Frederick (Rick) Barton is a senior adviser in the CSIS International Security Program and codirector of the Post-Conflict Reconstruction Project. A member of the CSIS Commission on Smart Power and a supporting expert to the Iraq Study Group and the Task Force on the United Nations, Barton is a regular writer, commentator, and contributor to global public discussions. Recently he has published, with Karin von Hippel, A Perilous Course: US Strategy and Assistance to Pakistan.

For the past five years, he was a visiting lecturer at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, where he was the Frederick H. Schultz Professor of Economic Policy and lecturer on public and international affairs. His work is informed by 12 years of experience in nearly 30 global hot spots, including serving as UN deputy high commissioner for refugees in Geneva (1999–2001) and as the first director of the Office of Transition Initiatives at the U.S. Agency for International Development (1994–1999).

A graduate of Harvard College (1971), Barton earned his M.B.A. from Boston University (1982), with an emphasis on public management, and received an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Wheaton College of Massachusetts (2001).

Asma Jahangir is a Pakistani lawyer and human rights advocate and Chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. She also serves as a United Nations a Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion, and member of the Open Society Institute's International board. She is currently under house arrest in Lahore, Pakistan.

Ayesha Jalal is a Professor of History at Tufts University and an expert on Pakistan and Islam in South Asia. Her books include Democracy and Authoritarianism in South Asia: a Comparative and Historical Perspective and State of Martial Rule: the Origins of Pakistan's Political Economy of Defence.

Anil Kalhan is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Law at Fordham Law School. Before coming to Fordham, he was an Associate in Law at Columbia Law School, and he previously served as a litigation associate at Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton and co-Coordinator of the firm's immigration and international human rights pro bono practice group.