Faculty and staff from the sponsoring institutions will participate throughout the seminar, making presentations as well as leading discussions.

Manuel Bessler is the Chief of the Promotion of the Humanitarian Agenda Unit in the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs at the United Nations (OCHA) in New York. Between 1991 and 1999 he worked for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in different field missions, including as Legal Advisor and Head of Sub-Delegation in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories; Liaison and Information Delegate in Haiti, and Head of Mission in Chechnya and Head of Delegation in Iraq. In 1994 he served as Military Assistant to the Force Inspector General of the UN Protection Force in the former Yugoslavia (UNPROFOR). Before his work with the ICRC and UNPROFOR he practiced law in Zurich, Switzerland. He holds degrees from the University of Zurich and Harvard Law School.

Gabriella Blum is Visiting Assistant Professor at the Harvard Law School where she teaches international law and international negotiations. Following her studies of law and economics at Tel Aviv University, Gabriella joined the Israel Defense Forces, and served at the International Law Department, Judge Advocate General’s Corps. During her six years of military service, she has been involved in the Israeli-Arab peace negotiations, Israeli strategic cooperation with other militaries, and the administration of the Palestinian occupied territories. She also served as Head of the Israeli Counter-Terrorism Bureau advising on targeting and counter-terrorism operations in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and Strategic Advisor to the Israeli National Security Advisor. Ms. Blum’s doctoral dissertation, “Islands of Agreement: Managing Enduring Armed Rivalries”, is to be published by Harvard University Press next year.

Stephane Bourgon has practiced before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) since 1998. Initially he worked as a legal counselor in the Office of the Prosecutor before becoming the Chief of the Cabinet for the President of the Tribunal, Judge Claude Jorda. Currently, Mr. Bourgon holds the position of Defense Counsel before the ICTY. His direct involvement in various cases has placed him a privileged position to follow the evolution of international criminal justice. He was recently elected President of the Association of the Defense Counsel practicing before the ICTY.

Antoine Bouvier is the ICRC Legal Advisor Delegate to Academic Circles. Mr. Bouvier joined the ICRC Legal Division as a Legal Adviser in 1984. From 1993-1994, he was Head of the ICRC Mission in Malawi. After two years as Deputy Head of the ICRC Division for Policy and-Cooperation within the Movement, he was appointed Delegate to Academic Circles. In this capacity he has conducted a large number of training sessions in all parts of the world. Mr. Bouvier is the author of several articles on IHL and its dissemination and coauthor, with Prof. Marco Sassoli, of the Casebook "How does Law protect in War?". Mr. Bouvier studied Law and International Relations at Geneva University and the Graduate Institute of International Studies.

Claude Bruderlein is the Director of the Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research. He is a Lecturer at the Harvard School of Public Health and in Winter 2004 was appointed as Jeremiah Smith, Jr., Lecturer on Law at the Harvard Law School. He has been engaged in international humanitarian protection since 1985. He served with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) as a delegate in Iran, Israel and the Occupied Territories, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Yemen. In 1996, he joined the United Nations in New York as Special Advisor on Humanitarian Affairs. Mr. Bruderlein currently advises the UN Secretariat on humanitarian issues, the negotiation of humanitarian access and conflict prevention strategies. Mr. Bruderlein holds a B.A. from McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and a law degree from the University of Geneva Law School, where he specialized in International Law. He also holds a Master's degree in Law from Harvard Law School and was admitted to the New York Bar.

Colonel Donald Jackson is the Director of Civil Affairs and Civil-Military Operations at the U.S. Army Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute at the United States Army War College at Carlisle Barrack. Colonel Jackson’s most recent assignment was as the Deputy G5 (Civil Affairs Officer) of the United States Army, IIId Mechanized Corps and Combined Joint Task Force 7 and the Multi-National Corps – Iraq. Colonel Jackson’s commands include Commander of D Company, 1st Battalion, 61st Infantry Regiment, 1st Armored Brigade, 5th Infantry Division, Fort Polk, Louisiana. Significant staff assignments include Company XO (Execute Officer), A Company 2nd Battalion, 13th Infantry Regiment and Assistant S4 (Logistics) 2nd Brigade, 8th Infantry Division, Mannheim, Germany. Colonel Jackson’s awards and decorations include two Bronze Star Medals (one for VALOR) in Iraq. He is a graduate of Northwestern State University, United States Army Command General Staff College and the University of South Carolina.

Andres Kruesi was appointed as the Delegate to the Armed Forces in Washington in early 2004. He serves as the ICRC's principal liaison on matters of doctrine, training and education with the US and Canadian Forces and with NATO’s Allied Command Transformation; his portfolio also includes relations with the US-based private military and security industry and, since 2006, liaison with the UN’s Department for Peacekeeping Operations. Andres joined the ICRC in early 2000. He served as the delegate for the southern part of the Gaza Strip until September 2001. He was subsequently appointed to head the ICRC’s sub-delegation in Basra, eventually leaving Iraq in October 2003. Before joining the ICRC, Andres worked for the Swiss government in the Balkans, including as assistant to the Dayton-mandated Ombudsperson for Bosnia and Herzegovina and at the embassy in Albania during the Kosovo crisis. He also served as a reserve officer in the Swiss Army in 1993, 1995, and 1996 as a peacekeeper in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Andres holds degrees in business administration and development management and speaks English, German, French, Spanish, Italian and Arabic.

Jennifer Leaning is Professor of the Practice of International Health and Director of the Program on Humanitarian Crises at the Francois-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights at the Harvard School of Public Health. She is also an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. She is board certified in both internal medicine and emergency medicine, and is an attending physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital. She has extensive field experience in disaster response, humanitarian emergencies, and human rights investigations in the Middle East, former USSR, Somalia, Kosovo, and the African Great Lakes region. She holds degrees from Radcliffe College, the Harvard School of Public Health and the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine.

Naz K. Modirzadeh is Senior Associate at HPCR, where she manages the International Humanitarian Law and Middle East portfolios. Ms. Modirzadeh previously worked for Human Rights Watch, and later served as Assistant Professor and Director of the International Human Rights Law MA Program at the American University in Cairo. She has carried out field research and trainings in the Middle East and Afghanistan, and has spoken at various academic and professional conferences focusing on the intersections between Islamic law, International human rights and humanitarian law, and post-conflict legal reform. Ms. Modirzadeh has published policy and monitoring reports on torture of political dissidents, the application of IHL in Iraq, and legal reform, Islamic law, and human rights in post-war Afghanistan. Modirzadeh received her BA from the University of California, Berkeley with Highest Distinction and her JD cum laude from Harvard Law School. While at Harvard, she served as the Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Human Rights Journal. Her most recent publication is “Taking Islamic Law Seriously: INGOs and the Battle for Muslim Hearts and Minds,” in the Harvard Human Rights Journal.

Marco Sassoli, national of Switzerland and Italy, is, since March 2004, ordinary professor of international law at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, and chairs the boards of the University Centre for International Humanitarian Law in Geneva and of Geneva Call, an NGO with the objective to engage armed non-State actors to adhere to humanitarian norms. He is also a member of the board of the International Council on Human Rights Policy. From 2001-2003, he was regular professor of international law at the University of Quebec in Montreal, Canada, where he remains associate professor. He graduated as doctor of laws at the University of Basel (Switzerland) and is member of the Swiss bar. He has worked from 1985-1997 for the International Committee of the Red Cross at the headquarters, inter alia as deputy head of its legal division, and in the Middle East and the Balkans, inter alia as head of delegation in Jordan and Syria and as protection co-ordinator for the former Yugoslavia. He has also served as executive secretary of the International Commission of Jurists and as registrar at the Swiss Supreme Court. He has published on international humanitarian law (see in particular M. Sassoli & A. Bouvier, How Does Law Protect in War?, 2nd ed., Geneva, ICRC, 2006, 2473 pp.), human rights law, international criminal law, the sources of international law and state responsibility.

Charles Sennott has worked in foreign postings for The Boston Globe during the past nine years. Most recently, he was the Globe's London bureau chief, a base from which he covered the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the transatlantic divide over Iraq and the terrorist bombings in Madrid and London. Before London, he was based in Jerusalem as the Globe's Middle East bureau chief. For more than 15 years, he has reported in the Middle East, focusing his work on the rise of religious extremism in that region. Prior to joining the Globe, Sennott worked as a reporter and deputy city editor at the New York Daily News. He is the author of two books: "The Body and the Blood: The Middle East's vanishing Christians and the possibility for peace," and "Broken Covenant: The rise and fall of Covenant House's Rev. Bruce Ritter." His work has won a number of awards including the Society of Professional Journalists' 1989 public-service prize, the Livingston Award for National Reporting and the Foreign Press Association of London's 2004 story of the year award.

Beat Schweizer was appointed as the Deputy Director-General of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in April 2004. He joined the ICRC in 1987 and carried out assignments as a field delegate in Angola, Sudan, Thailand, Cambodia, Bosnia and Sri Lanka. Mr. Schweizer was the head of the ICRC delegation in Bosnia (1995 to 1996), in Central Asia, based in Tashkent (1997 to 1999), in Iraq (1999 to 2001) and in Iran (2001 to 2002). Beat Schweizer holds a Masters degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and a Masters degree in Public Administration from Harvard University (John F. Kennedy School of Government) in the U.S.

Daphna Shraga is the Principal Legal Officer in the Office of the Legal Counsel, Office of Legal Affairs, United Nations. Ms. Shraga was involved in the drafting of the Statutes for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, as well as in the negotiation of the Agreements on the establishment of the Special Court for Sierra Leone and the Extraordinary Chambers for Cambodia. She is the author of a number of articles on the international criminal tribunals, as well as the applicability of international humanitarian law to UN peacekeeping operations. She holds an L.L.B and L.L.M from Tel-Aviv University.

Philip Sundel is Deputy Legal Advisor in the Washington Regional Delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross. In that capacity he provides legal support to ICRC activities in the United States and Canada, including ICRC visits to the US detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Prior to joining the ICRC, in June 2005, Mr. Sundel spent 14 years as a judge advocate in the US Navy. His Navy experiences included service as a trial and appellate defense counsel, prosecutor with the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, Deputy Director of the Navy’s Appellate Government Division, and defense counsel in the Office of Military Commissions.

Additional faculty bios are forthcoming.