Faculty
Mr Amr Aljowaily
Multilateral Diplomacy
Mr Amr Aljowaily is an Egyptian diplomat currently in the cabinet of the foreign minister where he is responsible for UN affairs. His last two diplomatic posts were in Geneva, where he followed development and information society issues, and earlier in Washington. He chaired WTO’s Committee on Information Technology Agreement and the Global System of Trade Preferences Negotiating Committee on Market Access. He holds a BA in Political Science and an MA in Middle East Studies, both from the American University in Cairo, and an MSc in International Relations from the London School of Economics. His publications include early analytical work in Arabic on ICTs and international relations. He has lectured in Political Science at the American University in Cairo and has been a board member of the Egyptian Diplomatic Institute. He was International Relations Coordinator of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology. He started his career in 1990 in journalism.
Mr Seiiti Arata Jr
Internet Governance
Mr Seiiti Arata Jr is a lawyer with more than nine years' work experience in the information technology, media and entertainment industry. A Brazilian citizen from São Paulo, he currently works with the Secretariat of the Internet Governance Forum in Geneva. Mr. Arata is involved with DiploFoundation as a tutor in the IG Capacity Building Programme and other projects involving communication and community building. He has a background in Law at the University of Sao Paulo and a master's degree in international law at the University of Sao Paulo, presenting his dissertation on "Regulation by technological standards in Internet governance".
Mr Stefano Baldi, Diplo Senior Fellow
Cyber Diplomacy
Mr Stefano Baldi is currently First Counsellor at the Permanent Mission of Italy to the European Union in Brussels. He has served at the Permanent Missions of Italy to the United Nations in Geneva and in New York, where he developed several initiatives for the use of information technologies in the diplomatic community. Mr Baldi has an academic background in demography and international social issues. He also lectures on the use of Internet for ministries of foreign affairs and missions. Mr Baldi’s main field of research focuses on the impact and future developments of information technology on international affairs.
Professor G. R. Berridge, Diplo Senior Fellow
Diplomatic Theory and Practice
Professor G. R. Berridge is Emeritus Professor of International Politics at the University of Leicester, where he was the founding Director of the Centre for the Study of Diplomacy. He still teaches at Leicester on a part-time basis. Until recently, he was General Editor of the Macmillan “Studies in Diplomacy” series and Associate Editor (with responsibility for twentieth century diplomatists) of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, to which he remains an Adviser. He is the author or co-author of numerous books on diplomacy, including the best-selling textbook, Diplomacy: Theory and Practice, which is on the short reading list for the US Foreign Service exam, and has been translated into a number of languages, including Chinese. His book on the Diplomatic Classics appeared in late 2004. Professor Berridge has been an external examiner at many British universities, most recently London and Durham.
Dr Andri Bisaz
Development Diplomacy
Dr Andri Bisaz holds a PhD in Geography and Geology from Berne University, Switzerland. After some years in private industry, he served from 1973 to 2004 in the Swiss Foreign Ministry, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). After heading the Swiss Development Coordination Office for Central Africa in Yaoundé/Cameroon, he was in charge of the West Africa Division at SDC and later of the Division for North Africa and the Middle East. He is author of different publications on development cooperation and the environment.
Ambassador Victor Camilleri
Diplomacy of Small States
Ambassador Victor Camilleri is currently serving as Malta’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva. In his forty year career at the Maltese Ministry of Foreign Affairs he has occupied a number of senior administrative and diplomatic posts including that of Permanent Secretary. As Ambassador in Brussels he formed part of the Maltese team which negotiated Malta’s membership of the EU. Amb. Camilleri was chef de cabinet to Maltese Foreign Minister Prof. G. de Marco during his Presidency of the 45th Session of the UN General Assembly. He has extensive experience in multilateral affairs. He is actively interested in the promotion of IT as a tool of diplomacy and for some years served as Chairman of the Working Group on Informatics at the UN in New York.
Dr Lothar Caviezel
Food Diplomacy
Dr Lothar Caviezel holds a PhD in Political Science and a degree in Political Economy from the University of Geneva (Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies), Switzerland. He served from 1985 to 2007 (with one year interruption in 1990) in the Swiss Foreign Ministry, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the Diplomatic Corps. He started by teaching development economics for four years at the University of Bujumbura (Burundi) and two years at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, before joining the SDC headquarters in Bern where he was in charge of various portfolios (FAO, IFAD, Asian Development Bank) in the multilateral division. He was Alternate Executive Director of Switzerland in IFAD for 12 years. From 2003 to 2007, he was appointed by the Swiss Government as Permanent Representative of Switzerland to FAO, IFAD and WFP in Rome. He has written several publications on development cooperation.
Ms Solange Cross
Diplomacy of Small States
Ms Solange Cross is a Junior Research Fellow at the Institute of International Relations (IIR), The University of The West Indies, St. Augustine Campus in Trinidad and Tobago, where she currently lectures the postgraduate courses Theory and Practice of Diplomacy and Contemporary International Diplomacy. A Doctoral candidate, her research interests include the impact and role of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) in diplomacy and international relations, particularly in the context of the collaborative negotiations framework of the Caribbean Community.
Dr Petru Dumitriu
Multilateral Diplomacy
Dr Petru Dumitriu is currently director of the United Nations and Specialized Institutions Directorate in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Romania. Prior to this appointment he served as deputy permanent representative of Romania to the Office of the United Nations in Geneva (2000-2005). His diplomatic career includes an assignment to the Permanent Mission of Romania to the United Nations in New York. He has been an elected member of the UN Committee on Contributions since 2001. He was rapporteur of the Geneva phase of the World Summit on the Information Society and general rapporteur of the Ministerial Pan-European Conference (Bucharest, 2002). In 1997 he acted as Secretary-General of the Third International Conference of New and Restored Democracies (September, 1997). He was also vice-president of the UNICEF Executive Board (1995), of the UN Commission on Disarmament (1997) and of the Special Political and Decolonisation Committee (1997).
Mr Haraldur Þór Egilsson
Diplomatic Theory and Practice
Mr Haraldur Þór Egilsson is a historian with a BA degree (first class) from the University of Iceland and an MA (with distinction) in Diplomatic Studies from the University of Leicester. He currently divides his time between a post at Akureyri Museum and teaching at the University of Akureyri. His publications include “The Origins, Use and Development of Hot Line Diplomacy,” Discussion Papers in Diplomacy, No. 85, March 2003 (Netherlands Institute of International Relations Clingendael), and a co-authored book on education in Icelandic. He is currently writing chapters in a book about preserved churches in north Iceland. His research interests are diplomacy, the management of foreign policy, cold war diplomacy, and environmental diplomacy.
Ms Tracy Winters Evans
International Trade Relations and Diplomacy
Ms Tracy Winters Evans is a national of Trinidad and Tobago but currently lives and works in Brussels, Belgium. She is a part time lecturer with the International Management Institute and the CLL Centre for Languages of the University of Louvain. She has also taught at the Institute of International Relations, University of the West Indies and the University of the Netherlands Antilles, Curacao. In 2001 she obtained a Masters of Science degree in International Relations, with an emphasis on International Trade, from the University of the West Indies. In 1996, she graduated at the Bachelor's level with a Double Major in French and Spanish and a Minor in Portuguese. In 1997 she also obtained a Postgraduate Diploma in International Relations and in 2002, she received the Postgraduate Diploma in Information Technology and Diplomacy. She has lectured on International Trade Relations and Diplomacy with Diplo for the last three years.
Dr Eduardo Gelbstein, Diplo Senior Fellow
Information Management and Security
Dr Eduardo Gelbstein is a Diplo Senior Fellow with extensive experience in the organisational and social impact of ICT. His professional activities cover over 40 years in the private and public sector and exposure to the professional cultures of nuclear physics, information technology, police officers, auditors, vendors, politicians, diplomats and the United Nations. Since 2002 he is also an advisor to the United Nations Board of External Auditors, Adjunct Professor at Webster University in Geneva and a Senior Special Fellow of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research. Until 2002 he was the Director of the International Computing Centre of the United Nations. He is the author of several books and articles and a regular speaker at international conferences. His personal interests include the history of humankind and the histories of science and technology, the processes of thinking and creativity. He is also an amateur pianist.
Ms Katharina Höne
Multilateral Diplomacy
Ms Katharina Höne currently works at the Department of Political Science at the University of Jena, Germany. Here, she is part of a research project on the Special Representatives of the UN Secretary-General and their role in peace processes. She also teaches a course on International Organisations. She obtained a Master in Diplomatic Studies with distinction from the University of Leicester, Great Britain. During an internship at the German Foreign Ministry she also experienced the practical side of her academic projects. Her research interests include international organisations, the UN Secretary-General, and international mediation.
Professor Dietrich Kappeler, Diplo Senior Fellow
Multilateral Diplomacy, Negotiation, Diplomatic Law: Privileges and Immunities
Professor Dietrich Kappeler served as director of the Diplomatic Studies Programme of the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva from 1993 to 1998. He was the founding director of the Mediterranean Academy of Diplomatic Studies at the University of Malta, 1990-1993. Professor Kappeler has extensive experience in diplomacy and international relations, and lectures and writes on international law, diplomatic and consular law, law of international institutions, human rights and humanitarian law, diplomacy, and constitutional and administrative law of Switzerland.
Dr Valentin Katrandjiev
Multistakeholder Diplomacy
Dr Valentin Katrandjiev has been working with DiploFoundation for four years in the implementation of research and knowledge management projects. He has developed content for a number of Diplo’s online thematic portals. His academic expertise covers areas of cultural, public and multistakeholder diplomacy. Before joining DiploFoundation Dr Katrandjiev conducted research and designed simulation exercises for the Mediterranean Academy of Diplomatic Studies in the field of crisis diplomacy and negotiation. His scholarly interests also include various aspects of EU foreign policy and diplomacy.
Dr Jovan Kurbalija
Internet Governance, Cyber Diplomacy, Diplomatic Law: Privileges and Immunities
Dr Jovan Kurbalija is the founding director of DiploFoundation. He is a former diplomat with a professional and academic background in international law, diplomacy and information technology. In 1992 he established the Unit for IT and Diplomacy at the Mediterranean Academy of Diplomatic Studies in Malta. In 2003, after more than 10 years of successful work in training, research and publishing, the Unit evolved into DiploFoundation. Dr Kurbalija currently directs online learning courses on ICT and diplomacy and lectures in academic and training institutions in Switzerland, the United States, Austria, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Malta. His main areas of research are diplomacy and the development of an international Internet regime, the use of hypertext in diplomacy, online negotiations and diplomatic law.
Mr Aldo Matteucci, Diplo Senior Fellow
International Trade Relations and Diplomacy
Mr Aldo Matteucci graduated from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETHZ) in Agriculture, and from Berkeley in Agricultural Economics. He spent three years in East Africa doing research on land use, then in Maryland, working on rural development. In 1977 he joined the Swiss Federal Office of Economic Affairs. He was deputy director of the EUREKA Secretariat in Brussels, and from 1994 to 2000, deputy secretary general of EFTA. He obtained early retirement upon leaving EFTA.
Dr Andrei Mikheyev
Internet Governance, Cyber Diplomacy
Dr Andrei Mikheyev obtained his degree in International Relations from Nizhny Novgorod State University and wrote his PhD dissertation on Foreign Policy Decision Making in the Information Age: the Role of Non-Governmental Organizations at Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO-University) of the MFA of Russia. He currently works at MGIMO-University as deputy director of Internet Politics Centre and lecturer. Dr Mikheyev became involved with Diplo in 2004, first as a student in the Postgraduate Diploma in Diplomacy programme and then as a tutor in the Internet Governance Capacity Building Programme and assistant lecturer/coordinator for other Diplo courses. He has also contributed, both as translator and as project manager, to the translation and publication of Diplo's Internet Governance and Building.org books in Russia.
Ms Utchay Okoli
Development Diplomacy
Ms Utchay Okoli is a native of Nigeria. She holds a BSc in Botany (University of Benin-Nigeria), a Postgraduate Diploma in Contemporary Diplomacy (University of Malta) and is currently completing a Master’s degree in Disaster Management and Sustainable Development (University of Northumbria, UK). Her thesis is a policy study on the MDG3 and the strategies implemented by the Nigerian government and other development organisations to address the socio-economic vulnerability of the Nigerian woman. Since 2003, her focus has been capacity building in the development sector with particular emphasis on the development and implementation of policies that effectively address socio-economic hazards. Her work underscores the importance of people’s empowerment as a vital development asset, especially for emerging economies constantly grappling with scarce resources and severe capacity constraints. Utchay has worked as a lead facilitator for a non-governmental organisation in Nigeria and is currently enrolled in the Master in Contemporary Diplomacy at the University of Malta.
Ambassador Kishan S Rana, Diplo Senior Fellow
Bilateral Diplomacy, 21st Century Diplomacy, Public Diplomacy
Ambassador Kishan S Rana holds a BA (Hons.) and an MA in economics from St. Stephen's College, Delhi University. He served in the Indian Foreign Service (1960-95); Ambassador/High Commissioner to Algeria, Czechoslovakia, Kenya, Mauritius and Germany; in Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s Office, 1981-82. He is now a Professor Emeritus of the Foreign Service Institute, New Delhi; Senior Fellow at DiploFoundation. He was a Commonwealth Adviser to the Namibia Foreign Ministry, 2000-01, Archives By-Fellow at Churchill College, Cambridge University, 2004, and Public Policy Scholar at Woodrow Wilson Centre, Washington DC, 2005. He Chairs the India Committee of the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific (CSCAP). Authored: Inside Diplomacy (2000); Managing Corporate Culture (co-author, 2000); Bilateral Diplomacy (2002); The 21st Century Ambassador (2004); Asian Diplomacy (2007).
Mr François Rohner
Development Diplomacy
Mr François Rohner holds a MBA in economics from the Institute of Management, University of St Gallen, Switzerland. He served in the early 70s as economic advisor for regional cooperation in Rwanda and joined SDC in 1975. After heading the SDC coordination office for Eastern Africa in Nairobi, Kenya between 1975 and 1981, he was till 2006 in charge of SDCs Division of Multilateral Affairs. He has chaired numerous international working groups within the UN system (particularly on UN reform in development cooperation) and the OECD.
Dr Biljana Scott
Language and Diplomacy, Public Diplomacy
Dr Biljana Scott lectures at the Faculty of Oriental Studies, Oxford University. She studied Chinese and Linguistics and divides her time between teaching and photography. Her research interests all revolve around the nature of categorisation and extend from complex predicates and syntactic recategorisation on the one hand to visual tropes in photography on the other. Her current focus is on political spin, as realised both verbally and visually.
Andrej Skrinjaric
Language and Diplomacy
Mr Andrej Skrinjaric, born in Karlovac, Croatia, studied in Chinese Language and Literature at the Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade, graduating in 1999. In 2000 he attended a postgraduate course in European Studies at the Alternative Academic Educational Network (AAEN), Belgrade. In 2003 he obtained his Postgraduate Diploma in Diplomacy from DiploFoundation, University of Malta. His thesis was entitled Multilingualism and the Internet. From 1999-2002 he worked as a free-lance interpreter/translator, Chinese-Serbian, Chinese-English and English-Serbian. He currently works for DiploFoundation as Training Coordinator and resides in China.
Mr Christiaan Sys
Diplomatic Theory and Practice, Diplomatic Law: Privileges and Immunities
Mr Christiaan Sys is currently working for the Department of Communities and Local Government in the programme management office of the Fire and Resilience Directorate. He has previously interned in the office of Sir Malcolm Rifkind (the Member of Parliament for Kensington and Chelsea, and a former Foreign and Defence Secretary) in the House of Commons. He graduated from the University of Antwerp as Licentiaat in Political Sciences (International Relations) after which he obtained a Master's in Diplomatic Studies with distinction from the University of Leicester. He has an interest in diplomacy, the United Nations and the environment.
Dr Alex Sceberras Trigona, Diplo Senior Fellow
Organisation of Diplomatic Services
Dr Alex Sceberras Trigona has been organising courses simulating international negotiations—bilateral and multilateral—at the Mediterranean Academy of Diplomatic Studies, University of Malta, since 1991. Dr Trigona served as Malta's minister of foreign affairs from 1981-1987. He negotiated Malta's Neutrality Agreements. He lobbied for, won and managed Malta's first ever seat on the United Nations Security Council for 1983-1984. His law doctorate was awarded on the basis of a seminal thesis "Constitutional Change and the Maltese Constitution." Fundamental constitutional changes in 1974 followed this thesis in both manner and substance.
