The situation in Libya today, as a result of increasing fragmentation and polarization among actors, is on the verge of a breaking point.
So far, the competing authorities in the country – namely the Presidential Council and Government of National Accord established by a United Nations-backed process, and the eastern-based House of Representatives and head of the Libyan National Army Khalifa Haftar – have failed to come to an agreement to end the conflict.
In this environment, it is more important than ever to offer perspectives on ways in which the new US administration can help Libya move toward stability.
The Rafik Hariri Center will convene a panel of experts to discuss the current situation in Libya and explore ways forward out of the current conflict.
Time: Thursday March 9, 2017 – 10:00 am
Place: Atlantic Council, 1030 15th Street NW, Washington, DC.
The Experts:
– Ms. Nebras Attia, Human Rights Activist
– Mr. Fadel Lamen, Nonresident Fellow, Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East Atlantic Council
– Ms. Azza Maghur, Senior Lawyer Maghur & Partners
– Mr. Jason Pack, Executive Director, US-Libya Business Association
– Dr. Federica Saini Fasanotti, Nonresident Scholar, Brookings Institution
The Moderator:
– Dr. Karim Mezran, Senior Fellow, Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, Atlantic Council
Introduced by: Ambassador Frederic C. Hof, Director, Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, Atlantic Council
Concluding Remarks by: Ambassador Jonathan Winer, Former US Special Envoy for Libya, US Department of State
You can follow the event on Twitter @ACMideast and use #ACLibya
Bios of Participants:
Ms. Nebras Attia is a Libyan human rights activist and journalist. She focuses on the defense of women’s rights. She has worked as a field program assistant with Chemonics and the US Agency for International Development and as a translator and program manager with the United Nations Development Programme in Libya. She also worked as a supervisor at Benghazi University’s Research and Studies Center and as a journalist from 2011 to 2012 for Libya’s Elhora and Shaa’ TV channels and Elmokhtar journal. She obtained a BS in architectural engineering from Omar Elmokhtar University in Libya. She graduated from the Leaders for Democracy Fellowship program at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs in 2014 and from a peacebuilding course at the School for International Training Graduate Institute in Vermont in 2015.
Dr. Federica Saini Fasanotti is a nonresident fellow in the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence as well as the Foreign Policy program at The Brookings Institution. Her research focuses on counterinsurgency, and her fieldwork has covered a number of countries including Afghanistan, Libya, Ethiopia, and Somalia. She is a military historian expert in African colonies. She received her doctorate from the University of Milan; as a trained nurse, her dissertation focused on the controversial relationship between fascism and the Italian Red Cross. Following her studies, she moved to Rome, where she works actively with the Central Historical Office of the Italian Army and the Historical Office of the Italian Ministry of Defense. She is a frequent lecturer at military history conferences and congresses and is a guest lecturer for the Italian military academies.
Mr. Fadel Lamen is a nonresident fellow at the Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East. He is the president of the American Libyan Council and has served as a special adviser on the Middle East and North Africa for the US Department of Defense and on public diplomacy for the US Department of State. He has also advised the Libyan transitional government. He currently chairs the National Dialogue preparatory commission in Libya. He has been working on issues of democratic transition in the Middle East with a particular focus on Libya.
Ms. Azza Maghur is a senior lawyer with Maghur & Partners in Tripoli, a firm that represents Libyan and international cases. She acted as a member of the inaugural committee within the Tripoli Bar Association that issued the first Libyan human rights report in 1998 and as consultant to BNP Paribas on the first privatization process in the Libyan bank sector in 2007. She is recognized as a pioneer in bringing major human rights issues to light in Libya and has worked to incorporate international human rights treaties into Libyan legislation. Following Libya’s revolution in 2011, she was appointed by the National Transition Council as a member of the Libyan National Council for Civil Liberties and Human Rights. She has been widely interviewed and quoted in both Libyan and international media outlets, including CBC Radio, Le Monde, La Republica, la Stampa, and El Pais.
Mr. Jason Pack is the executive director of the US-Libya Business Association (USLBA). He is also the founder of the consultancy Libya-Analysis. Over the last eight years, Jason has worked to promote US-Libyan commercial, academic, and governmental ties. After helping Western businesses operate in Tripoli in 2008, he served as USLBA Program Manager from 2009-10. He then completed a master’s degree in global and imperial history at St. Antony’s College, Oxford in 2011. Since then, he has been affiliated with the University of Cambridge, where he was a PhD student and researcher of Middle Eastern history. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Spectator, Newsweek, The Financial Times, The Guardian, Foreign Policy, and Foreign Affairs. He is also a frequent commentator on the BBC, France 24, CNN, VOA, and Al Jazeera.
Ambassador Jonathan Winer is the former State Department Special Envoy for Libya, where he was responsible for developing, coordinating, and implementing US policy on Libya. He was previously US deputy assistant secretary of state for international law enforcement, where he was one of the architects of US international policies and strategies on promoting and harmonizing financial transparency, as well as on cross-border law enforcement issues. He initiated the establishment of International Law Enforcement Academies in Bangkok and Gaborone and served as the first General Secretary of the Global Forum on Corruption. Ambassador Winer previously served for 10 years as counsel and principal legislative assistant to then-US Senator John F. Kerry. In November 1999, he received a distinguished honor award from Secretary of State Madeleine Albright for his service at the State Department.
Dr. Karim Mezran is a senior fellow with the Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East. Mezran joined the Hariri Center as a senior fellow focusing on the processes of change in North Africa. As a distinguished Libyan-Italian scholar, Mezran brings enormous depth of understanding to the transition in Libya and elsewhere in the region. In addition, he is an adjunct professor of Middle East studies at the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). Dr. Mezran was previously the director of the Center for American Studies in Rome. His analyses on the Middle East and North Africa have been widely published in Italian- and other-language journals and publications. Mezran holds a PhD in international relations from SAIS; a JD in comparative law from the University of Rome (La Sapienza); an LLM in comparative law from the George Washington University; an MA in Arab studies from Georgetown University; and a BA in management from Hiram College.
Ambassador Frederic C. Hof came to the Atlantic Council after a career as a US Army officer, a private sector CEO, and a US Department of State diplomat. He is a Vietnam veteran and as a military officer served on the commission that investigated the 1983 bombing of the US Marine Corps headquarters at Beirut International Airport. In 2001, he served as chief of staff of the Sharm al-Sheikh Fact-Finding Commission, headed by former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, and was the principal drafter of the Commission’s report. In the Department of State from 2009 to 2012, he took the lead in an effort to mediate Syrian-Israeli peace and was given the rank of ambassador in his capacity as special adviser to the secretary of state for transition in Syria. Among his military decorations is the Purple Heart.
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