Theo van Boven is Honorary Professor of International Law at the International & European Law Department at the Maastricht University. From December 2001 to December 2004 UN Special Rapporteur against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Earlier he served as Director of Human Rights of the United Nations and was a member of the United Nations Sub-Commission for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and of the Committee on the Elimination of Racism and Discrimination. He was also the first Registrar of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. He was the Head of the Netherlands delegation to the United Nations Diplomatic Conference for the Establishment of an International Criminal Court (Rome, 1998). He was President of the Netherlands Association of International Law; Member of the International Commission of Jurists; and a member of the Board of the International Movement against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism. His honours include: Recipient of the Louise Weiss Prize (Strasbourg, 1982), the Right Livelihood Honorary Award (Stockholm, 1985), and the Carnegie Wateler Peace Prize (The Hague, 2004). He has written extensively on international human rights and humanitarian law.

Reed Brody is Counsel and Spokesperson for Human Rights Watch in Brussels. He is author of three HRW reports on the U.S. mistreatment of prisoners in the “war on terror.” His work on the prosecutions of Chilean general Augusto Pinochet and the former dictator of Chad, Hissène Habré, is featured in the new documentary film “The Dictator Hunter.” Before HRW, he led United Nations teams investigating massacres in the Democratic Republic of Congo and monitoring human rights in El Salvador. He helped to prosecute human rights crimes in Haiti. In his 1984 published book he uncovered the crimes by the U.S.-backed “contras” against Nicaraguan civilians. For more information see: www.reedbrody.org

Florian Jeßberger is Professor of Criminal Law, specifically International Criminal Law, at the University of Hamburg. Previously he held the Lichtenberg-Professorship of International and Comparative Criminal Law in the Faculty of Law at Humboldt-University, Berlin. As a Visiting Scholar, he has worked as a Guest Lecturer at the University of California in Berkeley (USA), the University of Naples (Italy), and the University of Western Cape in Cape Town (South Africa). He is a member of the Editorial Committee for the Journal of International Criminal Justice, a co-editor of the Oxford Companion to International Criminal Law & Justice and has published many articles on various aspects of international and comparative criminal law. More information

After studying in the UK and completing here PhD Thesis “Immunität staatlicher Funktionsträger bei schweren Menschenrechtsverletzungen” (Immunity of state officials for grave human rights violations) at Humboldt University, Berlin, she worked for two years as a project leader at a research institute, advising various bodies including the UK Office of Foreign Affairs on topics such as implementation of the Statute of the International Criminal Court. As a policy consultant for the Rat der Evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland (EKD), Monika advocated the rights of refugees and migrants in the European Union until 2005. In January 2008, Monika transferred from Kenya to Cambodia to lead a project promoting women’s rights. At the same time, she worked as a coordinator for the German foreign office, promoting victims’ rights during the trials of the Khmer Rouge genocide tribunal. From 2009 Monika has been Secretary General of Amnesty International Germany.

Manfred Nowak is Professor for International Law and Human Rights at the University of Vienna and Co-Director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights (BIM). From 2004 to 2010 he was the UN-Special Rapporteur on Torture. In this function he published a critical report on the US-detention camp Guantánamo, in which he accused the United States of America of violating international Human Rights standards. Manfred Nowak is head of an independent Human Rights Commission at the Austrian Ministry of Interior and, since 2010, Vice-President of the Austrian UNESCO-Commission. He has also been a member of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) since 1995.

Annemie Schaus is Professor for International and Public Law and attorney, Dean of the Faculty of Law and Director of the Centre for Public Law(Centre de droit public) at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB). Schaus' PHD dealt with the topic "Die Umsetzung internationaler Pflichten im föderalen Staat". She published numerous books on public, european and international law.

Peter Weiss is one of the most recognized and innovative human rights lawyers worldwide, Vice President of the Center for Constitutional Rights, with which he has been associated for forty years. He was a practicing lawyer in the US and is Vice President of the International League for Human Rights, FIDH (La Fédération Internationale des Droits de l'Homme). He has long been involved with the campaign to rid the world of nuclear weapons and is President of the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy and Vice President and former President of IALANA (International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms). He is a member of the Executive Committee of Americans for Peace Now, which advocates a just peace for both sides in the Middle East. In the past he has been President of the American Committee on Africa and Chairman of the Board of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington.