Book launch webinar: Contested Histories in Public Spaces: Principles, Processes, Best Practices

Mark Ellis

Dr Mark Ellis is the Executive Director of the International Bar Association.

Before joining the IBA, Dr Ellis spent 10 years as the first executive director of the ABA’s Central European and Eurasian Law Initiative providing technical assistance to 28 countries in Central Europe and the former Soviet Union, and to the ICTY in The Hague.

Dr Ellis has served as legal advisor to the Independent International Commission on Kosovo, chaired by Justice Richard Goldstone and was appointed by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe to advise on the creation of Serbia’s War Crimes Tribunal. He currently chairs the Advisory Panel on Matters Relating to Defence Counsel of the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals.

Dr Ellis has published extensively in the areas of international humanitarian law, war crimes tribunals, human rights and the development of the rule of law and his op-eds have appeared in The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune, The Huffington Post and The London Times.

Dr Ellis earned degrees in Economics (B.S.) and Law (J.D.) from Florida State University and holds a PhD in International Law from Kings College, London.

Lecia Brooks

Lecia Brooks is the chief of staff for the SPLC, where she provides counsel to senior leadership, assists with strategic planning and works with people from across the organization to ensure the SPLC’s success, whether it is achieving long-term goals or maintaining effective daily operations.

Before her current role, Brooks served as the SPLC’s chief workplace transformation officer, where she supported leadership and staff efforts to build a culture of inclusiveness and ensure a continued focus on diversity and equity.

Brooks also previously served as the SPLC’s outreach director, where she traveled across the U.S. and abroad to speak about hate and extremism. Earlier, she was director of the SPLC’s Civil Rights Memorial Center, an interpretive experience designed to provide visitors to the Civil Rights Memorial with a deeper understanding of the civil rights movement.

Brooks, who joined the SPLC in 2004, has a wealth of experience in diversity advocacy training for corporations and nonprofit organizations, including Walmart, Lyft, Pixar, the Salzburg Seminar, and the Newark Public Library.

Klaus Kraatz

Klaus is the senior partner in the boutique law firm KRAATZ & KRAATZ and an expert in German Corporate, Communications, EU and Art, Cultural and Professional Institutions law. He has organized art exhibitions and is engaged since decades in cultural exchanges with France. He has published several articles on Communications Law and is one of the co-authors of Sweet & Maxwell’s Global Telecommunications Law and Practice (Colin Long editor).

Klaus gave courses in EU Communications Law at Zurich University and advises German, European and world-wide associations in statutory and governance issues.

He is a member of Frankfurt Society for Trade, Industry and Science. He is also a board member of scientific institutes in Germany and France. His pro bono work includes legal advice to the Kronberg Academy, the famous school for young professional cellists under the patronage of Marta Casals Istomin, the widow of Pablo Casals.

Harriet Senie

Harriet F. Senie is is professor of art history at City College and the Graduate Center , CUNY. She is the author of Memorials to Shattered Myths: Vietnam to 9/11 (Oxford University Press, 2015); The “Tilted Arc” Controversy: Dangerous Precedent? (University of Minnesota Press, 2001); and Contemporary Public Sculpture: Tradition, Transformation, and Controversy (Oxford University Press, 1992). She is coeditor with Sally Webster of and contributor to Critical Issues in Public Art: Content, Context, and Controversy (HarperCollins, 1992; Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998) and coeditor with Cher Knight of and contributor to the Companion to Public Art (Wiley Blackwell, 2016), as well as Museums and Public Art? (Cambridge Scholars Press, 2018). In 2008, she cofounded Public Art Dialogue with Cher Knight, an international organization and a College Art Association affiliate. With Knight she coedited the peer review journal Public Art Dialogue from 2011 through spring 2017. In 2017, she was appointed to the New York City Mayoral Advisory Commission on City Art, Monuments, and Markers. She has also served on the She Built New York initiative advisory committee, and the selection committees for the Women’s Suffrage Monument for Central Park, as well as the Mexico City Memorial 1968/2018. She is currently working on a book titled Monumental Controversies: Mount Rushmore, Four Presidents, and Our Quest for National Identity.

Dr Joanna Burch-Brown

Dr Burch-Brown’s research has informed local, national and international measures to address legacies of slavery and racism in public space. In Britain, she contributed to a major grassroots campaign (Bristol’s campaign over Edward Colston), which gained an international stage and helped galvanize national reflection on the history and legacies of transatlantic slavery. Burch-Brown’s research has helped institutional, governmental and political leaders to recognize responsibilities, design strategies, navigate reputational risks and conceptualize and understand issues from multiple perspectives. Her innovative teaching has empowered young people in Britain and the US to develop their own initiatives addressing concerns that matter in their communities. She is now serving as a commissioner on the 'We Are Bristol' History Commission, an initiative of the Mayor's office with the remit of helping the city "understand our history, and how that history led us to become the city we are, so we are better equipped to decide who we want to become."

Ambassador Lamberto Zannier

Retired Italian career diplomat, presently serving as High Level Expert with the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly. Previous international functions include OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities (2017-2020), OSCE Secretary General for two consecutive three-year terms (2011-2017), UNSG Special Representative for Kosovo and Head of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), with the rank of UN Undersecretary-General (2008-2011), Director of the Conflict Prevention Centre of the OSCE (2002-2006), Chairperson of the negotiations on the adaptation of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (1998-1999) and Head of Disarmament, Arms Control and Cooperative Security at NATO (1991-1997).

Ambassador at large in the Italian Foreign Ministry, he also served between 1978 and 2017 in a number of positions in Rome and in Abu Dhabi, Vienna and The Hague, dealing with economic affairs, development, and security.

Author of several publications on international affairs, conflict prevention and crisis management issues, Amb. Zannier holds a Law degree, an advanced degree in international relations from Societa’ Italiana per le Organizzazioni Internazionali in Rome and a doctorate HC in International and Diplomatic Sciences (2016) from the University of Trieste, Italy.