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MONDAY, May 17, 2010, 7:00 pm

A Human Rights Summit:
The NGOs and the State of Human Rights Today

The human rights community is made up of powerful non-governmental organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Doctors Without Borders and Oxfam who exert enormous influence on international bodies such as the United Nations and the World Health Organization as well as on the foreign and domestic policies of national governments. Who are these organizations?; How representative are they?; Who funds them and do they have hidden agendas?

This fascinating panel, composed of individuals drawn from five countries, will address these questions in a roundtable format which is sure to stir much controversy.


FEATURING:

                    

Alan Mendoza, Robin Shepherd, Nitsana Leitner, Alan Craig, and Ambassador Pierre Prosper

LOCATION: Park Wilshire
10724 Wilshire Blvd. in Westwood.

TIME: 7:30 pm

Admission: Free

Seats limited. Reservations Mandatory
Make reservations here:

BIOGRAPHIES:

Alan Mendoza is a co-founder and Executive Director of The Henry Jackson Society in London, UK. Having obtained a B.A. (Hons.) and M.Phil in history at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, Mr. Mendoza completed a Ph.D. at the same institution focusing on Anglo-American relations during the Bosnian War, 1992-1995. A frequent speaker on various foreign policy topics, his  particular research interests are the transatlantic relationship, the Middle East. and Russia. He represents the Society on various topics in the media and has appeared on the BBC, ITN, Sky, CNBC, Bloomberg and al-Jazeera networks amongst many others. He is also a local Councillor for the London Borough of Brent.

Robin Shepherd is the Director of International Affairs at the Henry Jackson Society in London. Mr. Shepherd has held senior fellowships at some of the world’s most prestigious public policy institutes since leaving international journalism in 2003 when his last position was as Moscow Bureau Chief for The Times of London. Mr. Shepherd’s key areas of expertise are transatlantic relations, American foreign policy, Middle Eastern (particularly Israeli) relations with the West, Russia, central and eastern Europe, NATO and the European Union. His recently published book: A State Beyond the Pale, Europe’s Problem with Israel looks at the reasons for widespread hostility to Israel in Europe among the continent’s opinion makers. 

Nitsana Leitner is an Israeli lawyer, human rights activist and founder of Shurat Hadin Israeli Law Center. She is known for her legal activism, especially campaigns to sue terror organizations and terrorists on behalf of victims. She is also a media personality appearing in the press, on radio and television, including Israeli talk show programs, Voice of Israel Radio, CNN, the BBC, European television, the Jerusalem Report and many American and Canadian publications. Ms. Darshan-Leitner is the mother of six, and married to Israeli attorney Avi Leitner.

Alan Craig was born in London, U.K. and awarded his MBA at Manchester Business School. At the age of 25, he was appointed CEO of an international manufacturing group, employing 2,500 people worldwide. He was first elected to public office in 2002 on behalf of the newly formed Christian People’s Alliance Party of which he is leader. Today Mr. Craig is an elected councillor in the inner city London borough of Newham - one of the UK’s most deprived and most ethnically diverse boroughs. Mr. Craig’s profile has been raised nationally and internationally recently in connection with his campaign of opposition to the Olympics mega-mosque, which is proposed to be built close to the 2012 London Olympic site. If built, it will be the largest mosque in Europe and a global headquarters of the ambitious, secretive fundamentalist Islamic sect, Tablighi Jamaat.

Ambassador Pierre Propser works as an attorney for the international law firm Arent Fox.  Prior to joining the firm, Ambassador Prosper served from 1996 to late1998  as a war crimes prosecutor for the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Appointed lead trial attorney, he successfully prosecuted the matter of Prosecutor against Jean-Paul Akayesu, the first-ever case of genocide under the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. In the 14-month trial, he won additional life-sentence convictions for crimes against humanity and broke new ground in international law by convincing the Tribunal to recognize rape as an act of genocide and a crime against humanity. He was appointed in 2001 by President George W. Bush as US Ambassador-at-Large in charge of the Secretary of State’s Office of War Crimes Issues and, after being unanimously confirmed by the US Senate, served until October 2005. As the President’s envoy and senior diplomat, he traveled worldwide conducting diplomatic negotiations and consultations with heads of state, foreign ministers and senior government officials from over 60 different countries.

Please call the AFA office for further information at 310-444-3085.