Justice Bala Ram KC, Supreme Court of Nepal

Justice Bala Ram K.C. has served as Justice of the Nepalese Supreme Court since 2005. Judge Balaram K.C. was a member of the court in December, 2007 when the court issued a decision ordering the government to end discrimination against sexual minorities. Immediately prior to 2005, Justice Balaram K.C. worked in the private legal sector as an attorney and arbitrator for several years. Between the years 1974 and 2000, before he entered the private sector, Judge Balaram K.C. held a number of government positions including Senior Government Advocate, Joint Government Advocate, and Special Prosecutor of the Office of the Attorney General and a Legal Advisor in the Department of Mines.

Judge Balaram K.C. holds a Master’s degree in Economics, a law degree, and a post graduate diploma in petroleum law. He has been awarded the Sambhav Kanoon Puraskar (Lawyer’s Award) buy the Supreme Court Bar Association of Nepal. He also served as Head of the Nepalese Delegation to the UN Annual Conference on Human Rights for three consecutive years. Judge Balaram K.C. is a member of the Nepal Jurist Society and the Nepal Branch of the Asia Crime Prevention Foundation.

Stefan Baral MD MPH, Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Epidemiology, Center for Public Health and Human Rights, John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, United States

Paulo Biagi, Director, Brazil Without Homophobia, Secretary of State for Human Rights

Paulo Biagi is the Director of the “Brazil Without Homofobia” Program, Secretary of State for Human Rights of Presidency of the Republic. The mission of the Program “Brazil Without Homofobia” is to combat and identify human rights violations of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons in Brazil, including unlawful killings, torture, rape, violence, disappearances, and discrimination in accessing health care and other economic, social and cultural rights.

Mauro Cabral, Professor, National University of Córdoba, Argentina

Mauro Cabral is a writer from Cordoba, Argentina. His academic work is focused on biotechnological issues within legal frameworks. As an activist, he participates in different regional initiatives (such as the Latin American Consortium on Intersex Issues, Mulabi, the Latin American Space for Sexualities and Rights, and Trans Men on Activism), and in several international coalitions. In November 2006 he took part in the writing of the Yogyakarta Principles. He has edited Interdicciones. Escrituras de la intersexualidad en castellano (Anarrés Editorial, Córdoba, 2009

Carlos Caceres, MD PhD, Professor and Vice Dean, School of Public Health, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, Lima, Peru

Gloria Careaga-Perez, Faculty of Psychology, National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), Co-coordinator, El Closet de Sor Juana

Thomas J. Coates, Director, UCLA Program in Global Health, Michael & Sue Steinberg Endowed Professor of Global AIDS Research, Division of Infectious Diseases, UCLA

Thomas J. Coates co-founded the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies (CAPS) at UCSF in 1986 and directed it from 1991 to 2003. He was the founding Executive Director of the UCSF AIDS Research Institute, leading it from 1996 to 2003. His areas of emphasis and expertise are HIV prevention, the relationship of prevention and treatment for HIV, and HIV policies. His domestic work has focused on a variety of populations, and he is currently finishing a nationwide clinical trial of an experimental HIV preventive intervention focused on high-risk men. He is also finishing domestic trials of post-exposure prophylaxis. With funding from USAID and WHO, he led a randomized controlled trial to determine the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of HIV voluntary counseling and testing for individuals and couples in Kenya, Tanzania, and Trinidad. He is now directing a 48-community randomized clinical trial in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, and Thailand to determine the impact of strategies for destigmatizing HIV on HIV incidence community-wide. He is also leading a prevention clinical trial in South America as part of a 5-country effort, and has a trial in China to determine the impact of prevention in the context of care. He is co-principal investigator of the NIAID-funded HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN), and is conducting policy research domestically and internationally. He was cited in Science in 2002 as the 4th-highest-funded scientist in the clinical, social, and behavioral sciences and was elected to the Institute of Medicine in 2000.

Javier Corrales, Visiting Scholar, David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, Harvard University, Associate Professor of Political Science, Amherst College

Javier Corrales is associate professor of Political Science at Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts. This year, he is a Visiting Scholar at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University. He obtained his Ph.D. in political science from Harvard University. With Mario Pecheny, he is editing a volume on the The Politics of Sexuality in Latin America: A Reader (University of Pittsburgh Press). He is also the author of Presidents Without Parties: the Politics of Economic Reform in Argentina and Venezuela in the 1990s (Penn State University Press 2002). His research has appeared in Comparative Politics, World Development, Political Science Quarterly, International Studies Quarterly, World Policy Journal, Latin American Politics and Society, Journal of Democracy, Latin American Research Review, Studies in Comparative International Studies, Current History, and Foreign Policy. In 2005, he was a Fulbright Scholar in Caracas, Venezuela, and then, a visiting lecturer at the Center for Research and Documentation on Latin America, in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. In 2000, he became one of the youngest scholars to be selected as a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. He has also been a consultant for the World Bank, the United Nations, the Center for Global Development, Freedom House, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He serves on the editorial board of Latin American Politics and Society and the Americas Quarterly.

Tatiana Cordero, Executive Director, Corporación Promoción de la Mujer/Taller de Comunicación Mujer, Human Rights Lawyer, Ecuador

Tatiana Cordero is a human rights attorney in Ecuador and the Executive Director of Corporation Promotion de la Mujer/Taller de Comunicacion Mujer. Taller de Comunicacion Mujer (TCM) is a feminist collective that was born in 1984 with the intent of joining forces of middle and working class women to assert women’s rights in Latin America with a specific focus on Ecuador. In 1999, TCM, along with other feminist groups in Latin America, organized the Women’s Tribunal for Sexual Rights. Recently, TCM has worked to ensure that lesbian sexuality is discussed and put on the agenda of the women’s movement in Ecuador.

Sonia Corrêa, Research Associate, Brazilian Interdisciplinary AIDS Association (ABIA), Co-Chair, Sexuality Policy Watch

Since the late 1970´s Sonia Corréa has been involved in research and advocacy activities related to gender equality, health and sexuality. She is the founder of various non-governmental initiatives in Brazil. In 1992, she became the research coordinator for sexual and reproductive health and rights at Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN) – a Southern Hemisphere feminist networt. In that capacity, she closely followed United Nations negotiations directly impacting related matters on gender and sexuality. She has attended the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD – Cairo 1994), the IV World Conference on Women (IV WCW –Beijing, 1995), and also the five and ten years year review processes of this conferences.

Since 2002 she co-chairs, with Richard Parker, Sexuality Policy Watch, a global forum comprised of researchers and activists engaged in the analyses of global trends in sexuality related policy and politics. In the 2003 -2004 period she was directly involved in the resolution on human rights and sexual orientation tabled by Brazil in the UN Human Rights Commission. In 2006 she co-chaired the expert meeting that finalized the Yogyakarta Principles.

Sonia Corrêa has extensively published in Portuguese and English. This list includes, among others, Population and Reproductive Rights: Feminist Perspectives from the South (Zed Books, 1994) and Sexuality, Health and Human Rights co-authored with Richard Parker and Rosalind Petchesky (Routledge, 2008).

Boris Dittrich, Former Member Parliament, the Netherlands, Advocacy Director, LBGT Rights Program, Human Rights Watch

Boris Dittrich is the current Advocacy Director of the LGBT rights program of the Human Rights Watch based in New York City. A graduate of the law school at Leiden University, the Netherlands, he is a former lawyer, judge, and parliament member. He served as the judge for the district court of Alkmaar, the Netherlands for five years before he was elected as a member of parliament for the social liberal party in 1994. He became leader of the party in 2003. Dittrich was one of the first openly gay members of parliament. While a member of the parliament, he was responsible for sponsoring bills which opened civil marriage and adoption for same-sex couples in the Netherlands. In 2006, the Dutch Queen granted him knighthood in the Order of Orange Nassau for his political work. He has written numerous articles, made several television and radio appearances, and authored a book about life in Congress titled Een Blauwe Steol in Paars.

Paula L. Ettelbrick, Executive Director, International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission

Paula L. Ettelbrick is the Executive Director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, a US-based global organization that engages in and supports global sexual and gender rights advocacy. A lawyer by profession, Paula has a 20-year history in leadership positions within lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender advocacy non-profits. She was the legal director at Lambda Legal Defense, policy director at National Center for Lesbian Rights, legislative counsel for the Empire State Pride Agenda, and family policy director at the Policy Institute of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Paula has written, lectured and presented extensively about the civil and constitutional rights of lesbians and gay men. She is an adjunct professor of law at New York University Law School, where she teaches Sexuality and the Law. She has also taught at University of Michigan Law School, Columbia University Law School, Wayne State University Law School, Barnard College and New York Law School.

Marcelo Ernesto Ferreyra, Program Coordinator, Latin America and the Caribbean, International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC)

Marcelo Ernesto Ferreyra is the IGLHRC Program Coordinator for Latin America and the Caribbean. Mr. Ferreyra earned a B. A. in Architecture from the Moron University and a Master in Projects Design and Management, from Buenos Aires University and from Politecnic School of Milan, Italy. He has participated as InterPride Male - Vice - President from 2000 to 2002 and has been an activist in Argentina since 1988. He is the founding member of BIBLIOTECA GAY LÉSBICA TRAVESTI TRANSEXUAL BISEXUAL and GAYS Y LESBIANAS POR LOS DERECHOS CIVILES; 1991 - 2000, an NGO devoted to protect and advance the human rights of sexual minorities. His participation in that organization helped create the inclusion of sexual orientation as a category protected from discrimination within the new Buenos Aires city Constitution in 1996.

Michael Guest, Former U.S. Ambassador to Romania, Senior Advisor, Council for Global Equality

Michael Guest was America’s first openly gay, Senate-confirmed Ambassador (to Romania, 2001-04). He ended his 26-year diplomatic career in December 2007 after having sought, without success, to end the State Department’s discriminatory treatment of the partners of gay and lesbian Foreign Service Officers in foreign postings.

Mr. Guest currently serves as Senior Adviser to the Council for Global Equality. At the end of 2008, Mr. Guest briefly stepped down from the Council to serve on President Obama’s State Department Transition Team. Mr. Guest’s State Department career focused on European policy, with emphasis on using rule of law, individual and collective rights, and anti-corruption measures to anchor Europe’s new democracies. His assignments included executive-level duties as Dean of the Leadership and Management School; Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs; Deputy Chief of Mission in the Czech Republic; and Deputy Executive Secretary. Among other earlier responsibilities, he served as White House Assistant Press Secretary and as a member of U.S. delegations to bilateral arms control negotiations with the Soviet Union and to the “Two-Plus-Four” talks that led to Germany’s unification.

Mr. Guest’s numerous awards include a Leadership Award from the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the State Department’s Christian A. Herter Award, given to a Senior Foreign Service Officer in recognition of intellectual courage, initiative, and integrity in the context of constructive dissent.

Alok Gupta, Lawyer, Bombay High Court, India

Alok Gupta currently practices as an Advocate in the Bombay High Court. He has been involved with the queer movement in India for the last ten years. He has written extensively on S.377 of the Indian Penal Code that criminalizes sodomy. He has worked as a research assistant in the past with Justice Edwin Cameron of the Supreme Court of Appeal in South Africa, now elevated to the Constitutional Court of South Africa in the summer of 2002 and 2003. He clerked with Justice Albie Sachs of the Constitutional Court of South Africa from July-December 2007. He recently researched and wrote a report titled "This Alien Legacy: the Origins of 'Sodomy' Laws in British Colonialism", published by the Human Rights Watch. He is currently working on a report documenting cases of blackmail and extortion of queer men in India.

Cheryl I . Harris, Professor of Law, UCLA School of Law

Cheryl I. Harris teaches Constitutional Law, Civil Rights, Employment Discrimination and Critical Race Theory at the UCLA School of Law. Professor Harris began her teaching career at Chicago-Kent College of Law in 1990, after practicing in criminal appellate and trial work and municipal government representation as a senior attorney for the city of Chicago. Professor Harris was the National Co-Chair for the National Conference of Black Lawyers for several years and was a key organizer of several major conferences both in South Africa and in the United States that helped establish a dialogue between U.S. legal scholars and South African lawyers during the development of South Africa's first democratic constitution in 1994. She is the author of Whiteness as Property (Harv. L. Rev.) and her work has taken up the relationship among race, gender and property and most recently has focused on race, equality and the Constitution through the re-examination of Plessy v. Ferguson and Grutter v. Bollinger. Professor Harris is the recipient of the ACLU Foundation of Southern California 2005 Distinguished Professor Award for Civil Rights Education.

Presiding Justice Carol W. Hunstein, Supreme Court of Georgia

Presiding Justice Carol W. Hunstein was appointed to the Supreme Court of Georgia in November 1992. She is the second woman in history to serve as a permanent member of the Court. Prior to joining the Supreme Court, she served on the Superior Court of DeKalb County, Georgia. Judge Hunstein has chaired many DeKalb County Committees including the Domestic Violence Task Force. In 1989, she was to Chair the Georgia Commission on Gender Bias in the Judicial System, which issued its report to the Supreme Court in 1991. She is a former district director of the National Association of Women Judges (NAWJ). She currently chairs the Georgia Commission on Access and Fairness which is charged with implementing the recommendations of the Commission on Gender Bias and the Commission on Racial and Ethnic Bias.

In the course of her career, she has received many honors including an honorary LLD from Stetson University College, a commendation for outstanding service from the Georgia General Assembly, and the American Bar Association Commission on Women in the Profession's Margaret Brent Award. She recently received the Commitment to Equality Award from the State Bar of Georgia Committee on Women and Minorities in the Profession.

Justice Michael Donald Kirby, High Court of Australia

Until 2 February 2009, the Honourable Michael Kirby was, one of the seven Justices of the High Court of Australia, the country’s highest constitutional and appellate court. At the time of his retirement, Justice Kirby was Australia’s longest-serving judge. First appointed to federal judicial office in 1975, he had served in a succession of federal and State judicial offices, including as President of the New South Wales Court of Appeal (1984-1996), the country’s busiest appellate court. He also served as President of the Court of Appeal of Solomon Islands.

In addition to these judicial appointments, Michael Kirby has served on many national and international bodies. Between 1995 and 1998 he was President of the International Commission of Jurists when that organisation adopted sexual orientation and HIV status as major concerns for its mandate. He was Special Representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations for Human Rights in Cambodia (1993-1996) and placed HIV issues at the head of human rights concerns. He presently serves on the Global Reference Panel on Human Rights of UNAIDS and was a member of the inaugural WHO Global Commission on AIDS (1988-1992). He was awarded the Australian Human Rights Medal in 1991 and named laureate of the UNESCO Prize for Human Rights Education in 1998.

Since February 1969 Michael Kirby has lived in Sydney with his partner, Johan van Vloten. So far as is known, he is the first openly gay man to serve as a judge on any final national court. In 2002 he spoke at the opening of the VIth Gay Games in Sydney.

In the United States he serves on the International Board of the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction of Indiana University and on several law school bodies.

Geoff Kors, Executive Director, Equality California

Geoff Kors is the Executive Director at Equality California (EQCA). Prior to EQCA, Geoff was a partner in a California civil rights law firm. During that time he originated and orchestrated passage of San Francisco’s landmark Equal Benefits Ordinance. Geoff has served as director of both the Gay and Lesbian Rights Project and the AIDS and Civil Liberties Projects of the Roger Baldwin Foundation of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Illinois. At EQCA, he directs legislative efforts which have given LGBT Californians the most comprehensive civil rights protections in the nation. During his tenure, California became the first state in the nation to pass marriage legislation for same-sex couples. The Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act passed the California Legislature in 2005 and again in 2007. Geoff also oversees EQCA's Political Action Committee activities and educational work with the EQCA Institute, including the Let California Ring campaign. He has appeared on hundreds of television and radio programs and has been quoted extensively in the media.

Máximo Langer, Professor of Law, UCLA School of Law

Maximo Langer received his LL.B. from the University of Buenos Aires Law School (1995), where he was editor of the University of Buenos Aires Law Review. He entered the LL.M. program at Harvard Law School in 1998 and then switched to the S.J.D. program. At Harvard, he was awarded several fellowships, including the Edmond J. Safra Graduate Fellowship in Ethics from the Harvard University Center for Ethics and the Professions, a Fellowship of the Center for Studies and Research in International Law and International Relations from The Hague Academy of International Law, and the Fulbright Fellowship. Professor Langer has given many presentations and seminars on various aspects of criminal law and procedure in the United States, Asia, Europe and Latin America. With Joseph W. Doherty, Professor Langer is currently working on an analysis of reforms introduced to the procedure of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia entitled “Have the Managerial Reforms at the ICTY Achieved Their Purpose of Expediting Process?”

Justice Virginia L. Linder, Supreme Court of Oregon

Justice Virginia L. Linder serves on the Oregon Supreme Court. She is the first woman to obtain a seat on that court through a contested election, and began her term in January 2007. Previously, she was a Judge on the Oregon Court of Appeals. Before becoming a judge, Linder was Oregon's Solicitor General. In that position, she was the chief counsel of the Appellate Division of the Oregon Department of Justice. She personally represented the Oregon in many of the more complex and policy sensitive appeals. She also supervised the appellate work performed on more than 3,500 criminal, administrative, juvenile and civil appeals handled annually by the division's 30 appellate attorneys. As Solicitor General, Linder was actively involved in all work before the Oregon Supreme Court and in all matters involving Oregon's interests before the United States Supreme Court. She participated in the briefing and argument preparations for Oregon on seven cases in the United States Supreme Court; she personally briefed and argued Dept of Revenue v. ACF, 510 US 332 (1994); and she co-authored Oregon's amicus brief in Romer v. Evans, 116 S Ct 1620 (1996), in which Oregon took the lead for several states in urging the unconstitutionality of Colorado's anti-gay rights state constitutional provision.

Justice Linder is the first openly LGBT person elected to statewide office in Oregon, the first open lesbian member of a state supreme court in the nation, and the first openly LGBT person to be elected to a state's highest court as a non-incumbent.

Scott Long, Director, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Rights Division, Human Rights Watch

For over a dozen years and on several continents, Scott Long has documented and advocated against human rights violations based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and HIV status. For five years he lobbied the United Nations on sexual rights issues; his work led to U.N. human rights mechanisms agreeing publicly for the first time to take up gay and lesbian concerns. As program director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC), he edited or co-authored reports on GLBT parenting, and on the use of sexuality to target women's and feminist organizing. He is the researcher and author of Public Scandals: Sexual Orientation and Criminal Law in Romania, and of More than a Name: State-Sponsored Homophobia and Its Consequences in Southern Africa, both reports for for Human Rights Watch and IGLHRC. He also researched and authored In a Time of Torture: The Assault on Justice in Egypt's Crackdown on Homosexual Conduct, Human Rights Watch's detailed report on sexuality and Egyptian criminal justice. In 2006, Long was the principal author of a report on binational same-sex couples and the discrimination they face in U.S. immigration law, amid a fierce religious and social backlash against recognition of same-sex relationships in the United States.

Long holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University, and has taught at the University of Budapest, as well as holding a Fulbright lectureship at the University of Cluj-Napoca in Romania. He was a founding member of the Romanian gay and lesbian organization ACCEPT. His work spearheaded a European campaign and contributed strongly to Romania's eventual repeal of Article 200 in 2001. While in the latter capacity shortly after the Romanian revolution, he began his career as a human rights activist, documenting and defending people imprisoned under Romania's repressive sodomy law. He joined Human Rights Watch as a consultant in 2002 to develop a project on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights, and in March 2004 was hired as its director.

María José Lubertino, President, Instituto Nacional contra la Discriminación, la Xenophobia y el Racismo (INADI), Argentina

María José Lubertino is currently President of Instituto Nacional contra la Discriminación, la Xenophobia y el Racismo (INADI), a position she has held since 2006, Assistant Professor in charge of lecture in CBC (University of Buenos Aires) and Assistant Professor of Human Rights and Elements of Civil Law at the Faculty of Law, University of Buenos Aires. She was National Deputy (2003), constituent of the City of Buenos Aires (1996) and President of the Committee Tripartite for Equality between Men and Women in the Workplace (2001-2002). Among other activities carried out in public duties and in NGOs, she coordinated projects with international financing from UNIFEM, UNFPA and Italian Cooperation.

As for her performance in civil society, among other activities she was President of the Citizen Association for Human Rights, President of the Social and Politic Institute of Women, President of the Young Women Association and Coordinator of the National Campaign 50 and 50 for parity in decision-making, of the Women's Environment and Development Organization (WEDO). Also she was co founder of the Buenos Aires Foundation where she participated between 1989 and 1996. She was host of the TV program for all Latin America: “Ni más, ni menos” and columnist in radio and television about politics in gender perspective and human rights. Currently she leads the program: “INADI con Vos”, nominated for Martín Fierro prize, in 2008, and a weekly column about INADI´s activities on the news “Telenueve al amanecer” (Channel 9). She is also a lawyer with Gold Medal (UCA).

Alice Miller, Lecturer in Residence; Senior Fellow, Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice, UC Berkeley School of Law

Alice M. Miller, J.D is currently a Lecturer in Residence at UC Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall) and a Senior Fellow at Boalt’s Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice, having recently left Columbia University where she was an Associate Clinical Professor of Population and Family Health & International and Public Affairs. At Columbia, she directed the Center for the Study of Human Rights and the Human Rights Concentration at the School of Public and International Affairs (SIPA) and worked as an Adviser to the Sexual Health and Rights Project (SHARP) of the Open Society Institute in 2006-2007. In 1998-1999, she was a Rockefeller Fellow in the Program for the Study of Sexuality, Gender, Health and Human Rights at the School of Public Health. Miller has also worked for over 20 years on staff or as a board member with non-governmental organizations working on human rights in the US and globally. Her scholarship and policy work has addressed gendering humanitarian law, rights-based anti-trafficking policies, abolition of the death penalty, women’s rights, sexual rights, sexual and reproductive health and LGBT rights. She publishes regularly in both scholarly and activist venues on these topics. Ms Miller completed her BA at Radcliffe College/Harvard University in 1979 and her JD at the University of Washington in 1985.

Shannon Price Minter, Legal Director, National Center for Lesbian Rights

Shannon Price Minter is the Legal Director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR). Shannon was lead counsel for same-sex couples in the marriage case recently decided by the California Supreme Court. Shannon was also NCLR's lead attorney on Sharon Smith's groundbreaking wrongful death suit and has litigated many other impact cases in California and across the country. In 2005, Shannon was one of 18 people to receive the Ford Foundation's "Leadership for a Changing World" award. Shannon has also received the Anderson Prize Foundation's Creating Change Award by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Shannon has authored numerous articles and books on LGBT legal issues, including Transgender Rights (University of Minnesota Press 2006) and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Family Law (West Publishing 2008).

Dean Peacock, Co-founder & Co-director, Sonke Gender Justice Network, South Africa

Dean Peacock is co-founder and co-director of the Sonke Gender Justice Network, a South African NGO working across Southern Africa on issues related to gender, HIV and AIDS and human rights—especially through the implementation of its One Man Can Campaign. Over the last 15 years Dean has developed and implemented many projects on gender, HIV and AIDS and masculinities. He founded and directed the Men Overcoming Violence (MOVE) Youth Program in San Francisco, co-authored The United States Agenda for the Nation on Violence Against Women, developed and coordinated the Building Partnerships Initiative to End Men’s Violence for the Family Violence Prevention Fund, and from 2001-2005 coordinated the implementation of the South African Men as Partners (MAP) Network. In 2003, 2006 and 2008 he was selected by the United Nations to attend UN Expert Group Meetings and participate in related deliberations on issues related to men, gender and HIV and AIDS and in 2004 gave a plenary address at the United Nations on the occasion of International Women's Day. His writing has been published in The Lancet, The Journal of AIDS, the American Journal of Public Health, the International Journal of Men's Health and the Journal of Men and Masculinities. In addition to his work at Sonke Gender Justice, he is also a part-time member of the University of California at Los Angeles Program in Global Health and part-time member faculty at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine based at the Gender, Violence and Health Centre. Together with Sonke Co-Director Bafana Khumalo he was selected by Men's Health Magazine as 2007 "Best Man" in the Public Service Category.

Germán Rincón Perfetti, Human Rights Attorney, Colombia

Germán Humberto Rincón Perfetti is a Human Rights attorney, professor, and the current international representative of ILGLaw- Latin America. Born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia, Mr. Perfetti graduated with his law degree from the University Militar Nueva Granada and obtained a degree in human rights from the University of Rosario. In 1998, Mr. Perfetti returned to the University of Rosario as a professor specializing in the international human rights of people with HIV/AIDS. He has participated in conferences around the world and has reported Colombian human rights violations to the UN. Mr. Perfetti has published several papers on human rights and sexuality and same-sex marriage in Colombia. He has also assisted members of the transgender community in making legal name changes. Mr. Perfetti formerly served as the Coordinator of the Department of Human Rights and Juridicial Advisor of the Colombian League against AIDS. He is currently a legal representative, juridicial advisor, and lecturer with G&M of Colombia Lawyers.

Hari Phuyal, International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) Program Office, Nepal

Mr Phuyal is a practicing lawyer in Nepal and works with the ICJ Program Office in Nepal. He holds LL.M from the University of Essex, the UK in International Human Rights Law and NLSIU, Bangalore, India on Constitutional Law. He has worked as a legal consultant to the National Human Rights Commission, Nepal and National Legal Advisor to OHCHR-Nepal Office. He represents human rights litigation in the courts of Nepal and advises to other organizations on human rights issues. He has authored books and articles on rule of law and human rights.

Karen Atala Riffo, Jueza de Garantía, Santiago, Chile

After a supreme court battle in 2004, Karen Atala Riffo lost custody of her three daughters because of her identity as a lesbian and having a family with another woman. Her court case established an ominous judicial precedent for lesbian mothers and sexual minorities in Chile. For this reason, she testified against Chile’s policies in front of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. In June of 2008, her testimony was declared permissible by the court and she hopes that her government’s policies will be denounced due to violations of the human rights of sexual minorities. She has collaborated with the organization “The Other Families,” which was created spontaneously as a way of creating solidarity for her case. Their goal was to make visible and normalize families headed by lesbian mothers. After her divorce, she has continued collaborating with other groups focused on sexual minorities.

Karen Atala Riffo is a law graduate from the University of Chile with an academic focus was on the Human Rights of Women. She also has a Masters in Philosophy of Gender and Culture, also from the University of Chile. Currently, she is working in the Chilean judicial system as a Jueza de Garantía in the city of Santiago.

Russell K. Robinson, Acting Professor of Law, UCLA School of Law

Russell Robinson is an Acting Professor at UCLA School of Law. Robinson graduated with honors from Harvard Law School (1998), after receiving his B.A. summa cum laude from Hampton University (1995). Robinson clerked for Judge Dorothy Nelson of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (1998-99) and for Justice Stephen Breyer of the U.S. Supreme Court (2000-01). Robinson’s current scholarly and teaching interests include antidiscrimination law, law and psychology, race and sexuality, and media and entertainment law. His publications include: Casting and Caste-ing: Reconciling Artistic Freedom and Antidiscrimination Norms, 95 CAL L. REV. 1 (2007); Uncovering Covering, 101 NW. U. L. REV. 1809 (2007); Perceptual Segregation, 108 COLUM. L. REV. __ (2008); Structural Dimensions of Romantic Preferences, 76 FORDHAM L. REV. __ (2008); and Racing the Closet (forthcoming Stanford Law Review).

Jorge Saavedra, Chief of Global Affairs, AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), Amsterdam

Jorge Saavedra, MD, MPH, MHPM, will officially begin his post as Chief of Global Affairs for AHF on March 1, 2009. Prior to this position, Dr. Saavedra was General Director for the National HIV/AIDS Programme in Mexico (CENSIDA). Dr. Jorge Saavedra is the first openly gay and openly HIV positive person to Head a National HIV Program in a developing country. Born in a tiny US/Mexico border town of Naco, he has an MPH and a MSc in Health Policy and Management, both from the Harvard School of Public Health, as well a as degree of Medical Doctor from the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Among other awards, recently he was also awarded with the “Jonathan Man Memorial Lecture”, as Plenary Speaker on “Sex Between Men in the Context of HIV” during the XVII last International Conference on AIDS (August 2008).

Dr. Saavedra was responsible for launching the Universal Access to ARV policy in Mexico. Currently the universal access programme and social security system are covering 47,000 people living with HIV/AIDS. In 2004 he was responsible for launching an official anti-machismo education campaign. In 2005, he launched the first government-endorsed anti-homophobia campaign in Mexico. In 2006 Dr. Saavedra appointed the first transgender woman in an official position with the Mexican Government.

He has traveled to several countries inside and outside the Latin-American region to speak about the HIV epidemic affecting MSM. He has been invited as a speaker to Meetings of the American Public Health Association, to Columbia University and UCLA, as well as to the Global Forum on MSM and HIV, to address and discuss about his experience on campaigns against homophobia in the context of HIV. As Representative from Latin America and The Caribbean at The Global Fund, he obtained an agreement from the Global Fund Board to appoint a high level “Champion on Sexual Minorities”. His work has gone far beyond government limits.

In January, 2009, Dr. Saavedra sent each State Congressmen of Mexico City, an official letter with the position of the National AIDS Program, supporting and encouraging them to approve the Gay Marriage initiative, the first one in Latin America.

Douglas Sanders, Professor Emeritus, Faculty of Law, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, LL.M.
Professor, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand
Lecturer, Masters and Doctoral Programs in Human Rights, Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand

Douglas Sanders, a Canadian, now resident in Bangkok, Thailand, is Professor Emeritus, Faculty of Law, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada; LL.M. Professor, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok; and part of the graduate program in human rights at Mahidol University also in Bangkok. He was one of the founders of the Association for Social Knowledge in 1963, the first gay and lesbian rights organization in Canada. In 1992, he was the first person to make an "out" statement in a UN human rights meeting, speaking in the Subcommission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities in August of that year. He represented the International Lesbian and Gay Association at the UN in 1993-4, during the year it had accreditation with the Economic and Social Council. He was one of the first in Canada to teach a LGBT rights course for credit in a Canadian law school. His 1996 article Getting Lesbian and Gay Issues on the International Human Rights Agenda, published in Human Rights Quarterly, was a pioneering bringing of LGBT issues within mainstream human rights literature.

Hiroyuki Taniguchi, Research Associate, Waseda University, Japan

Dr. Hiroyuki Taniguchi, BA, LLM and PhD (Chuo University, Japan) is a research associate at Waseda University Institute of Comparative Law, and Part-time Lecturer at several universities in Japan, teaching International Law, Human Rights Law, Law and Gender. He is the author of Hou to Sekushuaritii Josetsu: Kokusai Jinken Hou ni okeru Seiteki Mainoritii Jirei no Kenkyu [Law and Sexuality: An analysis of sexual minority cases on international law] (Kokusai Shoin, forthcoming), and editor-in-chief of the Japanese law journal Hou to Sekusharitii [Law and Sexuality], which has been published annually since 2002. He is also a contributor to Feminizumu Kokusai Hougaku no Kouchiku [Feminism Approach to International Law] (Chuo University Press, 2004), and Kokusai Shakai no aratana Kyoui to Kokuren [New Threat of International Society and the Role of United Nations] (Kokusai Shoin, 2003) among others. He has published numerous articles and case notes on human rights protection and the promotion of gender and sexuality in the judicial processes. He is also a founder of the Workshop on Sexual Minorities and Law in Japan – a conference of lawyers who research and work on legal issues in gender and sexuality, and an executive board member of Japan Association of International Women's Rights - a NGO working for advancement of women's rights worldwide, which has a consultative status with ECOSOC since 1998.

Dr. Eugenio Raúl Zaffaroni is an Argentine lawyer, PhD in Law and Social Sciences (Universidad Nacional del Litoral, 1964), and member of the Supreme Court of Justice of Argentina since 2003. Dr. Zaffaroni is Professor and Head of the Department of Criminal Law, Universidad de Buenos Aires, and Vicepresident of the Scientific Committee, International Association of Penal Law. He is the President of the Advisory Committee of the Instituto de Políticas Públicas (Public Policies Institute) (IPP). He was awarded with OEA and Max Planck Stiftung fellowships. Previously, he was the General Director at the Instituto Latinoamericano de Prevención del Delito, a specialized organism of the UN. He was part of the ad hoc assembly that drew the 1994 reform of the Argentine Constitution, representing FrePaSo, member of the Buenos Aires Chamber of Representatives in 1997, and Director, National Institute Against Discrimination (INADI) during 2000-2001.

Dr. Zaffaroni has been a strong supporter of the individual guarantees granted by the Constitution of Argentina as first principles. He was the author of projects for Penal Law in Argentina (1991), Ecuador (1992) and Costa Rica (1991). He wrote 25 books, including Manual de Derecho Penal, Tratado de Derecho Penal in five volumes, En busca de las penas perdidas and Estructuras judiciales.

For more information: Email williamsinstitute@law.ucla.edu or call (310) 267-4382.