She also served as the Director of the Minerva Center for Human Rights (2000-2001) and the Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Law (2000-2002) and currently serves as a member of Israel's Council of Higher Education (since 2007). She was awarded several prizes, including the Rector's Prize for Excellence in Teaching (twice), the Zeltner Prize, the  Woman of the City Award (by the City of Tel-Aviv) and the Women in Law Award (by the Israeli Bar). She is the author and editor of several books and has many articles published in journals in the United States, Canada, England, and Israel.

Before coming to CDDRL, Miriam Abu Sharkh was employed at the United Nation's specialized agency for work, the International Labour Organization, in Geneva, Switzerland. As the People's Security Coordinator (P4), she analyzed and managed large household surveys from Argentina to Sri Lanka. She also worked on the Report on the World Social Situation for the United Nation's Department of Economic and Social Affairs in New York. Previously, she had also been a consultant for the German national development agency (Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit, GTZ) in Germany where she focused on integrating core labor standards into German technical cooperation.

She has written on the spread and effect of human rights related labour standards as well as on welfare regimes, gender discrimination, child labour, social movements and work satisfaction.

Currently, she holds a grant by the German National Science Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) to study the evolvement of worldwide patterns of gender discrimination in the labor market, specifically the effects of international treaties. These questions are addressed in longitudinal, cross-national studies from the 1950´s to today.

This research builds on her previous work as a Post-doctoral Fellow at CDDRL as well as her dissertation on child labor for which she received a "Summa cum Laude" ( Freie Universität Berlin, Germany-joint dissertation committee with Stanford University). After discussing various labor standard initiatives, the dissertation analyzes when and why countries ratify the International Labour Organization's Minimum Age Convention outlawing child labour via event history models. It then examines the effect of ratification on child labor rates over three decades through a panel analyses. While her dissertation employed quantitative methods, her Diplom thesis (Freie Universität Berlin, Germany) builds on extensive fieldwork in South Africa examining the genesis, strategies, and structures of the South African women's movement.

Jessica Weeks is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at Stanford University, the 2007-2008 Zukerman Fellow and a pre-doctoral fellow at CISAC, and the Teaching Assistant for the CISAC Honors Program. Her dissertation, "Leaders, Accountability, and Foreign Policy in Non-Democracies" studies how different levels of domestic accountability affect leaders' decisions about international conflict. Additional research investigates the effectiveness of military interventions, and the escalation and resolution of international military crises.

Jessica graduated summa cum laude with a BA in Political Science from The Ohio State University in 2001, and received an MA in International History and Politics from the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, Switzerland.

Carol Atkinson (speaker) retired as a lieutenant colonel from the U.S. Air Force in 2005. While in the military she served in a wide variety of management and operational positions in the fields of intelligence, targeting, and combat assessment. During the Cold War she flew on the Strategic Air Command's nuclear airborne command post as a target analyst. During Operation Desert Storm (1991) she worked on the intelligence staff in Riyadh, and, subsequently, on the contingency planning staff in Dhahran/Khobar, Saudi Arabia. While in the military, she taught at the Air Force Academy and the Air Force's Command and Staff College.

Atkinson holds a PhD in international relations from Duke University, an MA in geography from Indiana University, and a BS from the United States Air Force Academy (5th class with women). She is currently a post-doctoral research fellow at the Center for International Studies at the University of Southern California. Atkinson's primary research focuses on U.S. military-to-military contacts as channels of international norm diffusion. She is also working on a project examining the influence of educational exchange programs on democratization and a project on the social construction of the biological warfare threat in the United States.

Jessica Weeks (respondent) is a doctoral candidate in the Stanford Department of Political Science. Her research interests include foreign policy decision-making in non-democratic regimes, the settlement of military crises, and the effects of foreign military interventions on target states. She will be a pre-doctoral fellow at CISAC during 2007-2008. Jessica received her BA in political science from The Ohio State University, and an MA in international history and politics from the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, Switzerland.

Peter Maurer is Switzerland's first Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations, assuming the position in September 2004, when Switzerland became the body's 190th member. He was a leader of the ultimately successful effort to establish the Human Rights Council in early 2006.

Maurer studied history, political science and international law at universities in Berne and Perugia, obtaining his Ph.D. from the University of Berne in 1983. After lecturing at the university's Institute for Contemporary History, he joined Switzerland diplomatic service in 1987. He was immediately posted to Switzerland's embassy in South Africa. There he witnessed the violent last throes of the Botha regime, and the first steps towards reforming and ultimately eliminating apartheid.

Maurer returned to Switzerland and became Secretary to the State Secretary for Foreign Affairs. In 1996 he was posted to New York where he served as Deputy Permanent Observer of the Swiss Mission to the UN. In May 2000 he assumed the rank of Ambassador and returned to Berne to become head of Political Affairs Division IV (Human Security). In that capacity, Maurer managed Switzerland's increasingly robust and innovative human rights diplomacy, launching, among other initiatives, the Berne process, a grouping of countries engaged in human rights dialogues with China.

Ambassador Maurer will talk about the UN Human Rights Council, of which Switzerland was in the forefront of creating. He will address questions related to Europe: how European human rights and security issues are being treated within the UN, and will attempt to answer the question of why the Swiss people have embraced the UN but have been reluctant to join the European Union.

Sponsored by Forum on Contemporary Europe and Stanford Law School.

Event Synopsis:

Ambassador Maurer describes Switzerland's decision to join the United Nations and outlines the achievements it has made in the 5 years since gaining membership. These achievements encompass a broad human security agenda and include developing mine detection technology, combatting small arms dealing, improving natural disaster preparedness, and promoting accountability for crimes against humanity and for the actions of UN peacekeeping troops. Switzerland was a strong supporter of the International Criminal Court and has pushed for improvements to the UN's mediation processes. It has also shaped discussion about the reform of the UN Commission on Human Rights.

Ambassador Maurer then offers prospects for issues such as engagement with North Korea, trans-regional alliances on issues of human rights, and the future of the Human Rights Council. He also describes recent cooperation with China and Russia on the topic of human rights. Moving forward, Ambassador Maurer believes Switzerland's best option for making its voice heard on the international stage will be to expand existing partnerships with European universities and to mobilize applied scientific research to help solve the world's most pressing issues.

A discussion session following the talk raised such issues as: What is Switzerland's approach to the areas of the world, for example those under Sharia law, where international human rights are not a common value? How will the western and non-western parts of the world bridge their very different approaches to human rights? Can cultural influence be more effective than formal multilateral institutions like the UN on certain issues? Should existing organizations like the ICRC deal with refugees from environmental degradation (like rising sea levels)? Is there conflict between different international organizations who deal with the same agenda items, such as between the EU and UN?

The Center for Science, Technology and Security Policy at the American Association for the Advancement of Science has assembled a panel of experts to examine the technical aspects of the Reliable Replacement Warhead program. The speaker will discuss the preliminary findings of this panel.

Benn Tannenbaum is Project Director at the Center for Science, Technology and Security Policy. Tannenbaum works on a variety of projects for CSTSP, including drafting policy briefs, tracking legislation, serving as liaison with MacArthur-funded centers and the security policy community, organizing workshops and other meetings, attending Congressional hearings and conducting topical research. He testified before the House Homeland Security Committee on radiation portal monitors. Tannenbaum also serves on the American Physical Society's Panel on Public Affairs and on the Program Committee for the Forum on Physics and Society. Prior to joining AAAS, Tannenbaum worked as a senior research analyst for the Federation of American Scientists. He worked extensively on the FAS paper "Flying Blind"; this paper explores ways to increase the quality and consistency of science advising to the federal government. Before joining FAS, Tannenbaum served as the 2002-2003 American Physical Society Congressional Science Fellow. During his fellowship, Tannenbaum worked for Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-MA) on nonproliferation issues. Before his fellowship, Tannenbaum worked as a postdoctoral rellow at the University of California, Los Angeles. At UCLA, he was involved in the Compact Muon Solenoid experiment at CERN, in Geneva, Switzerland, and the Collider Detector Facility at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory outside Chicago. He received his PhD in particle physics from the University of New Mexico in 1997. His dissertation involved a search for evidence of supersymmetry. None was found.

Christine Scheiber is the Microsoft Research Scholar on Corruption on the Rule of Law at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL). Her current research examines corruption in the extractive industries (in particular hydrocarbons and diamonds) and how international anti-money laundering instruments can help to prevent and combat political corruption and further the restitution of ill-gotten funds. She received her PhD from the London School of Economics. Her dissertation advances a functionalist theory of the design of international institutions with a focus on international institutions that deal with illicit flows of money, small arms, narcotics and conflict diamonds. She pursued her undergraduate studies in Switzerland and at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques (Sciences Po), Paris, France.