Prof. Dr. Khaled Abou El Fadl - Khaled Abou El Fadl is one of the leading authorities in Islamic law in the United States and Europe. He was named as a 2005 Carnegie Scholar in Islamic studies. Prof. Abou El Fadl teaches Islamic law, Middle Eastern Investment Law, Immigration Law, and courses related to human rights and terrorism at the UCLA School of Law. He works with various human rights organizations, such as Human Rights Watch and the Lawyer's Committee for Human Rights and often serves as an expert witness in international litigation involving Middle Eastern law, and in cases involving immigration law and political asylum claims.
Dr. Ebrahim Afsah - Ebrahim Afsah has served from 2003-2008 in various posts in Afghanistan related to state building, lastly as a Senior Advisor to the European Commission Delegation in Kabul on administrative reform and institutional development. Previously, he set up the legal training projects of the Max Planck Institute for International Law in Afghanistan and Jordan, and consulted for the World Bank, GTZ, UNDP and UNODC on constitutional, legal and administration reform. Dr. Afsah is currently finalizing a monograph on the adaptation of the laws of war to asymmetric conflict.
Prof. Dr. Shahram Akbarzadeh - Shahram Akbarzadeh is the Deputy Director of the National Centre of Excellence for Islamic Studies at Melbourne University. His research areas of interest include Middle East and Central Asian politics, as well as Muslim diaspora. He has published widely in top ranking refereed journals. Among his latest publications are 'Uzbekistan and the United States' (Zed Books, London 2005), 'US Foreign Policy in the Middle East' (Routledge, London 2008), and 'Muslim Communities in Australia' (Melbourne University Press, Melbourne 2001).
Zaid Al-Ali, LL.M. - Zaid Al-Ali studied law at King's College London, the University of Paris I (Pantheon-Sorbonne) and Harvard Law School. He has been practicing international commercial arbitration in Paris, New York, and London since 1999 and was Legal Advisor to the United Nations, focusing on constitutional and parliamentary reform in Iraq from 2005 until 2009, and on strengthening the rule of law since 2005. His book on the Iraqi Constitution will be published by Hart Publishing (Oxford) in 2010.
Prof. Dr. Saïd Amir Arjomand - Saïd Amir Arjomand is Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Director of the Institute for Global Studies at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He is the Editor of the 'Journal of Persianate Studies', and the author of standard works on Iran: 'The Shadow of God and the Hidden Imam' (University of Chicago Press, Chicago l984), 'The Turban for the Crown' (Oxford University Press, New York 1988). He has most recently published 'After Khomeini, Iran under his Successors' (Oxford University Press, New York 2009) and edited 'Constitutionalism and Political Reconstruction' (Brill, Leiden 2007) and 'Constitutional Politics in the Middle East' (Hart Publishing, Portland 2008).
Dr. Nathalie Bernard-Maugiron - Nathalie Bernard-Maugiron is a senior researcher at the French Institute of Research for Development (IRD). She works on the judiciary, constitutional law and the democratization process in Egypt and the Arab World, and teaches Contemporary Law in the Muslim World at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris). From 1999 to 2004 she worked as senior research fellow for the French Cairo-based Centre d'études et de documentation économiques, juridiques et sociales. She also taught Egyptian Law, Human Rights Law and International Law at the American University in Cairo and at Cairo University (French Law Section).
Dr. Markus Böckenförde - Markus Böckenförde is a Program Officer for the Constitution Building Programme at IDEA International, Stockholm, Sweden. Before joining IDEA, he was the Head of the Africa Projects and a Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg for several years. In 2006 to 2007, Dr. Böckenförde was seconded by the German Foreign Office to the Assessment and Evaluation Commission (AEC) in Sudan as its Legal Expert. He has published widely in the area of constitution building and has worked as a consultant for, among others, UNDP, GTZ and the German Foreign Office.
Emma Brown, MA - Emma Brown is a barrister-at-law, Middle Temple and practices at the Chambers of John Coffey QC, 3 Temple Gardens. She also lectures at the College of Law and has spent periods in Israel and the Occupied Territories working for Adalah, Al-Haq, the Independent Commission for Human Rights in Palestine (ICHR) and the British Human Rights Commission (BHRC). Mrs. Brown has also worked in Turkey monitoring compliance with the European Convention on Human Rights. She is currently on the list of defence counsel for the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.
Dr. Osman Can - Osman Can is working as a Reporting Judge at the Turkish Constitutional Court dealing with cases concerning prohibitions on political parties, fundamental rights and constitutional amendments. Besides he is teaching at the TOBB University of Economics and Technology in Ankara since 2009. Dr. Can previously taught constitutional law as an assistant lecturer at the University of Erzincan from 2000 to 2002. Holding a PhD degree from Cologne, Germany, he founded the German-Turkish Forum of Public Law (Deutsch-Türkisches Staatsrechtlerforum) in 2002 and has subsequently acted as Head of the Turkish section.
Judge Eugene Cotran, LL.D. - Eugene Cotran served as a High Court Judge in Kenya until 1982. He then resumed his practice in Commonwealth law and arbitration in London. Judge Cotran taught at the School of Oriental and African Studies and acted as Chairman of the Centre of Islamic and Middle Eastern Law. He became a Circuit Judge in England (1992) and after the Oslo Accords he was appointed to the Board of the Commissioners of the Palestinian Independent Commission for Human Rights. He assisted in the drafting of the Basic Law for Palestine, worked on the unification of the laws of the West Bank and Gaza and has acted as Advisor to the Negotiation Affairs Department of the PLO.
Dr. Kaniye S. A. Ebeku - Kaniye S. A. Ebeku is a Professor of Law and the Head of the Department of Law at the University of Nicosia, Cyprus. He is also a Visiting Professor of Law at Kent Law School, University of Kent at Canterbury, UK. He was previously the Head of the Department of Jurisprudence and International Law of the Rivers State University, Nigeria. He is a practicing barrister and solicitor of the Supreme Court of Nigeria. Prof. Ebeku has served as consultant to the Nigerian Federal and State Governments, as well as to transnational companies, such as transnational oil companies operating in Nigeria..
Dipl.-Jur. Hatem Elliesie, MLE - Hatem Elliesie is a Vice-Chairman of the Board of the Arabic and Islamic Law Association as well as a member of the Executive Committee of the African Law Association, both in Germany, and has been a member of the Appointments Committees for the Professorships for 'Islamic Law' as well as 'Islam in Europe' at the Free University Berlin (FU). He has been a Research Fellow at the University of Malta and is currently Academic Coordinator of an interdisciplinary project pertaining to the Horn of Africa at the FU. Mr. Elliesie is the Editor of the recently published trilingual volume, 'Islam and Human Rights' (Peter Lang Publ., Frankfurt a.M et al. 2010).
Dr. Imen Gallala, LL.M. - Imen Gallala is a 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 a 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 Etudes Approfondies en Droit Public et Financier. Dr. Gallala also taught at the Faculty of Law as an assistant lecturer in public international law. Her main fields of research are national and international family and succession laws of Islamic countries.
Dr. Iris Glosemeyer - Iris Glosemeyer (PhD in political science, Free University of Berlin, 2001) has written extensively about political developments in the states of the Arabian peninsula, in particular Yemen and Saudi Arabia since 1993. In 2000 she submitted her dissertation on elections, parties and parliaments in the Republic of Yemen. Between 2001 and 2005 she was research associate at the German Institute for International Security Studies (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, SWP). Iris Glosemeyer has worked as consultant for a number of German and international institutions and organizations.
Prof. Dr. Andrew James Harding - Andrew Harding is Professor of Asia-Pacific Law at the University of Victoria, BC (Canada). He is a former Head of the Law Department of the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. He formerly taught at the National University of Singapore, and as Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School. Prof. Harding is the author of 'Law, Government and the Constitution in Malaysia' (1996). He is co-editor of 'Constitutional Courts: A Comparative Study' (2009) and 'New Courts in Asia' (2010). He is presently working on books on Thailand and Malaysia for the Hart Publishing series 'Constitutional Systems of the World', of which he is also co-general editor.
Dr. Mohammad Qasim Hashimzai - Mohammad Qasim Hashimzai is Deputy Minister of Justice of the IR Afghanistan. He earned his Masters' degree in Law from Oxford University and his Ph.D. from Sheffield University. From 1973 to 1977 Dr. Hashimzai worked in Kabul as Deputy Head of the Supreme Court's Research Department. After living in England for over 20 years Dr. Hashimzai returned to Afghanistan in 2002 and served under a UN scheme as an advisor to the Minister of Justice of the Transitional State of Afghanistan until be became Deputy Minister. In England he had worked for the BBC Monitoring Service from 1981 to 1998 as Afghan Monitor, Chief Monitor and Duty Editor.
Dr. Nadirsyah Hosen - Nadirsyah Hosen is a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Law, University of Wollongong (Australia). He completed his first PhD (Law) at the University of Wollongong and a second PhD (Islamic Law) at the National University of Singapore. He is the author of 'Shari'a and Constitutional Reform in Indonesia' (Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore 2007), a co-editor (with Joseph Liow) of 'Islam in Southeast Asia' (4 Volumes, Routledge, London 2009), and a co-editor (with Richard Mohr) of 'Law and Religion in Public Life: The Contemporary Debate' (Routledge, London 2010).
H.E. Dr. Feisal Amin Rasoul al-Istrabadi - Feisal al-Istrabadi was appointed ambassador in the Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2004, and later that year, as the Deputy Permanent Representative of the Iraq to the United Nations (currently on leave). He was principal legal drafter of the Iraqi interim constitution, the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL), in 2003-04. He also served as legal advisor to the Minister for Foreign Affairs during negotiations at the UN Security Council over the re-assertion of Iraqi sovereignty in 2004. He is currently visiting professor of law at the Maurer School of Law, Indiana University - Bloomington.
Prof. Dr. Mohammad Hashim Kamali - Mohammad Hashim Kamali is the CEO and Chairman of the International Institute of Advanced Islamic Studies (IAIS), Malaysia. He served as Professor of Islamic law at the International Islamic University, Malaysia, and as Dean of the International Institute of Islamic Thought & Civilisation (1985-2007). Prof. Kamali has been affiliated with various academic institutions, including in Canada, the USA and Germany. He served as a member of the Constitutional Review Commission of Afghanistan (May-September 2003), UN consultant on constitutional reforms in the Maldives (2004, 2007), UN constitutional law expert on the constitution of Iraq (2005-2006).
Prof. Dr. Zhenis Kembayev - Zhenis Kembayev is a Professor of Law at the KIMEP-University in Almaty, Kazakhstan. He teaches courses in constitutional law, public international law and law of the European Union. His main research interests are legal aspects of regional integration agreements, international economic law, history and theory of European integration and constitutional law of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Prof. Kembayev has written over forty articles for academic journals in the US, Germany, Russia and Kazakhstan. His book, 'Legal Aspects of Regional Integration Processes in the Post-Soviet Area' was published by Springer in 2009.
Dr. Asem Khalil - Asem Khalil is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Law and Public Administration of Birzeit University. Besides he has been teaching at Bethlehem University. Dr. Khalil is a member of the Academic and Teaching Committee at the Palestinian Judicial Institute at Ramallah and a member of the network of experts in the Euro-Mediterranean Consortium for Applied Research on International Migration, at the European University Institute (Florence, Italy). In 2009-2010 he was a visiting scholar at the Faculty of Law of New York University.
Prof. Hamid Khan - Hamid Khan is Senior Advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan and is one of the founding partners of Cornelius, Lane and Mufti, a leading law firm in Pakistan. He has been President of the Supreme Court Bar Association of Pakistan (2001-2003); President of the Lahore High Court Bar Association (1992-1993); and Vice Chairman of the Pakistan Bar Council (1996-1997). Prof. Khan regularly lectures on legal subjects at Punjab University, the Civil Services Academy, the National Institute of Public Administration and the Pakistan Administrative Staff College. He is the author of several influential works on Pakistani constitutional and administrative law.
Dr. Cordelia Koch - Dr. Cordelia Koch holds a German law degree as well as the French Diplôme d'Etudes Universitaires Générales, mention droit (D.E.U.G.) from the University Paris V (Paris-Descartes). She received a doctorial degree in law at the University of Giessen under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Brun-Otto Bryde for her interdisciplinary thesis on the Lebanese Constitution. For her doctorial research studies, Dr. Koch received scholarships from the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt a.M. and the Orient Institute of the German Oriental Society (Beirut). She is currently working as a lawyer and researcher in Berlin.
Dr. Martin Lau - Martin Lau is a barrister at Essex Court Chambers and a Reader in Law at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. In his practice, he regularly advises on South Asian and Islamic law in the form of expert opinions on commercial law, human rights law and environmental law. Since 2002 he has been a regular visitor to Afghanistan, most recently from September 2007 to June 2008, when he headed the EC funded Justice Sector Reform Project in Kabul. Recent publications include 'The Role of Islam in the Legal System of Pakistan' (Brill, Leiden 2006) and 'The Yearbook of Islamic and Middle Eastern Law' (Brill, Leiden), co-edited with Eugene Cotran.
Prof. Dr Hoong Phun Lee - Hoong Phun (HP) Lee holds the Sir John Latham Chair of Law at Monash University and is also the Vice-Chairman of the Australian Press Council. Prof. Lee is the author of 'Constitutional Conflicts in Contemporary Malaysia' (Oxford University Press, Kuala Lumpur 1995) and co-author of 'The Australian Judiciary' (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2001) and 'Australian Federal Constitutional Law: Commentary and Materials' (LBC Information Services 2007). He is co-editor of several volumes of essays on Malaysian and Australian constitutional and administrative law including 'Constitutional Landmarks in Malaysia - The First 50 Years 1977-2007' (LexisNexis, Petaling Jaya, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Dayton 2007).
Conseiller d'Etat Thierry Le Roy - Thierry Le Roy has been member of the French Council of State for over 30 years, acting as Member of the Administrative Supreme Court, and Legal Advisor to the government, scrutinizing draft laws and regulations. He has also acted as Legal Advisor to the Prime Minister's Office for European affairs, supervisor of State owned companies at the Ministry of Industry, Head of the Minister of Culture's Cabinet, and subsequent in different departments of this ministry. Among other international missions for the World Bank and the EU, he is currently the project coordinator of the rule of law project of the Paris-based Institut des Études Comparatives in Afghanistan.
Prof. Dr. Karim Mezran - Karim Mezran is currently serving as the Director of the Center for American Studies and the Co-Director of the Institute for Global Studies in Rome. He also teaches International Relations at the Johns Hopkins University - Bologna Center and Political Science at the John Cabot University in Rome. Prof. Mezran received his Ph.D. in International Affairs from Johns Hopkins University - SAIS in 2001 and his M.A. in Arab Studies from Georgetown University in 1993. He was a Lecturer at Washington - SAIS in 2000 and a Visiting Professor at Libera Università per gli Studi Sociali Rome in 2002.
Dr. Ramin Moschtaghi - Ramin Moschtaghi worked as a Senior Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg for several years until he joined the Senate Administration of Berlin in 2009 as legal advisor. At the MPIL he was a member of the Afghanistan Team and in this capacity set up legal training projects in Afghanistan. Dr. Moschtaghi regularly writes articles on constitutional law of Islamic countries, human rights law and Islamic law. His regional focus is Afghanistan and Iran. Most recently he published a monograph on the minority rights in Iran.
Prof. Dr. Ergun Özbudun - Ergun Özbudun is a Professor of Constitutional Law and the Head of the Public Law Department of the Law School of Bilkent University. He is a former Head of the Constitutional Law Department at the Law School of Ankara University. Prior to this assignment he taught political science at the Universities of Chicago (1973), Paris I (Pantheon-Sorbonne) (1981), Columbia (1981-82), and Princeton (1982-1983). Prof. Özbudun also worked as a research fellow at Harvard (1963-66, 1971-73), Georgetown (1985) and Hebrew (1979) Universities. Since 1990 he is a Member of the Council of Europe Venice Commission.
Dr. Asifa Quraishi - Asifa Quraishi is an Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she teaches courses in Islamic law and U.S. constitutional law. She holds a doctorate from Harvard Law School and other degrees from Columbia Law School and the University of California. Dr. Quraishi is a founding board member of the National Association of Muslim Lawyers, its sister organization Muslim Advocates, and American Muslims Intent on Learning and Activism. She is also an associate of the Muslim Women's League, and has served as President and Board Member of Karamah: Muslim Women for Lawyers for Human Rights.
Justice Dr. Nageeb Shamiri (LLD) - Nageeb Shamiri is a Member of the Supreme Judicial Council of Yemen and of the Constitutional Division of the Supreme Court of Yemen. Before the reunification of Yemen he was South Yemen's Chief Justice and redounded much to the draft bills of the cardinal laws of Yemen's reunification in 1990. Justice Dr. Shamiri is Chairman of the Judicial Inspection Commission and Secretary of the Law Reform Unit at the Ministry of Legal and Parliamentary Affairs. Furthermore he is member of the National Committee in terms of Arbitration with Eritrea, and of the Joint Commission with Saudi Arabia in respect of Maritime Boundaries.
Justice Dr. Dr. h.c. Adel Omar Sherif - Adel Omar Sherif is the Deputy Chief Justice of the Supreme Constitutional Court of Egypt and a Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law at Dedman School of Law, Southern Methodist University Dallas, USA. Throughout his career, he has been affiliated with a number of academic institutions, including in the USA, the U.K. and Canada. Through his membership of and interaction with international organizations and academic institutions, Dr. Sherif has contributed to the development of the international judicial cooperation movement, notably in the areas of constitutional, environmental and family law, and widely published on these fields of law.
Priv.-Doz. Dr. Foroud Shirvani - Foroud Shirvani is Senior Research Fellow and Lecturer at the Chair of Public and Administrative Law at the University of Munich. He completed his doctorate in law in 2005 on the subject of 'The Principle of Cooperation in German and European Environmental Law'. His postdoctoral studies referred to the subject of 'The Law of Political Parties and the Structural Change of the Party System'. During his postdoctoral studies he was Visiting Fellow at the Institute of European and Comparative Law (University of Oxford) in 2008. Dr. Shirvani taught at the universities of Bayreuth and Freiburg (Germany).
Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Rüdiger Wolfrum - Rüdiger Wolfrum is Professor of Public and Public International Law at the University of Heidelberg. 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 has been Director of the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law since 1993. He was appointed as Judge at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in Hamburg in 1996 and has subsequently been re-elected twice in (1999, 2008) and served as the Tribunal's Vice-President (1996-1999) and President (2005-2008).
Dr. Anna Würth - Anna Würth heads the Department of Development Cooperation and Human Rights at the German Institute for Human Rights. From 1994 to 1998 she worked as an independent consultant, and from 2000 to 2002 she held the Finberg Fellowship at Human Rights Watch. Dr. Würth taught at the University of Richmond (Virginia, USA) and at the Free University in Berlin. Among her recent publications is the co-edited volume 'Yemen into the Twenty-first Century: Continuity and Change' (Reading, Ithaca 2007) and 'Investigating and Prosecuting Police Abuse in Egypt', in: B. Dupret et al (eds.), Narratives of Truth in Islamic Law (I.B. Tauris/CEDEJ, London 2008).
