Martti Ahtisaari (Chairman of the Board Crisis Management Initiative, Special Envoy of the Secretary-General of the United Nations for the future status process for Kosovo)
Martti Ahtisaari was elected President of the Republic of Finland
in 1994 and held the position until 2000. Before becoming President,
Mr. Ahtisaari held various positions in the Ministry for Foreign
Affairs of Finland including Under-Secretary of State in charge
of International Development Co-operation and Secretary of State.
He served as the United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General
for Namibia in 1978 to 1990 and became the Under-Secretary General
for Administration and Management in 1987.
In 2000 upon leaving office, Mr. Ahtisaari founded the NGO Crisis
Management Initiative, where he is the Chairman of the Board.
Other post-presidential activities have included facilitating
the peace process between the Government of Indonesia and the
Free Aceh Movement, chairing an independent panel on the security
and safety of UN personnel in Iraq and appointments as the UN
Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa and Personal Envoy of the
OSCE CiO for Central Asia. In November 2005 Mr. Ahtisaari was
appointed as the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General of the
United Nations for the future status process for Kosovo. In 2008 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his important efforts, on several continents and over more than three decades, to resolve international conflicts.
Mr. Ahtisaari serves as Chairman of the Balkan Children and Youth
Foundation, as well as of the Governing Council of Interpeace.
In addition he is member of the Board of the EastWest Institute.
In Finland, Mr. Ahtisaari is active on the corporate governing
board of Elcoteq SE.
Sadig Al-Mahdi (President of Umma Party and Imam of Alansar, Sudan)
Mr. Al-Mahdi was elected president of the Umma party in November 1964, and led a campaign to promote political activity, develop political Islam, and reform the party by expanding its base and promoting democracy behavior. Despite his efforts towards a democratic government, there was a coup d´état in 1969 that led to a dictatorship referred to as the May Regime.
He was soon arrested by the military government and exiled to Egypt. While in exile, he formed the National Democratic Front (NDF). Through his efforts, the NDF was able to make an accord of national reconciliation in 1977 with the May Regime that mandated democratic reform. The accord had little effect, and Mr. Al-Mahdi continued his democratization efforts despite his arrest in 1983. He was released in December 1984, and led the opposition from within that drove the revolution of April 1985. He was soon elected President of Umma and won the general elections for the Prime Minister of Sudan in 1986, a position he retained until the government was overthrown in 1989.
After being detained, imprisoned and tortured, Al-Mahdi went into
exile to lead the opposition in 1996, but returned to Sudan in
2000. In 2002 he was elected as the Imam of ALANSAR and in 2003
was re-elected President of Umma and signed the Cairo Declaration
for peace and democratic transformation with the Sudan Peoples
Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) and the Democratic Unionist Party
(DUP). The Khartoum Regime initially welcomed but later refused
to implement the Declaration. Currently, he continues his mobilization
efforts to restore peace and democracy to Sudan, and to solve the
dialectic between modern life and religious revival in the Muslim
World.
Lakhdar Brahimi (Former Under Secretary General and Special Adviser of the Secretary General of the United Nations; Former Foreign Minister for Algeria)
Ambassador Lakhdar Brahimi was appointed Special Adviser to the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in January 2004 and retired in December 2005. As Special Adviser, he advised the Secretary-General on a wide range of issues, including situations in the areas of conflict prevention and conflict resolution. He served the UN in Afghanistan as the Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of the United Nations Assistance Mission where he was entrusted with overall authority for the political, human rights, relief, recovery and reconstruction activities of the United Nations in Afghanistan.
Mr. Brahimi was also the Under-Secretary-General for Special Assignments in Support of the Secretary-General’s Preventive and Peacemaking efforts. In this capacity, he chaired an independent panel established by Kofi Annan to review United Nations peace operations. The report, released by the panel in 2000 and known as the “Brahimi Report”, assessed the shortcomings of the existing system of peacekeeping and made specific recommendations for change, focusing on politics, strategy and operational and organizational areas of need.
Additionally, Mr. Brahimi served as UN Special Representative for South Africa (1993-1994). In this position he led the United Nations Observer Mission until the 1994 democratic elections that resulted in Nelson Mandela taking the presidency of post-apartheid South Africa. He also served the UN in Haiti, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), Yemen, Liberia, Nigeria, Sudan, and Iraq.
Mr. Brahimi was the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Algeria from 1991 to 1993 and Diplomatic Adviser to the President of Algeria from 1982 to 1984. He was awarded four Honorary Doctorates from the American University of Beirut, Oxford University, the University of Nice and the University of Bologna. Today Mr. Brahimi gives lectures all over the world and is involved in several leading panels including, the Commission on Legal Empowerment for the Poor and the Elders council.
Kim Campbell (The Right
Honourable, P.C., Q.C.)
Kim Campbell served as the nineteenth and first female Prime Minister
of Canada in1993. She also held the cabinet portfolios of Minister
of State for Indian Affairs, Minister of Justice and Attorney General,
and Minister of National Defence and Veterans' Affairs. She was
the first woman to hold the Justice and Defence portfolios and
the first woman Minister of Defence of a NATO country.
Ms. Campbell served as Canadian Consul General in Los Angeles (1996-2000) and taught at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University (2001-2004). Most recently (2004-2006), she served as Secretary General of the Club of Madrid, an organization of former Presidents and Prime Ministers of which she is a founding member. Having completed her term, she continues to sit on the Board of Directors.
Kim Campbell is past Chair of the Council of Women World Leaders and past President of the International Women’s Forum. She serves on the boards and advisory committees of a number of international organizations including the Crisis Group, the Middle Powers Initiative, the Forum of Federations, the Salk Institute among others, and serves on corporate boards. Ms. Campbell was educated at the University of British Columbia (BA, 1969, LLB, 1983) and the London School of Economics (Doctoral studies in Soviet Government, ABD, 1970-73) where she’s an Honorary Fellow.
Ms. Campbell speaks widely on issues relating to leadership, international
politics and conflict resolution, democratization, international
trade, gender, and Canadian/American relations.
Jan Eliasson (Ambassador, Special Envoy of the United Nations Secretary-General for Darfur)
A veteran in the fields of diplomacy and foreign relations, Mr.
Eliasson served from 1994 to 2000 as State Secretary for Foreign
Affairs, a key position in formulating and implementing Swedish
foreign policy. In 1992, Mr. Eliasson was appointed the first United
Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and was
involved in operations in Somalia, Sudan, Mozambique and the Balkans.
He also took initiatives on landmines, conflict prevention and
humanitarian action.
During his long diplomatic career, Mr. Eliasson has been posted
to New York (twice) Paris, Bonn, Washington (twice) and Harare,
where he opened the first Swedish Embassy in 1980. He served
as Diplomatic Adviser to the Swedish Prime Minister 1982-1983,
and as Director General for Political Affairs in the Swedish
Ministry for Foreign Affairs 1983-1987. Mr. Eliasson has authored
and co-authored numerous articles and books and is a frequent
lecturer on foreign policy and diplomacy. He is recipient of
honorary doctorate degrees from American University, Washington,
D.C., Uppsala University and Göteborg University, Sweden.
He has been decorated by a number of Governments.
Born in Göteborg, Sweden, in 1940, Mr. Eliasson was an exchange
student in the United States 1957-1958. He graduated from the Swedish
Naval Academy in 1962 and earned a Master’s degree in Business
Administration in 1965.
Gareth Evans (Former President and CEO of International Crisis Group)
Mr. Evans served as President of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, the independent global NGO working with some 130 staff members on five continents to prevent and resolve deadly conflict, from 2000-2009.
He came to Crisis Group after 21 years in Australian politics, thirteen of them as a Cabinet Minister. As Foreign Minister (1988-96) he was best known internationally for his role in developing the UN peace plan for Cambodia, helping conclude the Chemical Weapons Convention, and helping initiate new Asia Pacific regional economic and security architecture. He has written or edited eight books – including Cooperating for Peace, launched at the UN in 1993 – and has published over 90 journal articles and chapters on foreign relations, human rights and legal and constitutional reform.
He was Co-Chair of the International Commission on Intervention
and State Sovereignty, which published its report, The Responsibility
to Protect, in December 2001; and a member and co-author of the
reports of the UN Secretary General’s High Level Panel on
Threats, Challenges and Change (December 2004), the Blix Commission
on Weapons of Mass Destruction (June 2006), and the Zedillo International
Task Force on Global Public Goods (September 2006). He is currently
a member of the UN Secretary-General's Advisory Committee on Genocide
Prevention.
His Royal Highness Prince El Hassan bin Talal (President of the Arab Thought Forum)
His Royal Highness is the youngest son of King Talal bin Abdullah and Queen Zein El Sharaf, and the younger brother of His Late Majesty King Hussein. Prince Hassan graduated from Oxford University with a B.A. (Hon.) and M.A. in Oriental Studies. His Royal Highness has also been awarded numerous honorary doctorates from notable institutions worldwide.
His Royal Highness was officially invested as Crown Prince to the
Hashemite Throne of Jordan in April 1965. Since then, and until
the changes in succession brought about by His Majesty the late
King Hussein in January 1999, he had served as the King’s
closest political advisor, confidant and deputy, as well as acting
as Regent in the King’s absence from the country.
Prince El Hassan initiated, founded and is actively involved in a number of Jordanian and international institutes and committees. On the international stage, many of Prince El Hassan’s ideas and initiatives have acted as a catalyst. Addressing the 36th Session of the United Nations in 1981, His Royal Highness proposed the establishment of the New International Humanitarian Order, which led to a request by the Secretary General to found and co-chair the Independent Commission on International Humanitarian Issues (ICIHI).
Prince El Hassan chairs and is a member of a number of international
committees and organizations. His Royal Highness has also been
a prolific contributor to newspapers, magazines, periodicals as
well as publications on regional and international issues.
Thorvald Stoltenberg (Former President of the Norwegian Red Cross)
A lawyer by training, Mr. Stoltenberg took his first degree in
1957 and then studied International Law and International Relations
in Austria, Switzerland, the USA and Finland.
Formerly the Foreign Minister and Minister of Defense, Norway and UN Special Representative in the former Yugoslavia Mr Stoltenberg worked for the Norwegian foreign service overseas in San Francisco (1959-61), Belgrade (1961-64) and Lagos (1970). He was State Secretary in the Foreign Ministry, in the Ministry of Defense and in the Ministry of Commerce and Shipping.
Mr Stoltenberg was appointed Norwegian Ambassador to the UN in
1989. In 1990 he became UN High Commissioner for Refugees. In 1993
he was appointed Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General
for the former Yugoslavia and UN Co-Chairman of the Steering Committee
of the International Conference on the former Yugoslavia. He was
Norway's Ambassador to Denmark from 1996-1999 and served as President of the Norwegian Red Cross from 1999-2008.