Focus: Law
Lusine Abovyan
Lusine Abovyan is President of Abovyan Consulting, a company offering valuation, audit, registration and licensing of intellectual property rights. As a former constitutional law specialist for the Armenia Legislative Strengthening Program, she worked with the Armenian Parliament to rewrite the country's constitution, establishing free speech, asserting parliamentary power, and improving legislative-executive relations. Lusine served as legal counsel for Internews Armenia and was a law lecturer at the American University of Armenia, teaching Media Law and Intellectual Property Law. She began her career at Shant TV where she wrote and produced television shows aimed at promoting economic and legal reforms in Armenia. She covered legal and economic issues as the News…
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Matthew Spence
Dr. Matthew Spence is Affiliate at CISAC, and a Managing Director at Guggenheim Partners, where he focuses on cybersecurity and emerging technologies. Prior to entering the private sector, Matthew spent six years in senior national security positions in the U.S. government. From 2012 to 2015, Matthew served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Middle East Policy, where he was the principal advisor to three Secretaries of Defense for U.S. defense policy in the Middle State. He was responsible for fourteen countries in the Middle East, including Syria, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Egypt, and the Gulf states. During his time at the Pentagon, Matthew traveled to the region over 30 times,…
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Edward "Ted" Wittenstein
Edward (“Ted”) Wittenstein is a Senior Lecturer in Global Affairs and Director of the Schmidt Program on Artificial Intelligence, Emerging Technologies, and National Power, a signature teaching and research initiative of the Jackson School that examines how AI has the potential to alter fundamental building blocks of world order.  A former diplomat and intelligence professional, Ted teaches undergraduate, graduate, and law courses on intelligence, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, national security decision-making, and the outer space domain. He also serves as Co-Director of the Johnson Center for the Study of American Diplomacy and the Yale Cyber Leadership Forum, as well as a visiting faculty fellow at Yale Law School’s Center for Global Legal Challenges. Ted is a graduate of…
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Edwan Ngum Tah
Edwan Ngum Tah is an attorney and civil litigation expert working in Cameroon. She is also the Executive Director of the Center for Public Interest Law, Cameroon and has partnered with the Center for Democracy and Development, West Africa to document cases of human rights violations by state and non-state actors in their fight against terrorism in the Lake Chad Basin. Throughout her career Edwan has fought for the rights of marginalized communities and juveniles, conceiving the Juvenile Detention Project which aims to secure the release of many young people awaiting trial in prisons and police cells. She also offers legal services on a pro bono basis to victims of…
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Katherine G. Southwick
Katherine G. Southwick is the Senior Genocide Prevention Adviser on a project at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum on the role of domestic criminal justice systems in atrocity prevention. Katherine previously worked for a decade on human rights, humanitarian advocacy and statelessness, and legal reform in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific Islands. Katherine worked for the American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative (ABA ROLI) in Washington D.C. and the Philippines on programs relating to judicial reform, anti-trafficking in persons and the ASEAN human rights system. She also clerked for the late Hon. Charles P. Sifton in the Eastern District of New York and practiced international arbitration. She was…
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Josh Rubin
Josh Rubin is Director for Indo-Pacific Affairs at the White House National Security Council. Prior to joining the National Security Council, Josh was Senior Advisor to the Deputy Secretary of State at the U.S. Department of State, where he served as traveling chief of staff to the Deputy Secretary on diplomatic missions to over thirty countries. Josh joined the Biden-Harris Administration on January 20, 2021 after serving on President-Elect Biden's transition team in 2020. During the Obama-Biden Administration, Josh was a special assistant in the office of Secretary of State John Kerry and previously served as speechwriter to the Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs. Josh received a J.D….
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Tung Ngo
Tung Ngo is a founding partner of Vietnam International Law Firm (VILAF), the first and largest business law firm in Vietnam. It was established in 1993 in association with UK-based law firm, Clifford Chance. Tung has assisted many giant foreign investors, such as Coca Cola, Mercedes Benz, Shell, and Exxon Mobil in establishing their businesses in Vietnam since the country opened its doors to foreign investment in the 1990s. Tung has advised several international companies in M&A, corporate, and commercial matters related to Vietnamese laws, as well as P&I Clubs on maritime cases. Tung is highly respected and has been identified by various well-known international legal magazines, such as Legal…
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Alexey Navalny
Alexey Navalny is the leader of Russian opposition and the founder of the Anti-Corruption Foundation. He has become well-known for his anti-corruption investigations against Russian state corporations and senior officials. Alexey participated in Russian presidential election in 2018, and in the course of the campaign he opened 81 regional headquarters all over the country. 41 of them are currently in operation, which makes his network the biggest opposition organization in Russia. In August 2020 Alexey was attacked with a Novichok nerve agent by Russian operatives and later sentenced to 9 years in a maximum security penal colony on charges of fraud and contempt of court. Due to fabrications of criminal cases,…
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Mi-Hyung Kim
Mi-Hyung Kim oversees the legal affairs for the Kumho Asiana Group, one of South Korea's largest conglomerates, a responsibility involving oversight of a number of companies involved in the manufacturing, construction, and transportation businesses. As a member of the Kumho Cultural Foundation, Mi-Hyung has helped promote the fine arts in Korea and abroad, and worked to unify and support the cultural community in Northeast Asia. Long committed to a peaceful Korean peninsula, she was instrumental in organizing the 2008 historic performance by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in Pyongyang, North Korea.
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Khuat Thi Hai Oanh
Khuat Thi Hai Oanh is a medical doctor graduated from Hanoi Medical University, with a Master Degree on Sexual and Reproductive Health Research from London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She co-founded the Institute for Social Development Studies (ISDS) in 2002, and the Center for Support Community Development Initiatives (SCDI) in 2010 – both are Vietnamese non-governmental organizations. Khuat is currently the Executive Director of SCDI. Aiming at contributing to Sustainable Development Goals agenda, SCDI focuses on community empowerment and creating enabling environment for the most marginalized and vulnerable populations, such as sex workers, drug users, people living with HIV, their spouses and children, poor migrants, ethnic minorities as…
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