August 4, 2004

Speaker Biographies

Tal Becker is legal adviser to the Permanent Mission of Israel to the United Nations. He has represented Israel in a variety of bilateral and multilateral negotiations in the United Nations, including in negotiations on the comprehensive convention against terrorism and the international criminal court. In addition, Mr. Becker was one of the legal advisers to the Israeli delegation during the Middle East peace negotiations. He was assistant legal adviser at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jerusalem and was an international law expert in the Military Advocate General's Corps of the Israel Defense Forces. Last year, Mr. Becker served as vice chairman of the Legal Committee of the General Assembly, the first Israeli to be elected to a post of this stature in the UN system in over forty years.

Mark Lagon is deputy assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs. He is responsible for multilateral policy development, negotiations, and administration, particularly within the UN system. Mr. Lagon previously was a member of the secretary of state's policy planning staff, where he focused on UN and international organizations, democracy and human rights, and public diplomacy. From 1992 to 2002, he was a senior staff member of the Republican staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. His foreign affairs positions also include international affairs fellow at the Project for the New American Century (1998-199); deputy staff director of the House Republican Policy Committee (1997-1998); and committee senior analyst (1995-1998). Before working in Congress, Mr. Lagon was the assistant to Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick at AEI.

Karen van Stegeren assumed her position as a first secretary for Middle East issues in the Political Department of the Royal Netherlands Embassy in the summer of 2001, after having participated in a six-month diplomatic exchange program at the State Department's Near Eastern Affairs Bureau. Ms. van Stegeren started her career in the Netherlands Foreign Service in 1991 and served both in The Hague and abroad on various assignments. The Netherlands currently holds the presidency of the European Union.

Ruth Wedgwood is the Edward B. Burling Professor of International Law and Diplomacy and the director of the International Law and Organization Program at Johns Hopkins University. She has served on more than a dozen prestigious committees and boards, including the Hart-Rudman Commission on Security in the 21st Century, the secretary of state's Advisory Committee on International Law, and the board of directors of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights. Ms. Wedgwood has been an independent expert for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and a member of the advisory group to the special representative of the secretary general of the United Nations for children and armed conflict. Earlier in her career, she served as an assistant U.S. attorney for Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun. She has written and edited several monographs on international law, including After Dayton: Lessons of the Bosnian Peace Process (1999) and American National Interest and the United Nations (1996).

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