Ambassador Ronald Barnes

Ambassador Ronald Barnes is the diplomatic representative of Traditional and Grassroots communities from Alaska and the Traditional Chair and founding member of the Indigenous Peoples and Nations Coalition (IPNC) - an Indigenous non- ECOSOC Non-governmental Organization from Alaska. The IPNC was accredited to the World Conference against Racism in 2001 and will participate in the Prepcom for the Follow-Up Durban Conference.Ronald Barnes has participated, intervened, addressed or served as a panel speaker at various United Nations meetings at the Commission on Human Rights (2001-2004), the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights (1999-2004), the Working Group on Indigenous Populations (1999-2004), the Working Group of the Draft United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (1995-2004) and contributed with other United Nations Working Groups and Seminars (1995 - present), the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (2002-2003), the 2001 World Conference Against Racism, the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development, the 2003 World Summit on Information Society and has also attended the United Nations Committee on De-colonization (1997).Ambassador Barnes recently attended ABS 6 and also observed WIPO IGC 10 and 12 with a continuing development of knowledge on the issues and continues to read and update on the issues relating to bio-piracy and developments in climate change and bio-ethics and protected areas.Ambassador Barnes has recently submitted reports to the Human Rights Committee and the CERD Committee for the implementation reports of the United States of America to the Treaty Bodies. Ambassador Barnes has lobbied officials at the local, state, national and international levels on, inter alia, self-determination, environment and health where he has met diplomats, foreign ministers or Prime Ministers. He has also engaged in media at all levels and with various media on Indigenous Issues.Ambassador Ronald Barnes is one of the indigenous speakers of the International Symposium on Linguistic Rights (UN, Geneva, 24 April 2008), organized by the World Esperanto Association in collaboration with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and with the NGO liaison office of UNOG.

Professor Bruna Molina

Education : J.D. private (Jesuit) University of “San Salvador”, Buenos Aires, ArgentinaLLM, Comparative Law, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)Professional Experience: International commercial transaction. Private law firms in Buenos Aires, Argentina and California, USA, respectively.Since 1979, worked at the United Nations in the Office of Human Rights and Legal Affairs. Served the Commission of Human Rights for twelve consecutive years.Responsible for Special Procedures mandates, Technical Assistance Programmes and Human Rights Field Operations.In 1993, joined the Office of Legal Affairs as Deputy-Secretary of the Commission of Experts on Former Yugoslavia. Conducted several on site investigatory missions and drafted reports for the Security Council in preparation for the International Criminal Tribunal at the Hague. Further, in 1994, served as Secretary of the Commission of Experts on Rwanda and submitted final report on the investigation to the Security Council.In 1997, appointed Chief of the UN Commission on Human Rights Thematic Mandates covering the areas of protection of civil and political rights (Summary Executions, Disappearances, Torture, Religious Intolerance, Racial Discrimination. Internally Displaced, Violence against women, Abuse of Children, Independence of the Judiciary, Freedom of Opinion and Expression and Mass Exoduses) and economic, social and cultural rights (Right to Development, Extreme Poverty and Migrant Workers).As of June 2002, Director of the World Federation of the UN Associations, Geneva, Switzerland.Professor at Webster University since August 1992.Professor at Geneva School of Diplomacy since 2004.

Dr. Bertrand G. Ramcharan

Dr. Bertrand G. Ramcharan, from Guyana, a former United Nations (UN) official who once held functional diplomatic status, was elected in January 2011 President of UPR Info, an non-governmental organization based in Geneva working to promote and strengthen the Universal Periodic Review. He is also Chancellor of the University of Guyana, Senior Fellow at the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies and currently Visiting Professor of International Law in Lund University, Sweden. Dr. Ramcharan is the first holder of the HEI Swiss Chair of Human Rights at the Geneva Graduate Institute of International Studies. He has a doctorate from the London School of Economics and is a Barrister of Lincoln’s Inn.Dr. Bertrand Ramcharan was in the UN Secretariat for 32 years. He served in the position of Deputy and then Acting UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (2003–2004), before Madam Louise Arbour, at the level of Under-Secretary-General, having previously worked for Her Excellency Mrs. Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland, when she subsequently became UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Previously he had been Director with the International peacemakers and peacekeepers in the Former Yugoslavia, Director of the Africa I Division of the Department of Political Affairs, and head of the speech-writing service of the UN Secretary-General. He has taught as an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University and at the Geneva Graduate Institute of International Studies (HEI). He is the author of numerous books on international law, human rights and the United Nations.

Professor Alfred de Zayas

Education: He holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School, a PhD in Modern history and international relations from University of Göttingen and an B.A. in philosophy and history from Fordham University. A member of the New York and Florida Bars, he practised law in the law firm Simpson Thatcher and Bartlett in New York for three years, and then moved to Europe with a Fulbright Graduate Fellowship. He was head of an “Arbeitsgruppe Kriegsvölkerrecht” (workshop on international humanitarian law) at the University of Göttingen, a senior fellow at the Max Planck Institute in Heidelberg and member of the editorial committee of the Encyclopedia of Public International Law.Professional Experience: In January 1981 he became a staff member of the then UN Division of Human Rights in Geneva, and worked for 22 years as a lawyer for the United Nations, taking early retirement in 2003 in order to teach and write. He was Secretary of the United Nations Human Rights Committee, Senior Human Rights Officer, Deputy Chief of the Communications Branch and Chief of the Petitions Section. He has been Visiting Professor of International Law at DePaul University in Chicago, the Human Rights Centre at Galway, Ireland, the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, the Universität Trier in Germany, the Schiller International University, the Raoul Wallenberg Institute at the University of Lund, the Universidad de Alcalá de Henares in Madrid, the Académie internationale de droit constitutionnel in Tunis, the Santa Clara Law School at Geneva , the Belgrade Centre for Human Rights, the Institute of Humanitarian Law at San Remo, the Institut des Droits de l’Homme at Strasbourg, and the Institut Universitaire de Hautes Etudes Internationales in Geneva. He regularly participates in UN panels and expert groups, including the UN workshop on “The human right to peace “, (Report of the Office of the High Commissioner on the outcome of the experts workshops on the right of peoples to peace) He was President of the UN Society of Writers 1990-2005 and remains Editor-in-Chief of the UN literary journal “Ex Tempore”, which has issued 21 volumes. For many years Secretary-General of PEN International, Centre Suisse Romande, he was elected President in 2006.