Experts - dissident movement

 MA in journalism at the Charles University, leader of the 1960s student movement in Prague. Following the Warsaw Pact invasion in Czechoslovakia in 1968 he was forced to emigrate to the UK. He studied International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science and Politics at the University of Reading and in the St Anthony’s College, Oxford University. Founder of Palach Press Agency in London in 1974, which later became the main press agency for Czechoslovak opposition in the Western Europe. It was also the main distributor in the world of documents and reports issued by human rights movement Charter 77. He also formed the Jan Palach Information and Research Trust (JPIRT) which provided Czechoslovak dissidents with books and technical equipment and supported underground university courses. Founder of the East European Cultural Foundation (EECF) and the prestigious quarterly East European Reporter, which published all important documents and articles written by dissidents in Eastern and Central European countries. Returned to Prague from political exile in November 1989 and was elected in June 1990 to the Federal Assembly (Parliament). A notable academic career included posts as the Visiting Professor of Politics and History at the Adeplhi University in New York and as the Karl Loewenstein Fellow in Politics and Jurisprudence at the Amherst College in Massachusetts. He holds several honorary degrees, including the Honorary Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science and Honorary Doctor of Humane letters at the Adeplhi University. 1973-1989 lecturer at the Institute of Adult Education in London. 1998-2002 Minister of Foreign Affairs. 1999 - 2002 Deputy Prime Minister for Foreign and Security Policy. President of the 57th session of the United Nations General Assembly (2002-2003). June 2002-2006 Deputy to the Czech Parliament, where he worked as Vice-President in the Foreign Affairs Committee. Foreign affairs adviser to the President of the Chamber of Deputies (Parliament) 2007- . Winner of numerous awards for achievements in the strife for democracy and human rights.

Former Czechoslovak dissident, one of the signatories of Charta '77. After the Revolution of 1989 has occupied a number of prominent posts including that of the Member of the first Federal Parliament, Cabinet Minister, Rector of Comenius University and Chief of Staff of the President of Czechoslovakia Vaclav Havel as his Chancellor for Slovakia. Founder of the Department of Political Science of Comenius University (1990). Founder and the Chairholder of the UNESCO Chair for Human Rights Education at Comenius University in Bratislava, founder and Chairman of the Milan Simecka Foundation, member of the Academic Council of the Comenius University and member of committees and councils at home and abroad (incl. Czech Republic, Poland, Italy). President of the Slovak Helsinki Committee and Honorary Member of the Czech Helsinki Committee. After the 1998 parliamentary elections, Advisor of the Prime Minister of the Slovak Republic for human rights and minority issues. 

Editor-in-Chief of Gazeta Wyborcza. Historian, "Solidarity" activist during the '80ties member of the Round Table Talks 1989. Doctorate honoris causa (The New School for Social Research in New York, the University of Minnesota, University of Michigan and Connecticut College). International awards e.g.: the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award 1986, OSCE Price on Journalism and Democracy awarded by the OSCE Assembly, 1996 and Carl Bertelsmann Prize, as a tribute for his outstanding merits during the transformation process which leads Poland into democracy and free market economy. Author of numerous books e.g. Chances of Polish Democracy, London 1984 or La Deuxième Révolution, Paris 1990. His articles were published in Der Spiegel, Le Monde, Libération, El Pais, The Washington Post and many other journals and magazins.