Noha Ibrahim Abdelgabar is a Programme Specialist with the Access to Justice and Rule of Law for United Nations Development Programme Sudan. Dr. Abdelgabar also served as a Human Rights Specialist for the Omani National Human Right Commission, Muscat, and Legal Consultant for the Redress Trust Organization, London, the International Rescue Committee, Khartoum, and as a Research Fellow for the Sudan Peace Project at Max Planck Institute, Germany. She received her doctor's degree with a thesis on "Constitutional Reform as a Means of Democratic Transformation in Sudan" at Hamburg University. Dr. Abdelgabar has published in the areas of comparative constitutional law, law reform and human rights.
Huda Ali Alawi holds a doctorate in criminal law from Ain Shams University in Cairo, Egypt. She is teaching at the Faculty of Law of Aden University, Yemen, and is the Director of the Women's Research and Training Center. Dr. Alawi has also been active in advising the legislature on various laws so as to enhance public participation of women and to better ensure equality between men and women. She has conducted extensive research on women's political rights in light of Yemeni legislation. Dr. Alawi has authored many articles, notably on the question of the abolition of the death penalty (2010) and on the freedom and restrictions on the press in Yemeni jurisprudence (2008).
Badria Abdullah Al-Awadhi obtained a Ph.D. in public international law from London University, University College of Law, in 1975. In 2012 she chaired the Committee of Legal Expert in the Arab League, which prepared a draft proposal for the establishment of an Arab Human Rights Court. At present, she is Professor on Human Rights Law at Kuwait International Law School, Director of the Arab Regional Center for Environmental Law. She also served as Dean of the Faculty of Law and Sharia at Kuwait University. Additionally, she currently holds the position of the Deputy Chairman of the Arab Thought Forum. In 2011, she was a member of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry.
Khalid M. Al-Azri is the Secretary General for Oman's Education Council. He obtained his Ph.D. at the University of Melbourne in 2008, after which he was appointed as a Research Fellow at the University of Oxford. His research focuses on social, economic and political structures of the Arab Gulf Countries with specific focus on Oman. His book on social and gender inequality in Oman published in 2012 looks at the formation of the Omani state's identity and the contextualization of the political, legal and social structures of Oman since 1970.
Mohamed Driss Horma Babana has been Professor at the Nouakchott University, Mauritania, since 1988, where he first received his maîtrise in international relations. He holds a state doctorate in public law from Tunis El Manar University, Tunisia, and also received an attestation from the International Academy of Constitutional Law. Since 1996, Dr. Horma Babana has served the Mauritanian Cour des Comptes - the highest public finance controlling institution - as a magistrate and first counselor. He also works as a counselor for the Prime Minister and has been nominated Director of Legislation, Translation and Edition of the Journal Officiel at the General Secretariat of Government and Legal Advisor of Government.
Asli Bali is Assistant Professor of Law at the UCLA School of Law where she teaches public international law, laws of war, and international human rights. Her current research focuses also on comparative law of the Middle East. Recent publications include Pax Arabica Provisional Sovereignty and Intervention in the Arab Uprisings (2012). Prior to obtaining her position at UCLA Law, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Yale Law School. Before joining academia, Professor Bali practiced international law in a variety of contexts, including the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and in the Middle East and North Africa Division of the World Bank.
Kilian Bälz is a partner at Amereller Legal Consultants, an international law firm focusing on the MENA region. Based in Berlin and Cairo, he specializes in projects, finance and energy, as well as related arbitration matters. In addition, he advises international organizations and government bodies on constitutional and law reform. Dr. Bälz studied Law and Middle East Studies at the Universities of Freiburg, Berlin (FU), Damascus, Cairo (diploma in middle east studies, AUC) and London (LL.M., School of Oriental and African Studies). He has published widely on Middle Eastern constitutional and business law.
Bawar Bammarny is a lawyer and lecturer for Arabic public law, private law and Arabic legal terminology at the University of Heidelberg. He studied law in Iraq, and obtained his LL.M. and doctor's degree at the Faculty of Law of the University of Heidelberg. Dr. Bammarny worked in the Iraq project of the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, Heidelberg, above all organizing rule of law training programs for judges, prosecutors, lawyers and other law professionals. His research areas include Arabic and Islamic law, comparative law, oil and gas law, constitutional law and human rights, especially with regard to the rights of religious and ethnical minorities.
Abolhassan Banisadr is an Iranian economist and human rights activist. He took part in the drafting of the Iranian constitution of 1979 and served as the first President of the Islamic Republic of Iran from January 1980 until June 1981, when he was overthrown by the ruling clergy. Prior to his presidency, he served as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of Finance of the interim government. Dr. Banisadr studied religion and economics at the University of Teheran and continued his studies at the University of Paris I (Panthéon-Sorbonne), where he obtained a doctorate and taught. In addition to theorizing the 1979 Iranian Revolution, he has published a wide range of books and articles in the fields of philosophy, theology, sociology and economy.
Mahmoud Cherif Bassiouni is Emeritus Professor of Law at DePaul University, Chicago and Emeritus President of the International Human Rights Law Institute. He currently holds the position of President of the International Institute of Higher Studies in Criminal Sciences, located in Siracusa, Italy, and has served as the Secretary General and President of the International Association of Penal Law. He has been appointed to numerous United Nations positions, such as Chair of the Commissions of Inquiry for Yugoslavia and Libya. The many distinctions he has received include the Defender of Democracy Award (1998), a Nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize (1999), and the Hague Prize for International Law (2007). He is the author of numerous books and articles in several languages.
Yadh Ben Achour is a Tunisian lawyer, Professor of Constitutional Law and expert of Islamic political theory. In January 2011 Mohamed Gannouchi, the Prime Minister of Tunisia, appointed him to be the president of Tunisia's Higher Political Reform Commission, which was charged with overseeing constitutional reform in post-Ben Ali Tunisia. In 2014, Ben Achour was elected as a member of the United Nations Human Rights Committee. President Moncef Marzouki and Dr. Ben Achour developed the concept of an International Constitutional Court, which has been presented to the United Nations and in many other forums in recent years.
Madjid Benchikh is Professor Emeritus of the University of Cergy-Pontoise, France. He has been a member of the University's scientific council and has led the Doctoral School for Law and Human Sciences. Dr. Benchikh also used to act as arbiter in many arbitration courts for international trade and was the first president of Amnesty International in Algeria. Moreover, he participated in many international negotiations, for example at the third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea. Finally, Madjid Benchikh has authored several books, articles and studies, notably among them Droit international du sous-développement (1983) and Algérie: un système politique militarisé (2003).
Francesco Biagi is a Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Foundation for International Peace and the Rule of Law. Prior to this assignment, he worked at the Bologna University's School of Law and the Center for Constitutional Studies and Democratic Development. Dr. Biagi is the author of many publications, focusing mainly on transitions to democracy, constitution-building, and constitutional justice. His latest works include Political and Constitutional Transitions in North Africa: Actors and Factors (2014, with Justin O. Frosini) and "Will Surviving Constitutionalism in Morocco and Jordan Work in the Long Run? A Comparison with Three Past Authoritarian Regimes" (in Cambridge Journal of International and Comparative Law, 2014).
Nadia Bernoussi is Professor of Constitutional Law at the École Nationale d'Administration and the Institut Supérieur de l'Administration in Rabat, Morocco. She also teaches at the Royal Institute of Territorial Administration, the Governance and Economy School and at the Moroccan Academy for International Studies. Dr. Bernoussi was a Member of the Consultative Committee on Constitutional Reform which drafted the Moroccan Constitution of 2011. She is a founding member of the Moroccan Associations of Constitutional Law and Political Sciences and Vice-President of the International Association of Constitutional Law and the International Academy of Constitutional Law.
Ahmed Salem Ould Bouboutt is a Professor of Public Law at the University of Nouakchott, Mauritania. He also teaches at French universities as a guest lecturer. Dr. Bouboutt is a former Member of the Mauritanian Constitutional Council and served as a legal advisor to the Prime Minister as well as to the Ministry of Justice. He was also President of the National Commission for Higher Education. Next to being the author of L'apport du Conseil Constitutionnel au droit administratif (1987), Dr. Bouboutt published numerous articles and studies in the area of public international law as well as the constitutional and administrative law of Mauritania, France, Senegal, and several Arab states.
Nathan Brown, Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington University and non-resident associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, is an expert of law and politics in Arab countries. His current work focuses, among others, on constitutional developments and on the role of Islamist movements in politics in the Arab world. In addition to his academic work, Nathan Brown has served on advisory committees for Human Rights Watch and the committees drafting the Palestinian and Iraqi constitutions. His publications include Constitutions in a Non-Constitutional World: Arab Basic Laws and Prospects for Accountable Government (2001) and The Rule of Law in the Arab World: Courts in Egypt and the Arab States of the Gulf (1997).
Jean d'Aspremont is Professor of Public International Law at the University of Manchester as well as Professor of International Legal Theory at the University of Amsterdam. He is a current member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the European Journal of International Law. Professor d'Aspremont acted as counsel in proceedings before the International Court of Justice. He is series editor of the Melland Schill Studies in International Law and of the Elgar International Law Series. His areas of research include questions pertaining to the law of international organizations, statehood, sources of international law, state responsibility, international dispute settlement, international humanitarian law and international legal theory, on which he has published extensively.
Salwa Fawzi El-Daghili is Professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Benghazi and was a lecturer at the Academy of Graduate Studies in Benghazi, Libya, until the start of the Libyan civil war. She holds a doctor's degree in constitutional law from University of Paris I (Panthéon-Sorbonne), where she wrote a dissertation on "L'originalité du modèle libyen de la juridiction constitutionnelle par rapport au modèle français" (2009) under the supervision of Professor Jean Gicquel. Dr. El-Daghili served as Member of the Libyan National Transitional Council, where she was in charge of Legal Affairs and Human Rights, until the dissolution of the Council. She also served as Special Representative of Women's Affairs at the Transitional Council.
Kaouthar Debbeche is Associate Professor of Public Law at the Faculty of Legal, Political and Social Sciences of the University of Tunis II. She holds an LL.M. and a doctorate in law and has specialized in public law, specifically constitutional law, as well as international law, with a focus on the law of the sea. Dr. Debbeche is a member of the research team on "International Law, International Jurisdictions and Comparative Constitutional Law" at the University of Tunis II. She is also a founding member and General Secretary of the Tunisian Centre of Constitutional Law for Democracy, where she is involved in the identification and resolution of legal problems arising during the transitional period in Tunisia.
Philippe Droz-Vincent is Professor of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Grenoble, France. He is an expert of politics and civil-military relations in the MENA region. Dr. Droz-Vincent published numerous books and articles, including "Prospects for Democratic Control of the Armed Forces? Comparative Insights and Lessons for the Arab World in Transition" (in Armed Forces and Society, 2013) and "The Military amidst Uprisings and Transitions in the Arab World" (in The New Middle East, Protest and Revolution in the Arab World, ed. Fawaz Gerges, 2014). His main research interests are the Arab uprisings in 2011, the different paths of transition and state building, and the role of the security forces in Middle Eastern countries.
Baudouin Dupret is Director of Research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris, and Director of the Centre Jacques-Berque for the Human and Social Sciences in Rabat, Morocco. He is also guest lecturer in Islamic law and socio-legal sciences at the University of Louvain and at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris. After having graduated from the American University in Cairo in middle eastern studies in 1993, he conducted research projects at various institutions, for example at the Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches sur le Monde Arabe Contemporain of the University of Louvain. Dr. Dupret recently edited La Charia aujourd'hui. Usages de la référence au droit islamique (2012).
Omar Faraj is a Research Fellow at the Max Planck Foundation for International Peace and the Rule of Law, where he is working in projects on Iraq and Afghanistan since January 2013 after ten years of service as a legal expert. He obtained his law degree from the University of Baghdad, Iraq. He continued his academic career at the Universities of Malmö and Lund, Sweden where he received a master's degree in human rights and a LL.M. in international maritime law. Mr. Faraj has also published in area of maritime law. He is active in a variety of organizations, including the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan and the Malmö Association for Foreign Affairs. Moreover, he is a member of the Iraqi Bar Association.
Imen Gallala-Arndt is Senior Research Fellow at the Department for the Law of Islamic Countries at the Max Planck Institute for Foreign Private Law and Private International Law in Hamburg. She holds an LL.M. and a doctorate from the University of Heidelberg. She studied law at the Faculty of Law Tunis II, from which she holds a Maîtrise en sciences juridiques and a Diplôme des études approfondies en droit public et financier. Dr. Gallala-Arndt also taught at this faculty as an assistant lecturer in public international law. Her main fields of research are national and international family and succession laws of Islamic countries.
Rainer Grote, Dr. iur., LL.M. (Edinburgh), Adjunct Professor of Public Law at the University of Göttingen, is a Senior Reasearch Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Public Comparative Law and Public International Law in Heidelberg, Germany. He studied law at the universities of Bielefeld, Geneva, Göttingen and Edinburgh and holds a doctor degree from the University of Göttingen. Dr. Grote teaches and writes in the fields of constitutional law, comparative law and international law. Recent publications include Constitutionalism in Islamic Countries: Between Upheaval and Continuity (2012, with Tilmann Röder) and EMRK/GG Konkordanzkommentar (2013, with Oliver Dörr and Thilo Marauhn).
Ali M. El-Haj is lecturer and researcher in English law at the Centre for British Studies of Humboldt University of Berlin. He teaches, among others, "Constitutional Law and Political System" and "Law and Culture". Ali El-Haj was previously a Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, and later at the Max Planck Foundation for International Peace and the Rule of Law, where he worked on various projects on constitutional reform in Arab countries, with a particular focus on Egypt, Libya and Tunisia. He received his LL.M. degree in public international law from the University of Cambridge and LL.B. (Hons) law degree from University College London. His research interests are in public international law and constitutional law.
Mohammad Hammouri is Professor and Founding Dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Jordan. He is also the founding partner and chairman of the law firm Hammouri and Partners. Dr. Hammouri served as Minister of Culture and National Heritage and Minister of Higher Education. He also served as Member of the Royal Committee for preparing the National Integrity Charter in Jordan, Member of the Ministers' Legal Cabinet Committee, Member of the Cairo based Regional Center for International Commercial Arbitration and Member of the Board of Trustees of the Arab Anti-Corruption Organization. Dr. Hammouri obtained his Ph.D. from Cambridge University. He has published numerous articles and books in comparative and constitutional law.
Shaikh Humam Hamoudi is Member of the Iraqi Council of Representatives, where he belongs to the United Iraqi Alliance faction, and is a prominent leader of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq. He was chairman of the committee that drafted the Iraqi Constitution in 2005. Currently, he is First Deputy Speaker of the Council of Representatives and chairs the parliamentary Constitution Review and Foreign Relations Committees. Additionally, he is the Supervisor of the Iraqi Institute for Thought Dialogue, which issues the quarterly magazine of Thought Dialogue (in Arabic). Dr. Hamoudi is also a lecturer and university professor in social, human and political sciences.
Assem Hefny studied German, Arabic and Islamic Studies at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt. Between 1996 and 2004, he worked as a research assistant at the Department of German Studies and Islamic Studies of Al-Azhar University. He obtained his doctorate at the University of Leipzig in 2010 with a thesis on religious-political terminology and Muslim understanding of power in the light of Egyptian authors. He is engaged in research projects on Islamic banking in Germany and an active member of the Society for Arab and Islamic Law Association (GAIR). Since 2012, Dr. Hefny teaches at the Center for Near and Middle Eastern Studies of University Marburg. His publications include Herrschaft und Islam (2014) and Islamisches Zivilrecht der hanfitischen Lehre (2013).
Ferhat Horchani is Professor at the Faculty of Law and Political Sciences at the University of Tunis II, where he heads the research center Droit des Relations Internationales des Marchés et des Négociations. His fields of interest cover international law, economic law, international investment law, constitutional law and human rights. Moreover, he is the Head of the Tunisian Association of Constitutional Law. Following the uprising in Tunisia, Ferhat Horchani was appointed as expert to the Higher Committee for the Realization of the Goals of the Revolution and presided over the sub-committee tasked with drafting the Law on the Election of the Constituent Assembly.
Noureddine Jebnoun teaches at Georgetown University's Center for Contemporary Arab Studies. Prior to this assignment, he served as Assistant Professor at the War College, the Command and General Staff College, and the National Defense Institute in Tunisia. Dr. Jebnoun is co-editor of Modern Middle East Authoritarianism: Roots, Ramifications, and Crisis (2013 / 2015) and author of L'espace méditerranéen: les enjeux de la coopération et de la sécurité entre les rives nord et sud à l'aube du XXIème siècle (2003). His research interests include governance issues and security challenges in the Arab Middle East and North Africa and the Sahel region. He holds a doctorate in political science from Sorbonne University (1996) and a diploma of the NATO Defense College (2001).
Ali Karimi is Professor at the Faculty of Law at the University Hassan II and leads the Research Unit on Human Rights and Public Liberties at the Law School in Casablanca. He also teaches at the Higher Institute of Communication and Information in Rabat, is the Head of the Moroccan Association of Political Sciences and leads the Moroccan Center of Research and Studies on Communication and Human Rights. Dr. Karimi further assists the Justice and Reconciliation Commission of Morocco and many international organizations, including UNESCO and ICISCO, as legal expert. Among others, he wrote the chapter on Morocco in the volume Droits culturels au Maghreb et en Égypte (2010) and a book on the law of communication and media in the Maghreb countries (2011).
Asem Khalil is Associate Professor of Law and Dean of the Faculty of Law and Public Administration of Birzeit University, Palestine. He has also been teaching at Bethlehem University. Dr. Khalil is a member of the Academic and Teaching Committee at the Palestinian Judicial Institute at Ramallah and of the network of experts in the Euro-Mediterranean Consortium for Applied Research on International Migration at the European University Institute (Florence, Italy). Dr. Khalil holds a doctor's degree in public law from Fribourg University, Switzerland and a master in public administration from the École Nationale d'Administration in Paris, France.
Siraj Khan (LL.M., MSc.) is Country Manager and Research Fellow at the Max Planck Foundation for International Peace and the Rule of Law, Heidelberg, Germany. He is working on post-Arab-Spring constitutional developments in Arab and Muslim States related to constitutional law and processes, international law and human rights. He trained as a Barrister at the Inns of Court School of Law, London, and was called to the Bar of England and Wales in 2010. Mr. Khan holds postgraduate degrees in International Law (UWE Bristol) and Islamic Studies (Edinburgh) and is currently reading for a Ph.D on the Sharia clause in state constitutions and international legal obligations. He is also traditionally trained in Islamic Theology, Qur' anic Exegesis, Islamic Law and Jurisprudence (Cairo).
Awn Shawkat Al-Khasawneh is a Jordanian statesman, jurist and diplomat. From 2000 until 2011, he served as Judge at the International Court of Justice, where he held the office of the Vice-President from 2006 until 2009. In October 2011, he was appointed as Prime Minister of Jordan, an office he held until April 2012 when he resigned. Dr. Al-Khasawneh was also President of the Royal Hashemite Court of Jordan (1996-1998), a Member of the UN International Law Commission (1986-2000) and of the Human Rights Sub Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and the Protection of Minorities (1982-1993). He has lectured widely and continues to lecture and contribute to many learned journals.
Clark Lombardi is Associate Professor of Law and Adjunct Associate Professor of International Studies at the University of Washington, where he specializes in Islamic law, constitutional law, and law and development. He completed his Ph.D. in 2001 from Columbia's Department of Religion with a dissertation on the incorporation of the Sharia into Egyptian constitutional law. Clark Lombardi is the author of State Law as Islamic Law in Modern Egypt (2006) and numerous articles. He is a senior editor of the forthcoming Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and Law and co-editor of OUP's book series Oxford Islamic Legal Studies. He has worked on numerous legal reform projects in the Muslim world.
Said Mahmoudi is Professor of International Law and former Dean of the Faculty of Law of Stockholm University, Sweden. His main fields of interest include the law of the sea, international environment law, the use of force and international organizations. In recent years, he started to focus on the relation of international law to common values and principles. Dr. Mahmoudi's present research focuses on the relation between Islam and international law. He is a member of the editorial board of Atoms for Peace: An International Journal and of the editorial board of Scandinavian Studies in Law. Prior to his academic career, he served as diplomat in the Iranian foreign service.
Antoine Nasri Messarra, a lawyer and sociologist, is member of the Constitutional Council of Lebanon, and Professor at Lebanese University and Saint-Joseph University in Lebanon. He is the founder of the Lebanese Foundation for Permanent Civil Peace and member of the commissions on civic education and history of the Centre de recherche et de développement pédagogique. Dr. Messarra's publications include La citoyenneté dans une société multicommunautaire: Le Liban en perspective comparée (2007) and Théorie juridique des régimes parlementaires mixtes: Constitution libanaise et Pacte national en perspective comparée (2013).
Mohammed Amin Al-Midani obtained the degree of doctor of international law from Strasbourg University, France. He is the President of the Arab Center for International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights Education in Strasbourg and Deputy Director of the Research Group in Islamic Religion at Strasbourg University. Additionally, Dr. Al-Midani works as Lecture Fellow at Strasbourg University, Visiting Professor at Jinan University in Tripoli, Lebanon, is Editor-in-Chief of the Jinan Human Rights Journal, and is Independent Researcher at the Yemen Center for Studies and Researches. He has published numerous texts and books, including Les droits de l'homme et l'Islam. Textes des Organisations arabes et islamiques (2nd edn, 2010).
Hatem M'rad is Professor of Political Science at the Faculty of Legal, Political and Social Sciences of Tunis. He was Director of the Department of Public Law and Political Sciences from 2005 to 2011. Moreover, he co-founded and chairs the Tunisian Association of Political Studies and is a member of the Executive Committee of the International Political Science Association. He has been a visiting professor to various institutions in France, including the University of Lyon III and the University of Paris-Sud XI. Among other works, Dr. M'rad has published Liberalism and Liberty in the Arab-Muslim World. From Authoritarism to Revolution (2011), The Democratic Deficit under Bourguiba and Ben Ali (2014) and Tunisia: from the Revolution to the Constitution (2014).
Dr. Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im is Charles Howard Candler Professor of Law and Associated Professor in Emory College of Arts and Sciences as well as Senior Fellow of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion of Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia. Dr. An-Na'im is the author and editor of numerous books, notably What is an American Muslim (2014), Muslims and Global Justice (2011), Islam and the Secular State (2008) and Human Rights in Cross-Cultural Perspectives: Quest for consensus (1992). His previous research projects include women's access to, and control over, land in seven African countries, a global study of Islamic family law, and a fellowship program in Islam and human rights. Dr. An-Na'im was formerly the Executive Director of the African bureau of Human Rights Watch.
Gianluca P. Parolin is Assistant Professor of Law at the Aga Khan University in London. Prior to this assignment, he taught comparative law and Islamic law reform at the American University in Cairo, Egypt. Dr. Parolin obtained his LL.M. and later his doctorate from the University of Torino, Italy. Following the First World Congress on Middle Eastern Studies, he was invited to observe the 2002 general elections in Bahrain. Asked to be the rapporteur on constitutional provisions on Sharia to the Second Conference of the International Consortium on Law and Religion Studies, he started developing a comparative overview of such provisions within the legal systems in Muslim-majority countries.
Xavier Philippe is Professor of Public Law at Aix-Marseille University and Extraordinary Professor at the University of the Western Cape (South Africa). He is the director of the Louis Favoreu Institute - Research Group on Comparative Constitutional Litigation (GERJC) that focuses on comparative constitutional litigation and legal matters relating to state building in post-conflict scenarios. His recent works include Question prioritaire de constitutionnalité: premiers bilans (2011) and "Les processus constituants après les révolutions du printemps arabe - l'exemple de la Tunisie: rupture ou continuité?" (in Mélanges offerts à Jean Du Bois de Gaudusson, 2013).
Hassan Rezaei is an expert of comparative law, focusing on Islamization of legal and judicial systems within the Muslim Middle Eastern societies. Currently he is working as the Judicial Affairs Officer at the United Nations Support Mission in Libya. Prior to this position, he served as Justice Reform Coordinator for the United Nations in Afghanistan. Dr. Rezaei has been a Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and Foreign Criminal Law in Freiburg, the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg, and the Kluge Center of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Additionally, he worked as a legal advisor to the Research Center of the Sharia and the Constitution Council of Iran.
Tilmann Röder is a Managing Director of the Max Planck Foundation for International Peace and the Rule of Law in Heidelberg, Germany. From 2006 until 2012, he was a Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg, Germany. Dr. Röder mainly writes on constitutional and international law, legal pluralism, and legal history. His recent publications include Constitutionalism in Islamic Countries: Between Upheaval and Continuity (2012, with Rainer Grote) and "Civil-Military Cooperation in Building the Rule of Law" (in Rule of Law Dynamics, 2012). He is a Member of the Advisory Panel on Civilian Crisis Prevention of the German Federal Government.
Anja Schöller-Schletter is a legal expert at Amereller Legal Consultants in Cairo. She also works as an independent consultant, particularly on constitutional matters, for international organizations and institutions. From 2000 until 2004, she was project coordinator at the Zentrum für Entwicklungsforschung in Bonn, Germany, and Senior Research Fellow at the Max-Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg. Afterwards, she represented the International Association of French Lawyers of International Expertise. Dr. Schöller-Schletter wrote her dissertation on the Constitution of Paraguay. Since then, she has published numerous articles on law and development themes, including on the recent constitutional development in Egypt.
Timo Tohidipur is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow and Lecturer at the Institute for Public Law of Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main. He teaches comparative and German constitutional law, European law, legal theory, and migration and refugee law. Dr. Tohidipur taught as visiting professor in Beijing, China, Santiago de Chile, and Vilnius, Lithuania. He wrote his doctorial thesis about the judicial system of the European Union. Recent publications include "Comparative Constitutional Studies and the Discourse on Legal Transfer" (in Order from Transfer, 2013) and "Iran und die Narrative west-östlicher Begegnung" (in Kritische Justiz, 2012).
Rüdiger Wolfrum is a Judge at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and a Managing Director of the Max Planck Foundation for International Peace and the Rule of Law in Heidelberg, Germany. From 1993 until 2012, he served as a Director of the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law and taught as Professor of National Public and International Public Law at the University of Heidelberg. Before these assignments, he was Director of the Institute of International Law of the University of Kiel and Vice-Rector of the University of Kiel (1990-1993). Dr. Wolfrum is the editor of the Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law (OUP) and amongst others of United Nations, Law Policies and Practice (1995).
