Gudmundur Alfredsson is an Icelandic lawyer, with an SJD from Harvard Law School (1982). He held teaching positions at universities in Akureyri, Beijing, Lund, Nuuk, Riga, Strasbourg and Washington DC. He was Director of the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law in Lund (1995-06) and UN staff member (New York and Geneva, 1983-95). He is Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal on Minority and Group Rights and the Yearbook of Polar Law (both published by Brill | Nijhoff), and author of more than 250 scholarly articles, book chapters and IGO-and NGO-reports.

Gianni Magazzeni served 39 years in the UN: first in disarmament, in NY, and then in human rights (HR), in Geneva. He was special assistant to various Heads of the HR Program, SGs of the Vienna Conference, and the first High Commissioner for HR, contributing to the development of information/operational activities. In charge of technical cooperation/geographic teams, he oversaw the rapid expansion in field presences. He was Head of the Human Rights Component of UNAMI, in Baghdad, during Iraq’s worst sectarian violence. Responsible for National Institutions and Regional Mechanisms, then for the Americas, Europe and Central Asia regions, he was in charge of the HRC Universal Periodic Review (UPR), with new tools developed to facilitate country-based implementation. Currently, Magazzeni is President of the Executive Board of UPR Info, a Geneva-based NGO.