Pres. Mary Robinson

Political Leader

Ireland

President Mary Robinson was the first woman president of Ireland and served more recently as the United Nations high commissioner for human rights. As an academic, legislator and barrister, Robinson has sought to use law as an instrument for social change, arguing landmark cases before the European Court of Human Rights, as well as in the Irish courts and the European Court in Luxembourg. She is a member of The Elders, a collection of world leaders working to address difficult global challenges, and the president of the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice. In 2009, Robinson was awarded the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Prime Min. Michel Rocard

Political Leader

France

Prime Minister Michel Rocard was a former prime minister of France, serving from 1988 to 1991, and member of the European Parliament for 15 years. His father was a nuclear physicist who worked on France’s atomic bomb program. He served on the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons and wrote and spoke extensively about the threat posed by nuclear weapons.

Rocard passed away on July 2, 2016.

Hon. Douglas Roche

Diplomat

Canada

The Honorable Douglas Roche is an author, parliamentarian and diplomat whose 40-year public career has focused on peace and human security issues. He is the chairman emeritus and current senior advisor of the Middle Powers Initiative, an international network of organizations specializing in nuclear disarmament issues. A former Canadian senator and member of parliament, he served as the Canadian ambassador for disarmament to the UN and, in 1988, was elected chairman of the UN Disarmament Committee.

Roche has been recognized several times for his work for peace and human security. His awards include the Mahatma Gandhi Foundation for World Peace Award, the UN Association’s Medal of Honor and lifetime achievement awards from the Canadian Pugwash Group and the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. In recognition of his work and commitment to nuclear disarmament, the City of Hiroshima named Roche an Honorary Citizen in 2010. He still lectures widely on disarmament issues and has published twenty books over the years, including his 2011 work, “How We Stopped Loving the Bomb.” He is an Officer of the Order of Canada.

Dr. Sergey Rogov

Russia

Dr. Sergey Rogov is the director of the Institute for the U.S. and Canadian Studies of the Russian Academy of Science. In 2000, Rogov was appointed dean of the School of World Politics and International Security at the Institute. He is also the head of the International Security Commission of the Russian Security Council’s Scientific Advisory Board and is a current member of the Advisory Council of the Foreign Ministry. Rogov serves on several boards, including the Russian Foreign Policy Association and the New Economic Association. He has written more than 400 articles and 18 books including “Nuclear Weapons in the Multipolar World” and “Arms Control in the 21st Century.”

Min. Adam Daniel Rotfeld

Diplomat

Poland

Minister Adam Daniel Rotfeld is co-chairman of the Polish-Russian Working Group and member of the UN secretary-general’s Advisory Committee on Disarmament Matters. As the minister of foreign affairs for Poland in 2005, Rotfeld established the Warsaw Reflection Group on UN Reform and Transatlantic Security and Complementarity of European Security Institutions. Prior to his work in the foreign ministry, Rotfeld served as director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. From 1961 to 1989, he was on the staff of the Polish Institute of International Affairs; in the latter decade of that term, he also served as head of the European Security Department.

Dr. Roald Sagdeev

National Security Expert

Russia

Dr. Roald Sagdeev is a professor in the physics department at the University of Maryland and is a non-resident fellow at the Eisenhower Institute, a foreign policy think tank focused on Russia, Eastern Europe and Asia. He previously served for fifteen years as director of the Space Research Institute, the Moscow-based center of the Russian space exploration program, where he currently holds the title of director emeritus. Prior to his work with the Soviet space exploration program, he had a distinguished career in nuclear science with international recognition for his work on the behavior of hot plasma and controlled thermonuclear fusion.

In addition to his decorated career as a physicist, Sagdeev held the position of people’s deputy in the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and served as advisor to Prime Minister Mikhail Gorbachev and Eduard Shevardnadze at summits in Geneva, Washington and Moscow. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Swedish Academy, the Max Planck Society and the International Academy of Aeronautics.

Sen. Wasim Sajjad

Political Leader

Pakistan

Sen. Wasim Sajjad is the head and senior partner of Sajjad Law Associates and a senior advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan. In 1985, he was elected to the senate, where he went on to hold the positions of chairman of the Senate of Pakistan and minister for justice, law and parliamentary affairs. In his time as law minister, Sajjad established the Federal Judicial Academy in Islamabad in order to train lower court judges in case handling and management. He was secretary of the Rhodes Scholarship Selection Committee for Pakistan and was elected honorary fellow at Wadham College, Oxford in 1992 for his contributions to education and politics.

Amb. Henrik Salander

Diplomat

Sweden

Ambassador Henrik Salander is a Swedish diplomat who has focused on nuclear weapons and disarmament throughout his career. In addition to serving the Swedish government as the head of disarmament and non-proliferation in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he was the secretary-general of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission, an international effort that produced a series of recommendations to reduce the danger posed by nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. From 2009 to 2010, he worked as the chairman of the Middle Power Initiative, a campaign to promote the elimination of nuclear weapons. He is currently chairman of Salander Consulting and Publishing and is a member of the International Panel on Fissile Material and of the Swedish Academy of War Sciences.