Chibli Mallat
Luc Walleyn
Michael Verhaeghe

Chibli Mallat was born in Beirut in 1960. After studies in Lebanon, France, the US and the UK, he taught law at the University of London for a decade, where he also served as Director of the Centre of Islamic and Middle Eastern Law. He left London in 1995 to return to legal practise in Beirut as principal of Mallat Law Offices, a long-established law firm with a renewed focus on international law. He also pursued his academic career at Université Saint-Joseph, where he holds the first Jean Monnet Chair of European Law to be conferred by the European Union in the Middle East. He has acted as counsel in a number of lead cases in Europe and the Middle East, most recently in the case brought against Ariel Sharon in Belgium. Professor Mallat is the author or editor of some twenty books, which appeared in several languages. He is active on a number of international boards, most recently in the Middle East Studies Forum at Yale law school, the advisory board of the Minority Rights Group based in London and the editorial board of Islamic law and society. His latest book, on Democracy in America, was published by Dar al-Nahar in Beirut in August 2001.

Luc Walleyn was born in 1949, and has been an advocate since 1972. He is a specialist in immigration law, human rights, and humanitarian law. He is also supply judge (Juge de Paix) in Schaerbeek-Brussels, occasional lecturer at universities in Antwerp and Paris, and author of many publications, mainly on immigration law. Walleyn was member of the Council of the Brussels Bar Association, and served as president of the organization Avocats sans Frontiéres (Lawyers without Borders) until last year. He participated in ASF programs in Rwanda, Burundi and Kosovo and represented the organization at the diplomatic conference on the International Criminal Court in Rome in 1998. As counsel of different NGOs, he won judgments three times in the Court of Arbitration (Constitutional Court), canceling some parts of new immigration and asylum laws. He also initiated the law suit against the Belgian soldiers participating in the peacekeeping operation in Somalia and won convictions for racist behavior. He is now representing the Belgian victims of the former military regime in Guatemala as well as the Sabra and Shatila victims in their action against Ariel Sharon.

Michael Verhaeghe was born in 1963 and has practiced law since 1987. He has specialized in criminal law, on two levels: mostly economically-related Belgian criminal law; at an international level, he has focused on humanitarian criminal law. Verhaeghe’s previous experience in international criminal law includes working on the complaint against former Chilean President Augusto Pinochet (1998) on behalf of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions and one of its members. He also helped draw up a complaint against some of those responsible for the murder and disappearance of two Flemish priests in Guatemala in the early 1980s. In addition, Verhaeghe has also lobbied in New York and Rome on behalf of the International Criminal Court. Verhaeghe is also a volunteer for Mèdecins sans Frontiéres (Belgian section) and has participated in numerous missions, mainly to Africa.

The bios for Luc Walleyn and Michael Verhaeghe above first appeared in Lebanon's Daily Star newspaper on Thursday 29th November, 2001. Reprinted with permission, with minor edits.