Juan Méndez is President of the International Center for Transitional Justice and the UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide. Méndez has dedicated his legal career to the defense of human rights and has a long and distinguished record of advocacy throughout the Americas. Mendez served as general counsel of Human Rights Watch, Executive Director of the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights in Costa Rica, and as President of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States.

Kenneth Roth is the Executive Director of Human Rights Watch, a post he has held since 1993. Roth has conducted human rights investigations around the globe, devoting special attention to issues of justice and accountability for gross abuses of human rights, standards governing military conduct in time of war, the human rights policies of the United States and the United Nations, and the human rights responsibilities of multinational businesses.

Liz Ševcenko is the Director of the International Coalition of Historic Site Museums of Conscience, where she works with historic sites around the world to develop programs and practices that foster public engagement with contemporary issues. As former Vice President of Interpretation at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, Ševcenko developed programs for all ages that connect the dramatic stories of the neighborhood’s immigrants past and present, as well as initiatives to inspire civic dialogue on cultural identity, labor relations, housing, welfare, immigration and other issues.

Patricia Tappatá de Valdez is currently Director of Memoria Abierta, an alliance of six Argentinean human rights organizations working to preserve and exhibit the history of state terrorism in Argentina, and to encourage public policy to recover this history as part of the nation’s social and political identity. She was the Director of the Truth Commission for El Salvador, the Human Rights Department of the National Conference of Bishops in Peru (CEAS), and the “Political Representation” Programme at the Fundación Poder Ciudadano in Argentina.