Charles Adams | |
---|---|
![]() Official portrait, 2015 | |
United States Ambassador to Finland | |
In office December 8, 2015 –January 20, 2017 | |
President | Barack Obama |
Preceded by | Bruce Oreck |
Succeeded by | Robert Pence |
Personal details | |
Born | Charles Clarence Adams Jr. August 25,1947 Belfast,Northern Ireland,UK |
Nationality | American |
Political party | Democratic |
Education | |
Charles Clarence Adams Jr. (born August 25, 1947) is the former United States Ambassador to Finland. [1]
Previously, he was an American international arbitration expert [2] and American political and social activist. Based in Geneva, Switzerland, he served as co-chair of Americans Abroad for Obama, a Democratic Party fundraising and networking organization of Americans living overseas. [3] [4] and raised money for Democratic candidate Pete Buttigieg. [5]
He also served as a member of the National Finance Committee of the 2012 Barack Obama presidential campaign, a position he also held during the 2008 Obama campaign. [6]
He was nominated Ambassador to Finland by President Barack Obama in July 2014 and was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on June 24, 2015. [7] He presented his credentials on December 8, 2015, and served until January 20, 2017. [8]
In 2017, Adams became a non-executive director at the Nordic West Office in Finland. [9]
Adams was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, [10] one of six children of Charles C. Adams, a career diplomat with the U.S. State Department, and the former Florence Schneider of Brooklyn, New York. He was raised in the countries of his father's assignments, including Canada, France, Germany, Ghana, Morocco and Senegal, as well as the Washington, D.C. area.
He attended Dartmouth College and received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1968. From 1968 to 1970, he was a Peace Corps volunteer, serving in Kenya. [11] Following the Peace Corps, he attended law school at University of Virginia, receiving his J.D. degree in 1973.
Adams began practicing international law in Washington, D.C., and moved to Paris before establishing residence in Geneva in 1986.
Currently, Adams is partner at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, an international law firm based in the United States. He leads the firm's international arbitration practice, with a focus on high-value disputes, and serves as head of the firm's Geneva office. His practice includes major infrastructure and construction projects, joint venture agreements, intellectual property, insurance, energy, manufacturing, telecommunications and transportation industries. [12]
He occasionally serves on international arbitration panels, and appears frequently on various news media outlets, commenting on U.S. political issues. [13] [14]
Notable publications include English Supreme Court Upholds Party Autonomy in International Arbitration, which examined a 2011 British high court decision which called into question tenets of impartiality when setting up international arbitration panels. [15] In 2012, Adams provided historical roots and context to current issues in an article titled The State of Arbitration, published by a leading international professional journal. [16] In an article published in early 2013, Adams makes a case that as costs rise, Switzerland is an ideal location to conduct international arbitration. "The domestic courts take a hands-off approach, and the non-intrusion...is certainly a benefit. There is also a well developed infrastructure in place and compared to other centers such as London or Paris it is perhaps surprisingly lower in cost," he said. [17]
In addition to English, he speaks French, German and Swahili.
He serves as Executive-in-Residence and on the board of advisers of the Taylor Institute, a research and post-graduate study center of Franklin University Switzerland. [18] [19]
He also serves on the board of advisers of End Human Trafficking Now, a human rights group. [20] He is a past president of the International Center for Humanitarian Reporting, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. [21]
He is a member of the board of trustees of the Dubai International Arbitration Centre, an initiative of the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry. [22]
He is a frequent guest lecturer at the International Development Law Organization, the University of Geneva and other institutions of legal education. [23]
He serves as a Member of the Board of Advisors of the Global Panel Foundation, an NGO that works behind the scenes in crisis areas around the world. [24]
John Edward Sununu is an American politician who served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1997 to 2003 and the U.S. Senate representing New Hampshire from 2003 to 2009. Sununu was the youngest member of the Senate for his entire six-year term. He also remains the only Salvadoran American ever elected to the U.S. Congress.
John David Podesta Jr. is an American political consultant who has been serving as Senior Advisor to the President for International Climate Policy since 2024, having previously served as the Senior Advisor to the President for Clean Energy Innovation and Implementation from 2022 to 2024. Podesta previously served as White House chief of staff to President Bill Clinton from 1998 to 2001 and counselor to President Barack Obama from 2014 to 2015. Before that, he served in the Clinton administration as White House staff secretary from 1993 to 1995 and White House deputy chief of staff for operations from 1997 to 1998.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport is an international body established in 1984 to settle disputes related to sport through arbitration. Its headquarters are in Lausanne, Switzerland and its courts are located in New York City, Sydney, and Lausanne. Temporary courts are established in current Olympic host cities.
Martin Stuart Feldstein was an American economist. He was the George F. Baker Professor of Economics at Harvard University and the president emeritus of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). He served as president and chief executive officer of the NBER from 1978 to 2008. From 1982 to 1984, Feldstein served as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers and as chief economic advisor to President Ronald Reagan. Feldstein was also a member of the Washington-based financial advisory body the Group of Thirty from 2003.
Roger W. Ferguson Jr. is an American economist, attorney and corporate executive who served as the 17th vice chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1999 to 2006. Prior to his term as vice chairman, Ferguson served as a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, taking office in 1997. He was the first African-American vice chairman. After leaving the Fed, he served as president and CEO of the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America (TIAA) from 2008 to 2021. Ferguson has also been appointed to the board of directors of several companies including Alphabet.
David Charles Dingwall is a Canadian administrator, former Canadian Cabinet minister and civil servant. He is the president of Cape Breton University.
Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP is an American multinational law firm headquartered in Washington, D.C.. It is the second-largest lobbying firm in the United States by revenue.
Victor Herbert Fazio Jr. was an American politician who served as a member of the United States House of Representatives for California from 1979 to 1999.
Rufus Hawkins Yerxa is a retired American lawyer and former U.S. government and international official. He served as Deputy United States Trade Representative during the George H.W. Bush and Clinton Administrations, and served for 11 years as Deputy Director General of the World Trade Organization (WTO). From 2016 to 2021 he was President of the National Foreign Trade Council.
Nancy Helen Sutley led the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) for five years during the administration of Barack Obama. She was unanimously confirmed for that post by the United States Senate on January 22, 2009. The CEQ coordinates federal environmental efforts and works with agencies other than White House offices in the development of environmental policies and initiatives; the chair serves as the principal environmental policy advisor to the president.
Patricia Ann Millett is an American lawyer and jurist serving since 2013 as a U.S. circuit judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. She formerly headed the Supreme Court practice at the law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld. Millett also was a longtime former assistant to the United States Solicitor General and served as an occasional blogger for SCOTUSblog. At the time of her confirmation to the D.C. Circuit, she had argued 32 cases before the United States Supreme Court—once the record for a female lawyer. In February 2016, The New York Times identified her as a potential nominee to replace Justice Antonin Scalia.
David Huebner is an international arbitrator based in Southern California. He previously served as the United States Ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa. He was the first openly gay ambassador in the Obama administration and the third openly gay ambassador in United States history. His tenure was marked by significant improvement in bilateral relations, with commentators observing that relations are stronger and closer than they have been in decades. Called an “excellent public face for the United States,” he has been widely praised as a successful Ambassador including for his accessible, inclusive approach, his emphasis on students and future leaders, and the innovative restructuring of his Embassies around social media and other nontraditional tools and approaches of diplomacy. Before being appointed Ambassador he worked as an international lawyer in Los Angeles, Shanghai, and New York City, specializing in international arbitration and mediation. He is licensed as an attorney in California, New York, and in the District of Columbia, and as a solicitor in England and Wales.
Matthew Parish is a British international lawyer and scholar of international relations, based in England and Eastern Europe. In September 2021, Parish was sentenced by a Swiss court to three years in prison for his role staging a fraudulent arbitration to prove the authenticity of incriminating evidence in a political dispute between rival members of the Kuwaiti ruling family.
Karin Keller-Sutter is a Swiss politician who has served as a Member of the Swiss Federal Council since 2019. A member of FDP.The Liberals, she is the head of the Federal Department of Finance. Keller-Sutter previously served as President of the Council of States for the 2017–2018 term, and has served as vice president of Switzerland for the 2024 term since 1 January.
Brooke D. Anderson is an American diplomat who served as a U.S. ambassador at the United Nations, as Chief of Staff and Counselor for the White House National Security Council, and as Senior Advisor to the Secretary of State and the Under Secretary for Political Affairs on the Iran Nuclear Negotiations. She has served as a trusted advisor to U.S. presidents, Cabinet Secretaries, members of Congress, presidential candidates, philanthropists and business leaders.
The End Human Trafficking Now (EHTN) campaign was founded in 2006 in an attempt at uniting the business world in combatting human trafficking and modern slavery.
Jacob Jeremiah Sullivan is an American attorney who is serving as the United States National Security Advisor, reporting directly to President Joe Biden. He previously served as Director of Policy to President Barack Obama, National Security Advisor to then Vice President Biden and Deputy Chief of Staff to Secretary Hillary Clinton at the U.S. Department of State. Sullivan also served as senior advisor to the U.S. federal government at the Iran nuclear negotiations and senior policy advisor to Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign, as well as visiting professor at Yale Law School. On November 23, 2020, President-elect Biden announced that Sullivan would be appointed the United States National Security Advisor. He took office on January 20, 2021.
Douglas Samuel Jones, is an independent international arbitrator based in London, Sydney and Toronto. He is a door tenant at Atkin Chambers, London, a member of Sydney Arbitration Chambers, and a member of Toronto Arbitration Chambers in Toronto, Canada. He serves as an International Judge of the Singapore International Commercial Court.
REYL Intesa Sanpaolo is a Swiss wealth management company that specialises in wealth management, entrepreneur & family office services, corporate finance, asset services and asset management.
Gabriel Omar Camarillo is an American attorney who has served as the 35th under secretary of the Army in the Biden administration since February 8, 2022. He previously served as Assistant Secretary of the Air Force from 2015 to 2017 during the Obama administration.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)[ failed verification ]