john powell, Symposium Chair (United States)

Professor john powell is the Earl R. Larson Chair of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Law at the University of Minnesota Law School, USA. He is recognized as a leading authority on United States jurisprudence in the areas of civil rights, civil liberties and issues relating to race, poverty, and the rule of law. He is founder and Executive Director of the Institute on Race & Poverty (IRP), which is located at the University of Minnesota Law School. The Institute was created in 1993 as an applied research center to focus on the dynamics created by the intersections of race and poverty. Professor powell has taught at Columbia University School Law, Harvard Law School, University of Miami School of Law, American University and the University of San Francisco School of Law. Professor powell is the author of many articles and books dealing with issues of race and poverty and how to make society more equitable. He has presented on his work nationally and internationally. Professor powell previously served as an International Human Rights Fellow in Southern Africa, where he was a consultant to the government of Mozambique. The Institute on Race and Poverty is currently examining indicators and measurements of the connection between and race and poverty and their utility in promoting the elimination of racial discrimination. For more information on the Institute on Race and Poverty see the following Internet website: http://www1.umn.edu/irp

Gay McDougall (United States)

Ms. Gay McDougall is the Executive Director of the Washington D.C. based International Human Rights Law Group, and serves as one of the 18 independent experts on the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD), the treaty body that oversees compliance by governments worldwide with the obligations established under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD). The Law Group's mission is to empower local advocates to expand the scope of human rights protections and to promote broad participation in developing human rights standards and procedures at the national and international levels. The Law Group has programs in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and the Americas. Ms. McDougall has served as a member (alternate) of the U.N. Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities of the Human Rights Commission. She has also served as one of only five international members of South Africa's 16 member Independent Electoral Commission which successfully organized and administered that country's first non-racial elections. Ms. McDougall has convened several roundtables over the course of the last two years addressing the connection between race and poverty in preparation for WCAR, and has played a significant role in the issue of the need for uniform measures of the race and poverty intersect coming to the forefront of the public debate. For more information on the Law Group see the following Internet website: http://www.hrlawgroup.org

Ravi Nair (India)

Mr. Ravi Nair is the Executive Director of the South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre (SAHRDC), based in Dew Delhi, India. He also serves on the executive committee of the Geneva based International Service for Human Rights. He is a member of the International Advisory Committee of Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Human Rights Award, Washington D.C., USA, and the coordinator of the Asia Pacific Human Rights Network, a coalition of human rights NGOs across the Asia-Pacific region. Mr. Nair is a recipient of the M.A. Thomas National Human Rights Award for 1997,and was the Ida Beam Distinguished Lecturer at the University of Iowa, USA, in 2000. Mr. Ravi serves as an international consultant to the Technical Advisory Services Program of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. In this role, he has addressed audiences and held workshops throughout the world. SAHRDC seeks to investigate, document and disseminate information about human rights treaties and conventions, human rights education, refugees, media freedom, prison reforms, political imprisonment, torture, summary executions, disappearances and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. SAHRDC has Special Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. SAHRDC has researched and published a think paper in conjunction with WCAR, addressing the issue of the need for uniform measures of the race and poverty intersect, entitled, "Accounting for Racism: Towards the Global Collection of Statistics on Racial Discrimination". For more information on the South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre see the following Internet website: http://www.hir.ca/partners/sahrdc

Lynn Walker Huntley (United States)

Ms. Walker Huntley is the Executive Vice President of the Southern Education Foundation (SEF), a non profit operating foundation, based in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. She also serves as the Director of the foundation's Comparative Human Relations Initiative. The Initiative is an effort to examine comparatively contemporary patterns of race relations in Brazil, South Africa, and the United States and the implications for policy making and activism in these venues. Ms. Walker Huntley has been a leading advocate for the inclusion of disaggregated racial data in international human development indices. In October 2000, Ms. Walker Huntley elevated the issue of the need for measurements of the race and poverty intersect before the World Bank. For more information on SEF see the following Internet website: http://www.sefatl.org
For more information on the Comparative Human Relations Initiative see the following Internet website: http://www.beyondracism.org.

Dr. Claire Nelson (Jamaica)

Dr. Claire Nelson is an Operations Officer with the Inter-American Development Bank and founder and President of the Institute of Caribbean Studies, a Washington D.C. based think tank dedicated to the promotion of the Caribbean-American agenda. Dr. Nelson has been a frontrunner in the challenge of placing the topic of social exclusion on the agenda of the multilateral development assistance institutions. As a result of her efforts to elevate the issue, she was invited to be a Salzburg Fellow in 1997 and 1999, to attend Seminars on Race and Ethnicity, and was also invited by the Salzburg Seminar in 2000 to participate in their Advisory Group on Leadership From Within. Dr. Nelson was a participant in the Bellagio Consultation on the UN World Conference on Racism organized by the International Human Rights Law Group, and is an alternate member of the Americans Regional NGO Coordinating Committee for the UN World Conference Against Racism. The Inter-American Development Bank is involved in the creation and maintenance of international development indices. For more information on the Inter-American Development Bank see the following Internet website: http://www.iadb.org
For more information on the Institute of Caribbean Studies see the following Internet website: http://www.icsdc.org

Rinku Sen (United States)

Rinku Sen is the Director of the Transnational Racial Justice Initiative (TRJI), a program of the Applied Research Center (ARC), based in Oakland, California, USA. The Applied Research Center conducts research across the United States about racial equity in a variety of policy arenas, most notably education and welfare, and works closely with grassroots organizations to implement policy recommendations emerging from the research. The Transnational Racial Justice Initiative is designed to support U.S. anti-racist activists in engaging with the World Conference Against Racism, and in raising awareness about U.S. racial justice issues in relation to the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. Ms. Sen has written extensively about the race and gender dimensions of community organizing and has been nationally recognized within the USA for her organizing work. She has organized around the development and inequality issues raised in the 1995 Women's World Conference in Beijing, including the recent implementation of uniform measures of the gender and poverty intersect in the international development indices, which provides a model for similar incorporation of the racial and poverty intersect. For more information on the Transnational Racial Justice Initiative and the Applied Research Center see the following Internet website: http://www.arc.org

Carlos Minott (Costa Rica)

Carlos Minott is a grassroots organizer with the Asoicaion Proyecto Caribe based in Costa Rica. Mr. Minott is a leading voice in Costa Rica seeking to secure legal recognition and fundamental rights for African descendants in Costa Rica. Mr. Minott's work and the mission of Asociaion Proyecto Caribe illustrate the critical need for uniform measures of the race and poverty intersect, as well as demonstrating the potential for mobilizing concerted grass roots action to effect change on the issue. For more information on Asoicaion Proyecto Caribe contact Mr. Minott at cminott@yahoo.com

Judge LaJune Lange (United States)

Judge Lajune Lange lectures within the USA and internationally in the area of women's rights, issues concerning Americans of African descent, government corruption, comparative legal systems and judicial independence. Judge Lange is the president of the International Leadership Institute. The Institute seeks to broker partnerships in infrastructure, rule of law, and education development projects throughout the world that focus on people and nations in transition. Judge Lange is also a fellow with the Wilkins Forum, an international initiative of the Roy Wilkins Center for Human Relations and Social Justice. The Wilkins Center is a research, teaching, and community outreach arm of the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, USA. The Wilkins Center is devoted to finding solutions to problems of racial inequality. Judge Lange was closely involved in the 1995 Women's World Conference in Beijing and remains involved with the post conference efforts to maintain an international network to implement the conference's programme of action. For more information on the International Leadership Institute see the following Internet website: http://www.internationalleader.org
For more information on the Roy Wilkins Center see the following Internet website: http://www.hhh.umn.edu/centers/wilkins/

Asbjørn Eide (Norway)

Asbjørn Eide is the former director and present senior fellow of the Norwegian Institute of Human Rights. He is the former secretary-general of International Peace Research Institute in Oslo, and the author of numerous books and articles on peace and conflict issues and human rights. He has been a member since 1981 of the United Nations-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, and is the chair of the United Nations Working Group on the Rights of Minorities, as well as a special rapporteur on the right to food as a human right. For more information on the Norwegian Institute of Human Rights see the following website: http://www.humanrights.uio.no/en/

Dr. Aklog Birara (Ethiopia)

Dr. Aklog Birara is the Senior Adviser on Racial Equality to the World Bank. Dr. Birara was a participant in the Bellagio Consultation on the UN World Conference on Racism organized by the International Human Rights Law Group. Dr. Birara recently organized the first observance of an "International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination" at the World Bank as part of an effort to assess the role of the World Bank in promoting the elimination of racism. The World Bank, which creates and maintains international development indices, and annually publishes international development reports, recently published the much reviewed "World Development Report 2000/2001: Attacking Poverty". For more information on the World Bank see the following website: http://www.worldbank.org/