Cosmopolitan International Law: Panelists' Biographies

Hauwa Ibrahim is a Nigerian human rights lawyer, who is currently at Yale as a World Fellow. Ibrahim was awarded the 2005 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, the European Parliament's prestigious human rights award previously held by Aung San Suu Ky and Nelson Mandela. As a defender of women’s rights in Nigeria, she has successfully challenged numerous charges and convictions under strict Islamic Sharia law in her country. One example is the case of Amina Lawal who was condemned to be stoned to death for having given birth outside of marriage – Ibrahim’s effort resulted in a ground-breaking ruling that effectively saved Lawal’s life. Ibrahim has also served as a consultant to the United Nations Development Program, the European Union and the NGO Lawyers without Borders.

David Kennedy, professor of law at Harvard Law School, is a leading representative of the critical legal studies (CLS) movement and one of the first to have applied CLS to international law. Much of his work has concentrated on identifying patterns of international legal discourse with a view to unmasking the true political power dynamics that sophisticated legal argument attempts to conceal. In his recent book, The Dark Sides of Virtue, Kennedy questions from a leftist perspective the cosmopolitan project of international human rights as the cornerstone of international law, arguing that human rights ultimately fails to keep its promise of empowering the poor and marginalized.

Gabor Rona is the International Legal Director of Human Rights First. His expertise encompass not only international human rights law but include international humanitarian law. He previously served as a Legal Advisor in the Legal Division of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Geneva. At the ICRC he focused on the application of international humanitarian and human rights law in the context of counter-terrorism policies and practices. He represented the ICRC in intergovernmental, nongovernmental, academic and public forums and his articles on the topic have appeared in the Financial Times, the Fletcher Forum on World Affairs and the Chicago Journal of International Law, among other publications. In addition, he represented the ICRC in connection with the establishment of international and other criminal tribunals, including the International Criminal Court. He has also taught International Humanitarian Law and International Criminal Law in several academic settings, including the International Institute of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France and the University Centre for International Humanitarian Law in Geneva, Switzerland.

Peter Rosenblum is the Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein Clinical Professor of Human Rights Law at Columbia Law School. He is a dedicated human rights activist who served as human rights officer with the Geneva-based precursor to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, a program director of the International Human Rights Law Group, and a researcher for both Human Rights Watch and the Lawyers' Committee for Human Rights. He has served in more than a dozen countries, and continues to maintain a strong interest in Africa, particularly the Democratic Republic of Congo. His work has given him a unique perspective on both the successes and failures of the human rights law project as reflected in both his academic and professional endeavors.