About the Event:

President George W. Bush has called the decade before September 11 the "years of sabbatical." The popular misconception that America was too distracted to focus on foreign policy obscures the significant debates both inside and outside government to define a new purpose for the world's lone superpower. The end of the Cold War had a profound impact on the Democratic and Republican parties, and a reexamination of the efforts across the political spectrum to articulate a new grand strategy after containment is instructive for understanding how American elites think about issues like democracy promotion, the role of international institutions, and the use of force.

About the Speaker

James Goldgeier is a Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the Whitney H. Shepardson Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and a Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington University. In 2005-06, he held the Henry A. Kissinger Chair at the Library of Congress. He taught previously at Cornell University, and he has been a visiting scholar at Brookings and Stanford. In 1995-96, he was a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow serving at the State Department and National Security Council Staff. His most recent book, Power and Purpose: U.S. Policy toward Russia after the Cold War, co-authored with Michael McFaul, received the 2004 Georgetown University Lepgold book prize in international relations. He is also the author of Not Whether but When: The U.S. Decision to Enlarge NATO (Brookings, 1999) and Leadership Style and Soviet Foreign Policy (Johns Hopkins, 1994), which received the Edgar Furniss book award in national and international security. He graduated magna cum laude in government from Harvard University and received his M.A. and Ph.D. in political science from U.C. Berkeley. He is currently co-authoring a book for Public Affairs on American foreign policy from 1989 to 2001.

Dr. David Heymann is the Assistant Director-General for Communicable Diseases and Representative of the Director-General for Polio Eradication. From July 1998 until July 2003, he was Executive Director of the WHO Communicable Diseases Cluster. Dr. Heymann was Director of the WHO Programme on Emerging and other Communicable Diseases from October 1995 to July 1998, and prior to that was the Chief of research activities in the WHO Global Programme on AIDS. Before joining WHO, Dr. Heymann worked for thirteen years as a medical epidemiologist in sub-Saharan Africa on assignment from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). He also worked for two years in India as a medical epidemiologist in the WHO Smallpox Eradication Programme.

Dr. Heymann holds a B.A. from the Pennsylvania State University, an M.D. from Wake Forest University, a Diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and has completed practical epidemiology training in the two-year Epidemic Intelligence Service of CDC. In 2004, he received the American Public Health Association Award for Excellence and was named to the United States Institute of Medicine. In 2005, he was awarded a Welling Professorship at the George Washington University School of Public Health and the 2005 Donald Mackay medal by the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.

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?

Shibley Telhami holds the Anwar Sadat Chair for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland, and is a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. Previously, he was the Director of the Near Eastern Studies Program at Cornell University and has taught at Ohio State University, the University of Southern California, Princeton University, Columbia University, Swarthmore College, and the University of California at Berkeley. His publications include Power and Leadership in International Bargaining: The Path to the Camp David Accords (Columbia University Press, 1990); International Organizations and Ethnic Conflict, ed. with Milton Esman (Cornell University Press, 1995); and Identity and Foreign Policy in the Middle East , ed. with Michael Barnett (forthcoming, Cornell University Press, 2001); and numerous articles on international politics and Middle Eastern affairs.

Professor Telhami has actively been bridging the academic and policy world. He served as advisor to the United States delegation to the United Nations during the Iraq-Kuwait crisis, and was on the staff of Congressman Lee Hamilton. He is the author of a report on Persian Gulf security for the Council on Foreign Relations, and the co-drafter of a Council report on the Arab-Israeli peace process. Professor Telhami is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the advisory committee of Human Rights Watch/Middle East. He has been a member of the American delegation of the Trilateral American/Israeli/Palestinian Anti-Incitement Committee mandated by the Wye River Agreement between Israel and the Palestinians and has a weekly radio commentary broadcasting widely over the Middle East.

He received his B.A. from the Queens College of the City University of New York (1974), M.A. from the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley (1978), and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley (1986).

Professor Telhami will be reporting on his latest poll of Arab public opinion and interpreting the results on key issues.