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Home , Gyde Jensen, Heiko Maas, Human rights in Germany, Juliane Kokott, Tim Eicke

Speakers / Panelists 9 December 2020 10:00 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.

70 Years of the European Convention on Human Rights Safeguarding Human Rights in and Europe

Heiko Maas Federal Foreign Minister

Born in on 19 September 1966. was appointed Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs on 14 March 2018. Before that, he served as Federal Minister of Justice and Consumer Protection in the previous government from 2013 until 2018. Before he was appointed Federal Minister in 2013, Heiko Maas had been a member of the State Government and a member of the Saarland (State Parliament) since 1994. In the Saarland, he served as Minister of Environment, Energy and Transport between 1998 and1999 and as Minister of Economics, Labour, Energy and Transport as well as Deputy Minister-President of Saarland from 2012 until 2013. He holds a law degree from the University of Saarland.

Christine Lambrecht Federal Minister of Justice and Consumer Protection

Christine Lambrecht has held the office of German Federal Minister of Justice and Consumer Protection since June 2019. She completed her law degree in 1995 and has been a Member of the German since 1998. Among other positions, she has served as Member of the Bundestag’s Council of Elders and as Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Finance.

1 Dr. Bärbel Kofler Federal Government Commissioner for Human Rights Policy and Humanitarian Assistance at the Federal Foreign Office

Dr. Bärbel Kofler has been the Federal Government Commissioner for Human Rights Policy and Humanitarian Assistance since 2016. Her mandate includes advising the Federal Government on Germany’s human rights and humanitarian aid policies. She liaises closely with a wealth of institutions active in the area of human rights and humanitarian aid, both governmental and non-governmental, particularly on official travel abroad. She also heads the German delegation at the High Level Segment of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva and the German- Chinese Human Rights Dialogue. She has been a member of the German Bundestag since 2004, served as the spokesperson for development policy of the SPD parliamentary group until 2016 and is currently as a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Prof. iur. Beate Rudolf Director of the German Institute for Human Rights

Prof. iur. Beate Rudolf is the Director of the German Institute for Human Rights. Prior to that, she was a junior professor the Free University of Berlin. Her research focuses human rights under public , European law and German constitutional law. From 2016 until 2019, she served as Chairperson of the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions (GANHRI) which represents over 100 National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs) worldwide.

2 Marija Pejčinović Burić Secretary General of the

Marija Pejčinović Burić is the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, the pre-eminent Pan-European international organisation in the field of human rights, and the rule of law. Prior to being elected to her current position, Ms Pejčinović Burić was Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign and European Affairs of the Republic of Croatia, having served previously, on two occasions, as State Secretary for EU Affairs. During her time as a Deputy in the Croatian Parliament, she chaired the delegation of the Croatia-EU Joint Parliamentary Committee, headed the delegation of the Croatian Parliament to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and served on a range of foreign and European-themed committees, including in the position of Substitute Member of the Croatian Delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Earlier in her career, Ms Pejčinović Burić held a number of senior positions relating to the Croatia’s EU accession process. She went on to be a Negotiator on several chapters in the context of Croatia’s EU accession negotiations. She has written, lectured and consulted widely on European affairs, has served as a president and board member for a number of organisations and is a former Secretary General of the Europe House, Zagreb. Ms Pejčinović Burić holds a Bachelor of Science Degree from the Faculty of Economics at the University of Zagreb, and a Master in European Studies from the College of Europe.

Prof. President of the Federal Constitutional Court

Prof. Stephan Harbarth, LL.M. (Yale), has served as President of the Federal Constitutional Court since June 2020. He joined the Court in November 2018 as Vice-President, also acting as Presiding Justice of the First Senate. He initially worked as a lawyer and partner in law firms specialising in corporate law, and went on to serve as a Member of the German Bundestag from 2009 to 2018. During his last two years in the Bundestag, he was the Vice-Chairperson of the CDU / CSU Parliamentary Group. In 2018 he was appointed honorary professor at the Ruprecht Karl University in Heidelberg.

3 Prof. Anja Seibert-Fohr Judge of the European Court of Human Rights

Prof. Anja Seibert-Fohr is the German judge at the European Court of Human Rights. Prior to being elected to the bench in Strasbourg, she served as Vice-Chair of the UN Human Rights Committee and was Professor for Public Law, International Law and Human Rights Law at the University of Heidelberg. She had previously headed the Institute of International and European Law at the University of Göttingen.

Dr. Ulrich Wessels President of the Federal Bar Association

Dr. Ulrich Wessels studied law in Freiburg and Münster, qualifying as a lawyer and notary. He has admitted to the bar in 1988. He became a member of the board of the Bar Association of the city of Hamm in 1994, and served as the Association’s President from 2012 to 2019. Dr. Ulrich Wessels was elected Vice-President of the Federal Bar Association in 2015, and has been its President since 2018.

Dr. Claudia Kornmeier ARD, Moderator

Dr. Claudia Kornmeier is a lawyer and journalist. She is a familiar face on the ARD legal team in Karlsruhe. Her reports on landmark decisions by the highest Federal courts and European courts are broadcast on the evening news and elsewhere. She previously worked for the German Press Agency in Strasbourg and Karlsruhe as European affairs and legal correspondent.

4 Tim Eicke Judge of the European Court of Human Rights

Tim Eicke is Judge of the European Court of Human Rights elected in respect of the . A dual-British / German national, he studied law at the Universities of Passau and Dundee. Before taking up his current appointment, he was a barrister at Essex Court Chambers and was appointed a Queen’s Counsel in 2011. While in practice, he regularly argued cases in the UK Supreme Court, the Court of Justice of the and the European Court of Human Rights and acted both for claimants and governments. In 2017, he received an Honorary from the University of Dundee. Since October 2020, he is Vice-President of Section IV of the Court. His expertise covers Human rights law, the law of the European Union, Public International Law as well as UK public and constitutional law.

Gyde Jensen Member of the German Bundestag, Member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Chair of the German Bundestag Committee on Human Rights

Born and raised on the coast of northern Germany, was elected to the German Bundestag as the youngest female member in 2017. She is the chairwomen of the Committee on Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid and serves as the FDP parliamentary group’s spokesperson on human rights and humanitarian aid. Gyde Jensen holds a master’s degree in international politics and law. Before being elected to the German Bundestag, she gained practical experience in Geneva and Washington DC. and worked for the political foundation Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom in Germany.

Prof. Juliane Kokott LL.M., S.J.D., Advocat General at the Court of Justice of the European Union

Professor Juliane Kokott is an Advocate General at the Court of Justice of the European Union. Since October 2003, she has been responsible for around 1300 cases and delivered more than 540 opinions, including for the Court’s advisory opinion on the Union’s accession to the ECHR. Ms Kokott previously held professorships at the Universities of Augsburg, Heidelberg, Düsseldorf and St. Gallen, as well as a guest professorship at Berkeley. She is a graduate of the University of Bonn, / Washington D.C., the University of Heidelberg and Harvard Law School. She has authored and edited an extensive list of publications in the fields of constitutional, European and international law, including the books Das Interamerikanische System zum Schutz der Menschenrechte (The Inter-American System for the Protection of Human Rights), 1986; Gesellschaftsgestaltung unter dem Einfluß von Grund- und Menschen- rechten (Shaping Society Under the Influence of Fundamental and Human Rights), 2001 (with Beate Rudolf) and Religionsfreiheit und Gleichberechtigung der Geschlechter (Religious Freedom and Gender Equality), 2014 (with Ute Mager).

5 Nils Muižnieks , Director Europe

Nils Muižnieks joined Amnesty International in June 2020 as Europe Regional Director covering the EU member states, the Western Balkans and Turkey. From 2012 to 2018 he served as the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights. Prior to that, he was member (since 2005) and chair (2010-2012) of the European Commission against and Intolerance. From 2002 to 2004 he served as ’s Minister for Social Integration. From 1994 to 2002 he was director of the NGO Latvian Centre for Human Rights. He has a PhD and MA in political science from the University of California at Berkeley and a BA in politics from Princeton University.

Dr. Helene Bubrowski FAZ, Moderator

Helene Bubrowski is a political journalist at the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Since 2018 she is correspondent in the Berlin office of the F.A.Z., focusing mainly on legal policy. She holds a doctoral degree from the University of Cologne, the First and Second German State Examinations and a Maîtrise / LL.M. from the Université de Paris I (Panthéon-Sorbonne).

Michael Windfuhr Deputy Director of the German Institute for Human Rights

Michael Windfuhr has served as Deputy Director of the German Institute for Human Rights since 2011. He has been an elected member of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights since 2016, and since 2017 has chaired the CSR Forum’s business and human rights working group, which advises the German Government on corporate social responsibility. He became chair of the advisory board of the Grüner Knopf (Green Button) textile certification scheme in 2020. Previous posts include head of the human rights team at Bread for the World and, prior to 2006, various positions at FoodFirst Information & Action Network (FIAN) International.

Photo credits: Heiko Maas: Thomas Imo / photothek; Christine Lambrecht: Thomas Köhler / photothek; Bärbel Kofler: Thomas Köhler / photothek; Prof. Dr. iur. Beate Rudolf: DIMR / A.Illing; Michael Windfuhr: DIMR / A.Illing

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