Principles of Humanity Under Pressure

Oona A. Hathaway is the Gerard C. and Bernice Latrobe Smith Professor of International Law at Yale Law School, Professor of International Law and Area Studies at the Yale University MacMillan Center, Professor of the Yale University Department of Political Science, and Director of the Yale Law School Center for Global Legal Challenges. She is also a non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace. She has been a member of the Advisory Committee on International Law for the Legal Adviser at the United States Department of State since 2005. In 2014-15, she took leave to serve as Special Counsel to the General Counsel at the U.S. Department of Defense, where she was awarded the Office of the Secretary of Defense Award for Excellence. She is the Director of the annual Yale Cyber Leadership Forum and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She has published more than forty law review articles, and The Internationalists: How a Radical Plan to Outlaw War Remade the World (with Scott Shapiro, 2017).  She is also Executive Editor of and regular author at Just Security, and she writes often for popular publications such as The Washington Post, New York Times, The Atlantic, and Foreign Affairs.

Hichem Khadhraoui is the Executive Director at CIVIC. He has nearly two decades of experience in the field of civilian protection, including as a Senior Field Manager and Head of Protection for Near and Middle East at the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) and Director of Programmes and Field Operations at Geneva Call. Hichem has worked in a number of conflict-affected settings including Somalia, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Chad, and Yemen.

Hichem holds two master’s degrees; one in International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights from the University of the Western Cape in South Africa and one in International Law and European Law from the University Paul Cezanne in France, underscoring his expertise in advancing the protection of civilians.

A one-of-a-kind commander with a new perspective on organizational dynamics, General Stan McChrystal is known for helping elite teams tap into the potential of their people to better compete in a complex and interconnected world. Few can speak about leadership, teamwork, technology, and international affairs with as much insight as he can.

After retiring from the U.S. Army as a four-star general, General McChrystal turned his expertise to the business world. He is the Founder and CEO of the McChrystal Group, which helps Fortune 500 Companies strike the right balance between hierarchical and decentralized team mindsets and structures. He and his firm focus on the power of network analysis and machine learning to strengthen how companies connect, internally and externally. As the author of several best-selling management books, General McChrystal offers a battle-tested system for detecting and responding to risk. 

In a world where things are moving at a speed we’ve never experienced, we need leaders more than ever. After thirty-four years of service in the U.S. Army—including as commander of US and International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) Afghanistan and commander of the nation’s premier counter-terrorism force— General McChrystal can deliver innovative advice on leadership, in addition to solutions for businesses across the world to help them transform and succeed in challenging, dynamic environments.

Ms. Mirjana Spoljaric Egger is President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), commencing in October 2022.

Prior to taking up the Presidency, from August 2018 Ms. Spoljaric served as the United Nations Assistant Secretary-General, Assistant Administrator of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), and Director of the Regional Bureau for Europe and the CIS.

Ms. Spoljaric previously had many years of distinguished service with the Swiss Diplomatic Corps. More recently she served as Ambassador and Head of the United Nations and International Organisations Division, where she was instrumental in shaping coherent Swiss policies and priorities in all main UN organs and conferences, representing Switzerland in multilateral processes, and had responsibility for International Geneva and Switzerland’s host country policy.

Ms. Spoljaric served in several assignments in the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs in Bern, and as Counsellor and Head of the Political Team at the Permanent Mission of Switzerland to the United Nations in New York.

From 2010-2012, Ms. Spoljaric was seconded to the Office of the Commissioner-General of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) as Senior Adviser covering organizational development, management reforms, and external relations.

Earlier in her career Ms. Spoljaric worked in the Embassy of Switzerland in Cairo, Egypt, and was Desk Officer at the Foreign Economic Affairs Directorate (International Finance Institutions) of the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO).

Ms. Spoljaric studied Philosophy, Economics and International Law at the Universities of Basel and Geneva and holds a master’s degree. From 2004 – 2006 she was part-time lecturer on Global Governance at the University of Lucerne.

Ms. Spoljaric speaks fluent German, English, French and Croatian. She is married and has a son and a daughter.

Dr. Mayesha Alam is vice president of research at FP Analytics where she oversees the research team and leads research development for clients and partners. She previously helped establish and served as deputy director of the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security, and has also worked with the United Nations, World Bank, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, and various nongovernmental organizations. Dr. Alam is the author of two books, Women and Transitional Justice and, with Robert Egnell, Women and Gender Perspectives in the Military, as well as reports on conflict, climate change, health, and gender. Her commentary has appeared in the Washington Post, CNN, NPR, Newsweek, and elsewhere. A nonresident senior fellow of the United Nations University Centre for Policy Research, Dr. Alam is a professor at Johns Hopkins SAIS, and holds a Ph.D. from Yale University.