Desmond Tutu was born in Klerksdorp, South Africa, in 1931. He received his Licentiate in Theology in 1960 and was ordained to the priesthood in Johannesburg in 1961. He became Dean of St Mary's Cathedral, Johannesburg, in 1975, but shortly thereafter was elected Bishop of Lesotho. By this time South Africa was in turmoil, in the wake of the Soweto uprising of 1976, and Bishop Tutu was persuaded to leave the Diocese of Lesotho to take up the post of General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches (SACC). It was in this position, a post he held from 1978 to 1985, that Bishop Tutu became a national and international figure.

In 1984, his contribution to the cause of racial justice in South Africa was recognised when he received the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1985, Bishop Tutu was elected Bishop of Johannesburg. In this capacity he did much to bridge the chasm between black and white Anglicans in South Africa. His office as Bishop of Johannesburg was of short duration, as in 1986 he was elected Archbishop of Cape Town. He retired from office in June 1996, but was named Archbishop Emeritus (an honorary title) in July 1996.

Before 1990, Archbishop Tutu's vigorous advocacy of social justice rendered him a controversial figure. Today he is seen as an elder statesman with a major role to play in reconciliation, and as a leading moral voice. Archbishop Tutu has become an icon of hope far beyond the Church and Southern Africa. His book, No Future Without Forgiveness, was honoured with the Book of the Year Award by the Association of Theological booksellers of the United States of America. December 2001 saw the same book receive the Sandro Onofri Prize, bestowed by the Council of Rome, Italy. He has subsequently published God has a Dream.

You can view a video message from Desmond Tutu here.

Lord Alderdice is a medical doctor, psychiatrist and psychotherapist who has been active in politics since the 1970s. He was a key negotiator of the Good Friday Agreement. He sits as a Liberal Democrat in the House of Lords and has substantial experience of political conflict and international terrorism and is currently focusing on the Middle East. In 2006 he was appointed to the Commonwealth Commission on Respect and Understanding.

Michael Brearley is a psychoanalyst. He was a professional cricketer who captained England between 1977 and 1981. He has long had an interest in how to get teams to cohere, and how to deal with conflict. His present work involves trying to allow different voices to be heard and powerful emotions to be tolerated.

David Broucher is an international relations consultant.  In his earlier career, he was successively British Ambassador at Prague, Head of the British Disarmament Mission in Geneva and EU Adviser to the President of Romania.    His fields of interest include arms control and disarmament, EU enlargement and the future of the Western Balkans.  
 

Neta C. Crawford is Professor of Political Science and African American Studies where her teaching focuses on international ethics and normative change. Crawford is currently on the board of the Academic Council of the United Nations System (ACUNS). She has also served as a member of the governing Council of the American Political Science Association; on the editorial board of the American Political Science Review; and on the Slavery and Justice Committee at Brown University, which examined Brown University's relationship to slavery and the slave trade

From 1965 to 1988, Amira Dotan served in the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) finishing as the Head of the Women’s Corps with the rank of Brigadier General, the first woman in the Israeli history to achieve this rank. In 2006, she was invited by Prime Minister Sharon to stand for the Kadima party in the Knesset and served in this capacity until 2009. Her responsibilities included representing the Knesset at the European Parliament and at NATO. She is also a member of the Council for Peace and Security, an association of nationla security experts in Israel. Her special interests are mediation and conflict resolution.

Carolina G. Hernandez is currently Professor of Political Science at the University of the Philippines and the holder of its Carlos P. Romulo Professorial Chair in International Relations. She is founder and President of the Institute for Strategic and Development Studies, an independent, non-profit think tank on foreign policy, domestic politics, and security concerns and development issues.  Dr. Hernandez is widely published in international, regional and Philippine academic journals such as the Asian Survey, Pacific Review, Third World Quarterly, and Public Policy, in the fields of regional security and foreign relations; military in politics, democracy and development, and Philippine domestic politics and foreign policy. She holds a Ph.D. degree in Political Science from the State University of New York at Buffalo where she wrote a pioneering study on Philippine civil-military relations.

Isabel Hilton is London based international journalist and broadcaster, and is Chief Executive of China Dialogue, the world's first fully bilingual website devoted to the environment. She began her career in journalism with Scottish Television, then worked for the Daily Express and the Sunday Times before joining the launch team for The Independent in 1986. In 1992 she became a presenter of the BBC's flagship news programme, The World Tonight and a columnist for The Guardian. In 1999 she joined the New Yorker as a staff writer.  She has reported from China, Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Europe and has written and presented several documentaries for BBC television.  She has authored and co-authored several books and holds an honorary doctorate from Bradford University.

Lord (‘Tom’) King of Bridgewater has been a life peer since 2001. He was Conservative MP for Bridgewater from 1970-2001 and held a number of ministerial posts, include Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (1985-9) and Defence Secretary from 1989-92.  After retirement to the back benches, he served as chairman of the Intelligence and Security Select Committee (1994-2001).  He serves as Deputy Chairman on the Conservative Party’s Policy Group on National and International Security set up by David Cameron in 2006.

Bassma Kodmani is the Executive Director of the Arab Reform Initiative. She is also senior adviser on international cooperation to the French national research council (CNRS). From 1999 to 2005 she headed the Governance and International Cooperation Program at the Ford Foundation office for the Middle East and North Africa. Here she had special responsibility for initiating and supporting joint Israeli-Palestinian projects, including track II meetings. Previously, she established and directed the Middle East Program at the Institut Français des Relations Internationales (IFRI) in Paris and was Associate Professor of International Relations at Paris University.

Nick Mabey is a Founding Director and the Chief Executive of E3G. Until December 2005 he was a senior advisor in the UK Prime Minister's Strategy Unit leading work on a variety of policy areas, including energy, fisheries, unstable states and organised crime. Nick was previously Head of Sustainable Development in the FCO's Environment Policy department. An economist and engineer by training, before he joined government Nick was Head of Economics and Development at WWF-UK <http://www.wwf.org.uk/core/index.asp> . Nick trained as a mechanical engineer at Bristol University specialising in energy systems, and holds a masters degree in Technology and Policy from MIT.

Richard Moyes is Policy and Research Director at Action on Armed Violence (formerly Landmine Action) and one of the co-chairs of the Cluster Munition Coalition.  He was one of the main civil society strategists in the development of the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions.  He has previously been a humanitarian mine clearance programme manager and has undertaken extensive research on risk-taking behaviour amongst communities living with landmines and unexploded ordnance.  Current research and policy work addresses armed violence more broadly, with a specific focus on the problems of explosive weapons.

Sir David Omand was the first holder in 2002 of the post of UK Security and Intelligence Coordinator. He was the Government’s chief crisis manager for civil contingencies. Over the same period he led for the Prime Minister an interdepartmental initiative to improve standards of risk management. He spent much of his career in the Ministry of Defence, including as Deputy Secretary for Policy, as Under Secretary in charge of the defence programme, and as Principal Private Secretary to the Secretary of State. He served for seven years on the UK’s Joint Intelligence Committee.  He is currently Visiting Professor at the War Studies Department, King's College, London and a regular speaker and writer on the ethical dimension of leadership, on counter-terrorism and on the use of scientific method in intelligence assessment.

Tom Porteous directs Human Rights Watch's London Office. Since joining Human Rights Watch in October 2006 he has become a leading voice for the protection and promotion of human rights in policy discussions in the UK and in the UK media.  He has focused in particular on the protection of Iraqi refugees and on UK counterterrorism policies at home and abroad. Tom 25 years of experience working in journalism, conflict management and diplomacy in Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. In the 1980s and early 1990s he was a freelance correspondent for The Guardian newspaper, the BBC and other media, first in Cairo and later in Berlin and Morocco.

Everett Ressler works in the humanitarian field as a practioner, lecturer and researcher.  He has participated in more than 150 emergencies internationally and has monitored and supported efforts in many more. Between 1994-2008 he worked as a UNICEF senior advisor, regional emergency advisor and chief of UNICEF’s global early warning in support of preparedness and response efforts in more than 120 countries. He has co-authored several global reference publications and papers in the humanitarian field and lead research and evaluations on topics including the care and protection of children in war, internal displacement, contingency planning, and early warning.  He is a Visiting Professor at the University of Geneva and a senior humanitarian focal point within the KonTerra Group. 

Malcolm Savidge was Labour MP for Aberdeen North from 1997-2005.  He was Convener (2000-2005) of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Global Security and Non-Proliferation; Vice-Chair (2000-2005), All-Party Parliamentary Group on World Government; and a member of the Parliamentary Labour Party Back-Bench Committees on Foreign Affairs, Defence and International Development. He is Vice-President of the United Nations Association (UK) and the One World Trust, and a Council Member of the British American Security Information Council (BASIC)

Dr. Jay Silverstein is a forensic anthropologist for the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command at Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii. The mission of JPAC is to achieve the fullest possible accounting of all Americans missing as a result of the nation’s past conflicts.  He is also a Professor of Anthropology at the Univeristy of Hawaii.

Dr. Azzam Tamimi is Director of the Institute of Islamic Political Thought (IIPT) in London and former Director of the Islamic Movement Parliamentary Office in Amman, Jordan. He is author of Hamas: Unwritten Chapters (C. Hurst & Co, 2006).