“A NEW WORLD POLITICAL ARCHITECTURE”
Bosco Marengo (Italy), 27-28 October 2006
PARTICIPANTS’ BIOGRAPHIES
Samir Amin is an Egyptian political author. From 1947 to 1957 he studied in Paris, gaining a diploma in Political Science (1952) before graduating in Statistics (1956) and Economics (1957). Amin went back to Cairo in 1957, where he became manager of Studies at the Organisme de Développement Économique. Subsequently Amin left Cairo, to become advisor in the Ministry of Planning in Bamako (Mali) from 1960 to 1963. In 1963 he was offered a fellowship at the Institut Africain de Développement Économique et de Planification (IDEP). Until 1970 he worked there as well as being a professor at the Universities of Poitiers, Dakar and Paris VIII, Vincennes. In 1970 he became chief of the IDEP, which he managed until 1980. In 1980 Amin left the IDEP and became director of the Third World Forum in Dakar, Senegal, where he currently lives. He has written more than 30 books including L'Impéralisme et le développement inégal, Editions de Minuit, Paris 1976; Au-delà du capitalisme sénile: pour un XXIe siècle non américain, PUF, Paris 2002; Le virus libéral: la guerre permanente et l'américanisation du monde, Pantin, Seine-Saint-Denis 2003; Pour un monde multipolaire, Syllepse, Paris 2005.
Alexander Bessmertnykh is the former Foreign Minister of the Soviet Union, he joined the diplomatic service in 1957. From 1970 to 1983, he was Counsellor and Minister Counsellor at the Soviet Embassy in the United States, and he subsequently led the U.S. Department in the Foreign Ministry. In 1986 he became Deputy Foreign Minister and in 1988 First Deputy Foreign Minister. In 1990-91 he served as Ambassador to the United States, and in 1991 was the Minister of Foreign Affairs and was the first Soviet Foreign Minister to visit Israel as he met with Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and Foreign Minister David Levy. In 1992 he was elected President of the Foreign Policy Association, and in May 1993 elected the Chairman of the World Council of Former Foreign Ministers.
Pascal Boniface is director of the Institute of International and Strategic Relations (IRIS), France. In 1975, he was sent in Japan as a voluntary of the Active National Service. Originally left for a twenty-four month stay in a country that he ignored completely and that he considerate too conservative, he actually remained there fifteen years. He has been researching and studying the political stability conditions of the country, subject about which he published different works. After working for the Cultural Service of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, thus having the chance to deepen his knowledge in the Japanese culture during six years in Fukuoka, he entered the International Research and Study Centre, one of the institutes of the National Foundation of Political Science, where he works today as Head of the Research.
Boutros Boutros-Ghali has been Sixth Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1992-1996. He utilized the power of the United Nations to promote and maintain peace through his commitment to preventative diplomacy. He became a member of the Egyptian Parliament in 1987 and was part of the secretariat of the National Democratic Party from 1980. Before assuming the office of Secretary-General of the United Nations, Mr. Boutros-Ghali had been Deputy Prime Minister for Foreign Affairs of Egypt since May 1991 and had served as Minister of State for Foreign Affairs from October 1977 until 1991. He had an important role in negotiating the Camp David accords between Egypt and Israel, which were signed in 1979. He was a member of the International Law Commission from 1979 until 1991, and is a former member of the International Commission of Jurists. During the course of his career, Mr. Boutros-Ghali has received awards and honours from 24 countries and he has realised more than 100 publications.
Lakdar Brahimi was appointed Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on 1 January 2004.As Special Adviser, Mr. Brahimi advises the Secretary-General on a wide range of issues, including situations in the areas of conflict prevention and conflict resolution. Former Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Afghanistan and Head of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (from 3 October 2001 to 31 December 2004), Mr. Brahimi previously served as the Secretary-General's Special Envoy for Afghanistan from July 1997 until October 1999. In between his Afghanistan assignments, Mr. Brahimi served as Under-Secretary-General for Special Assignments in Support of the Secretary-General's Preventive and Peacemaking efforts. In this capacity, he chaired an independent panel established by Secretary-General Annan to review United Nations peace operations. The report, released by the panel in 2000 is known as the "Brahimi Report". Prior to his first Afghanistan appointment, Mr. Brahimi served as Special Representative for Haiti (from 1994 to 1996), and Special Representative for South Africa (from December 1993 to June 1994). In the latter position, he led the United Nations Observer Mission until the 1994 democratic elections that resulted in Nelson Mandela taking the presidency of post-apartheid South Africa. He has also undertaken special missions on behalf of the Secretary-General to a number of countries, including Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), Yemen, Liberia, Nigeria and Sudan. Mr. Brahimi was Minister for Foreign Affairs of Algeria from 1991 to 1993. He served as Rapporteur to the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (the Earth Summit). From 1984 to 1991, he was Under-Secretary-General of the League of Arab States, and from 1989 to 1991, served as Special Envoy of the Arab League Tripartite Committee to Lebanon, mediating the end of the civil war in that country. Mr. Brahimi was Diplomatic Adviser to the President of Algeria from 1982 to 1984, Ambassador to the United Kingdom from 1971 to 1979, and Ambassador to Egypt and the Sudan, as well as Permanent Representative to the Arab League in Cairo, from 1963 to 1970.From 1956 to 1961, during Algeria's independence struggle, he was the National Liberation Front (FLN) representative in South-East Asia, resident in Jakarta.
Mercedes Bresso is the President of Piedmont Region since April 2005. In June 2004 she was elected at the European Parliament, but she waived this appointment when she became President of Piedmont. From 1995 till 2004 she was President of the Province of Turin as well as President of the Union of Provinces of Piedmont. She is a professor at the Institutes of Economics, at the Engineering Faculty of the Turin Polytechnic and at the School for Industrial Production, in association with the Brighton Polytechnic. Teacher of Environmental Economics at the European Master in Environmental Engineering and Management both in association with different European Universities. She has been an adviser to the Ministry of the Environment for the Ten Years Environmental Programme, for cases of Assessment of Environmental Impact, territorial socio-economic planning, studies on tourism and consultant to the OCSE (Paris) for the workgroup on the economic-environmental indicators of regions and local bodies concerning issues of ecological economy. Member of the Italian delegation at the World Conference on Environment and Development of Rio de Janeiro.
Giulietto Chiesa is Member of the European Parliament since 2004, Vice-Chairman of the Committee on International Trade, he is one of the most famous Italian journalists and author of several books of political content, many of them regarding the Russian transition to democracy. For twenty years correspondent from Moscow for the national newspapers L’Unità (1980-1990) and La Stampa (1990-2000), he presently is one of the most prestigious columnists. Among his last books he published Superclan (Feltrinelli, 2003), The Infinite War (Feltrinelli, 2002), Afghanistan Anno Zero (Guerini, 2001) and Genova-G8 reportage on the facts of Genoa, published by Einaudi in 2001. In 2002 he received the Prize Culture of Peace. In 2005 he published his last book, Cronache Marxziane.
Michael Cox is Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics; Associate Research Fellow at Chatham House and Chair of United States Discussion Group at the Royal Institute of Affairs. Among his publications: How Might We Live? Global Ethics for a New Century, (with K. Booth, T. Dunne), Cambridge University Press, 2001 and Northern Ireland: A Farewell to Arms? Beyond the Good Friday Agreement, (with A. Guelke, F. Stephen) Manchester University Press, 2005.
Troy Davis is President of the Association de Soutien à l'Ecole de la Démocratie. He is also President of the World Citizen Foundation, USA and Germany and Vice-president, International Affairs, ECO-Conseil (European Institute of Environmental Counselling) since 1994 and former Member of the Federal Board of European Federalist Union.
Amitai Etzioni served as Professor of Sociology at Columbia University for 20 years. In 1980, Etzioni was named the first University Professor at The George Washington University, where he was the Director of the Institute for Communitarian Policy Studies. In 1990, he founded the Communitarian Network, a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to shoring up the moral, social and political foundations of society. He was the editor of The Responsive Community: Rights and Responsibilities, the organization’s quarterly journal, from 1991-2004. In 1991, the press began referring to Etzioni as the ‘guru’ of the communitarian movement. His most recent books are My Brother’s Keeper: A Memoir and a Message (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), and From Empire to Community: A New Approach to International Relations (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004).
Richard Falk is Professor Emeritus of International Law and Practice at Princeton University and Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara. He was Albert G. Milbank Professor of International Law and Practise, Princeton University, a prolific writer, speaker and activist of world affairs and the author or co-author of more than 20 books, among them Crimes of War, Revolutionaries and Functionaries, The War System, A Study of Future Worlds, The End of World Order, Revitalizing International Law, Nuclear Weapons and International Law and On Human Governance. Founding member of IALANA (International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms) and of the World Order Models Project, WOMP. Professor Falk became an adviser to TFF (Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research) when it was established in 1985.
Hall Gardner is Professor and Chair of the Department of International Affairs of the American University of Paris. After completing both his M.A. (1982) and PhD. (1987) at the Johns Hopkins Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), he taught at the Johns Hopkins-SAIS-Nanjing University Center for Chinese and American Studies (1988-89) and at Johns Hopkins SAIS-Washington (1989-90).
Olivier Giscard d'Estaing is Chair of the COPAM (Comité pour un Parlement Mondial) as well as the INSEAD Foundation. The founding dean and director general of INSEAD, he has served as a member of the French Parliament (from 1968 to 1973), vice-chairman of the European Movement (from 1978 to 1992), and a member of the Conseil Économique et Social de France (from 1994 to 1999). He is also chair of the Business Association for the World Social Summit and of the European League for Economic Co-operation. Co-founder of the Caux Round Table, Dr. Giscard d’Estaing is the author of six books and widely published in journals such as the Revue Politique Parlementaire and the Revue des Deux Mondes. He frequently lectures on business policy in Europe, the United States, Japan and the Middle East, and has taught business policy at various schools. For many years an advisor of CEOs of French industrial corporations, Dr. Giscard d'Estaing has also served as mayor of Estaing (Aveyron) and Governor of the Atlantic Institute.
Mikhail S. Gorbachev is the Former President of the USSR, elected in 1988 and Nobel Peace Laureate in 1990. First elected as a Deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in 1970, in 1971 he became a Member and in 1978 Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party. In 1985 he was appointed General Secretary of the Supreme Soviet Communist Party and tried to restructure the economy of the country launching the Perestrojka process. He also enhanced democratic development by extending individual and collective liberties (Glasnost = transparency), finding considerable resistance in the opposition. He brought great political victories in foreign policy, through his commitment to the cause of peace and cooperation, which led to the signing of the treaty with Ronald Reagan for the elimination of the euro-missiles (Washington, December 1987). He resigned in 1991 after a failed coup organised by the conservative fringe of the Communist Party. He is the Founder and President of The World Political Forum.
Frédéric Gros is a french philosopher, expert in Michel Foucault's work. He is lecturer at the University of Paris XII, and also teaches at the Centre de formation de l'Essonne. He is the author of Michel Foucault, Presses Universitaires de France,Paris, 1996; Foucault et la folie, Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 1997 and the latest États de violence: essai sur la fin de la guerre, Gallimard, Paris, 2006.
Jean-Marie Guéhenno has been Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations at UN on 1October 2000 . He spent a part of his career in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of France,as Member of the Policy Planning Staff (1979-1981); Head of Cultural Affairs at the French Embassy in Washington (1982-1986); Director of the Policy Planning Staff (1989-1993); Ambassador to the Western European Union (1993-1995). He was appointed Chairman of the Institut des hautes études de défense nationale in 1998. He has also been a member of the UN Secretary-General's Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters since 1999. He became a member of the Court des comptes (the French Audit Office) after his graduation from ENA in 1976. He was attached to the section of the Court that audits the Ministry of Defense until his appointment as the Under-Secretary General for Peacekeeping Operations. He is Chevalier de la légion d'honneur and Commandeur de l'ordre du mérite allemand. Mr. Guéhenno has contributed numerous articles on international affairs and is the author of The End of the Nation-State, University of Minnesota Press, 1993.
Andrei Grachev Graduated in History, he was Editor of the international magazine World Youth in Budapest (Hungary). Deputy Director on the International Department of the Central Committee of CPSU and adviser for Mikhail Gorbachev he was later appointed assistant and official Spokesman of the President of the USSR. Political scientist and editorialist for the New Times and Moscow News, Andrei Grachev was teaching as Visiting Professor at the University of La Sorbonne in Paris and at the Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, and was a Senior Researcher at St Antony’s College, Oxford. Author of several books, he’s presently member of Russian UN Association, Founding Member of the Council for Foreign and Defense Policy of Russia, Adviser at the Gorbachev Foundation (Moscow), Expert of the Association Progress of Management (Paris) and Chairman of the Scientific Committee of The World Political Forum.