.  He practiced law at the Tennessee Valley Authority and with Lane Powell Moss & Miller in Seattle before joining the Foreign Service in 1985.  He has been a member of the Tennessee, Florida, Washington, and Alaska State Bars.   

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). 

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.

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. 

Darin Johnson

  • Professor Darin Johnson is a Senior Legal Advisor at PILPG and an Associate Professor of Law at Howard University School of Law. Professor Johnson received his B.A. from Yale College in 1997 and his J.D. from Harvard Law School in 2000. At Harvard Law School, he was an Executive Editor of the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review.


    Professor Johnson was recognized by Harvard Law School with the Irving R. Kaufman Public Interest Fellowship, the Samuel Heyman Fellowship for Public Service, and the Wasserstein Public Interest Fellowship. During his final year of law school, Professor Johnson was selected as one of only two commissioned U.S. Army officers to serve in the Secretary of the Army General Counsel’s Office Honors Program at the Pentagon. He served as an Assistant General Counsel to the Army Secretariat for four years, completing his military service with the rank of Captain.


    After leaving the Pentagon, Professor Johnson continued to practice law as an attorney-adviser in the U.S. Department of State’s Office of the Legal Adviser. During his tenure with the Office of the Legal Adviser, Professor Johnson advised on a wide range of international legal issues, involving Middle Eastern, political-military, United Nations, and other multilateral matters. In 2007, he served as the Legal Adviser to the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq. Professor Johnson also served on detail to the Office of the White House Counsel in 2011-12. After returning to the State Department in 2012, Professor Johnson served as Chief of Staff in the newly formed Office of the Special Coordinator for Middle East Transitions, which was tasked with coordinating U.S. assistance to politically transitioning countries in the Middle East and North Africa following the Arab Spring uprisings. He received several Departmental honors for his work.


    Professor Johnson's research interests include constitutional reform, reconciliation, and the rule of law in post-conflict and transitioning states.  Professor Johnson provides legal advice on matters of public international law and the rule of law in post-conflict, transitioning, and developing countries through his work as a Senior Peace Fellow with the Public International Law and Policy Group and his consultancy work.


    Professor Johnson has also served as an adjunct professor and lecturer at Georgetown University Law Center, the Texas Southern University Thurgood Marshall School of Law, and the American University Washington College of Law. He was honored to receive the Faculty Member of the Year Award from the Howard Law Student Bar Association in 2016. Professor Johnson is a member of the Illinois Bar, the D.C. Bar and the U.S. Supreme Court Bar.

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.

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.  

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.”

Heba Bawaieh

  • Heba Bawaieh is the Director of Policy and Innovation at the Public International Law & Policy Group (PILPG), where she leads initiatives on peace negotiations and the inclusion of civil society in conflict-affected contexts, with a particular focus on Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.

    Her professional experience includes serving with multiple United Nations entities. At the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, she contributed to the development of international legal frameworks for counterterrorism in the MENA region. At the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, she worked on civilian protection strategies in fragile and conflict-affected settings.

    Heba has also worked directly with refugee populations in both Moria and Zaatari camps, where she addressed critical issues such as legal representation, access to information during asylum procedures, and family reunification across EU Member States.