Experts - human rights

 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.

Participant of the students' manifestations in March 1968, for which he was sentenced to two and a half years in prison. In 1976, he became co-founder of the “Information Bulletin”, the first uncensored Polish magazine. In 1977, he was a co-editor of “The Worker”, an independent magazine advocating the formation of free trade unions. A member of the Committee for Social Self-Defence of the Workers' Defence Committee, he cooperated with the Intervention Office of the Committee for Social Self-Defence of the Workers' Defence Committee. In 1980, he was an advisor for the “Solidarity” Independent and Self-Governing Trade Union. In 1981, when martial law was in force, he was arrested. After escaping while on leave from prison he joined the “Solidarity” underground movement, during 1984, he became a member of the Regional Executive Committee of the “Solidarity” Independent and Self-Governing Trade Union, Mazowsze Region. In 1989, he was elected to Sejm from the wałbrzyskie voivodship. Between 1989 and 2001 he was a deputy to the Sejm, he was, among others, a chairman of the Social Policy Committee and the Intelligence Committee. Since 1990 in the Citizens' Movement for Democratic Action (ROAD), then in the Democratic Union and the Freedom Union (vice-chairman). He was an author of publications in the Polish and foreign press, among others in “The Criticism”, “Plus”, “Mazowsze Weekly”, “Res Publica” and other uncensored magazines before 1989. He was published in the Polish and foreign press after 1989, among others in “Gazeta Wyborcza”, “Rzeczpospolita”, “Dziennik”, “Polityka”, “Newsweek”, “Zeszyty Literackie”. Book publications include, among others: “The Polish Peasants' Party 1945-47 – a resistance model”, “Solidarity – problems, question marks”. He was honored with the Commodore's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta and the Commodore's Cross with the Star. Currently an advisor for Polish President Bronisław Komorouski on issues relating to political parties and political environments. 

joined the Research Center of the Slovak Foreign Policy Association (RC SFPA) in February 2008. She is carrying out research and project activities on Western Balkans, Latin America, Democracy and Development, Human Rights in Foreign Policy. In 2002-2007 she worked in the People in Peril Association, a Slovak NGO providing relief aid and development assistance, defending human rights and freedoms worldwide, where she established and supervised the Democratization and Human Rights Program. She was managing development projects in Kosovo, BiH, Serbia, Ukraine and Cuba. In the period of 2000-2002 the worked in the EUROPEUM Institute for European Policy in Prague as the editor of the “Integrace” journal focued on EU issues and the integration process. She received MA degree in the International Teritorrial Studies at the Charles University in Prague.