Nancy H. Rubin served as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights [1] and as a Presidential Appointee to the White House Council for Community Solutions. [2] She was the 1st chair of the National Mental Health Awareness Campaign [3] and is an advocate for mental health services. She currently serves as Vice Chair of The Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services, and the preeminent Didi Hirsch Suicide Prevention Center, [4] and the UCLA Depression Grand Challenge Leadership Council. [5] She serves on the Board of Advisors of the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan_UCLA_Medical_Center) She is a Commissioner of the Commission on the Status of Women, Civil Human Rights and Equity LA. She is a member of the IWF Trusteeship. Rubin serves on the boards of the National Democratic Institute, [6] Pacific Council, and Women for Women International. [7] Rubin served on the United Nations Association Strategy Committee [8] and Human Rights Task Force. [9] [10] She has served in the administrations of three Presidents. Rubin served as a board member of OEF International [11] and chaired the Committee on Women and Law and Development, [12] which began legal literacy projects in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Rubin is known for her advocacy of social innovation to support communities and democratic institutions around the world, and for her work with government, the United Nations and NGOs. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
She was a Presidential Appointee to the White House Council for Community Solutions [13] [14] and was an Advisory Board Member of the Aspen Institute Forum for Community Solutions [15] to advance change for cities’ most urgent needs. She has served at the White House Corporation for National and Community Service, and was part of the team that created AmeriCorps, which has engaged over half a million young Americans in public service programs. She was a director of The Washington Center, [16] training university students in leadership and public service. In 1987, Rubin helped to create the LRAP program at Stanford University Law School, a first of-its-kind loan program for law students to pursue careers in public service and social justice. She was the first chair of the National Mental Health Awareness Campaign, [17] [18] [19] an effort to eliminate barriers and stigma around mental illness, and has also served on the board of the Didi Hirsch Community Mental Health Centers. [20] [21]
Rubin was confirmed by the Senate as Ambassador, [22] and from 1997 through 2000, she served as U.S. Representative to the United Nations Commission for Human Rights, now known as the United Nations Human Rights Council. She was a board member of the United Nations Association of the United States [23] and she chaired Adopt-A-Minefield. [24] Rubin was a U.S. participant at the 1985 and 1995 World Conferences on the Status of Women and the 1993 UN Economic and Social Council in Vienna. She is on the Advisory Council of UNIFEM. [25] [26] In addition, she serves on the Advisory committee of the UN Women US National Committee.
Rubin was a director of IHRG, now called Global Rights. [27] She served on the Leadership Council for Amnesty International and co-chaired the organization's 50th Anniversary Year of Activities to expand the scope of human rights protection worldwide. [28] She chaired the Coalition for Women in International Development (WID), [29] and is a Commissioner of the Women's Refugee Commission. [30] Beginning in the early 1980s, Rubin worked to advance women's equal access to resources during her tenure in each administration, the UN and as a member of several boards, including the Women's Leadership Board at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. [31]
She served on the Brookings Expert Committee [32] on UN Human Rights Mechanisms and has worked for passage of the Convention to End Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). [33] [34]
Rubin has been invited as a guest speaker to several universities, [35] [36] [37] military institutions, and public affairs events. She has appeared on the Charlie Rose Show. [38] She has written articles for publications including The International Herald Tribune. [39] [40] [41]
Mary Therese Winifred Robinson is an Irish politician who served as the seventh president of Ireland, holding the office from December 1990 to September 1997. She was the country's first female president. Robinson had previously served as a senator in Seanad Éireann from 1969 to 1989, and as a councillor on Dublin Corporation from 1979 to 1983. Although she had been briefly affiliated with the Labour Party during her time as a senator, she became the first independent candidate to win the presidency and the first not to have had the support of Fianna Fáil. Following her time as president, Robinson became the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1997 to 2002.
The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) is an international treaty adopted in 1979 by the United Nations General Assembly. Described as an international bill of rights for women, it was instituted on 3 September 1981 and has been ratified by 189 states. Over fifty countries that have ratified the convention have done so subject to certain declarations, reservations, and objections, including 38 countries who rejected the enforcement article 29, which addresses means of settlement for disputes concerning the interpretation or application of the convention. Australia's declaration noted the limitations on central government power resulting from its federal constitutional system. The United States and Palau have signed, but not ratified the treaty. The Holy See, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, and Tonga are not signatories to CEDAW.
Märta Elisabeth Rehn is a Finnish former politician and diplomat. She served as the Minister of Defence of Finland during 1990 to 1995 and as an Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations during 1998 to 1999. She was also a member of the Finnish Parliament and parliamentary leader of the Swedish People's Party of Finland, and a member of the European Parliament.
Charlotte Anne Bunch is an American feminist author and organizer in women's rights and human rights movements. Bunch is currently the founding director and senior scholar at the Center for Women's Global Leadership at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. She is also a distinguished professor in the Department of Women's and Gender Studies at Rutgers.
Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka is a South African politician and former United Nations official, who served as the Executive Director of UN Women with the rank of Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations.
The Commission on the Status of Women is a functional commission of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), one of the principal organs of the United Nations. CSW has been described as the UN organ promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women. Every year, representatives of member states gather at United Nations Headquarters in New York to evaluate progress on gender equality, identify challenges, set global standards and formulate concrete policies to promote gender equality and advancement of women worldwide. In April 2017, ECOSOC elected 13 new members to CSW for a four-year term 2018–2022. One of the new members is Saudi Arabia, which has been criticised for its treatment of women.
The World Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry (WNUSP) is an international organisation representing, and led by what it terms "survivors of psychiatry". As of 2003, over 70 national organizations were members of WNUSP, based in 30 countries. The network seeks to protect and develop the human rights, disability rights, dignity and self-determination of those labeled 'mentally ill'.
Catherine Bertini is an American public servant. She is the 2003 World Food Prize Laureate. She was the Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Program from 1992 to 2002. She served as the UN Under-Secretary for Management from 2003 to 2005. Currently she is a distinguished fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, the Chair of the Board of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) and the Chair of the Executive Board of the Crop Trust.
Carola Blitzman Eisenberg was an Argentine-American psychiatrist who became the first woman to hold the position of Dean of Students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. From 1978 to 1990, she was the dean of student affairs at Harvard Medical School (HMS). She was a long-time lecturer in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at HMS. She was also both a founding member of Physicians for Human Rights and an honorary psychiatrist with the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. After retiring, she was involved in human rights work through Physicians for Human Rights, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, and elsewhere. She turned 100 in September 2017 and died in Lincoln, Massachusetts, in March 2021 at the age of 103.
The Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women was adopted without a vote by the United Nations General Assembly in the 48/104 resolution of 20 December 1993. Contained within it is the recognition of "the urgent need for the universal application to women of the rights and principles with regard to equality, security, liberty, integrity and dignity of all human beings". It recalls and embodies the same rights and principles as those enshrined in such instruments as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and Articles 1 and 2 provide the most widely used definition of violence against women.
Franziska Katharina Brantner is a German politician of the Green Party who has been serving as a member of the German Parliament since 2013.
Felice D. Gaer is an American human rights defender and advocate. She has worked on human rights matters and was a longstanding member and the former chair of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. She is a member of the US National Commission to UNESCO.
Frances Raday is a professor emerita of Elias Lieberman Chair in Labor Law, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Raday is currently a professor of law at the Haim Striks Law School at Colman College of Management Academic Studies, where she also acts as president of the Concord Center for Integration of International Law in Israel and as head of the school's graduate programs.
Marilou McPhedran is a Canadian lawyer, human rights advocate and politician. Since October 2016, McPhedran is a member of the Senate of Canada.
Soon-Young Yoon is a Korean-American advocate for women's human rights and author of "Citizen of the World -- Soon-Young and the UN". She currently serves as a United Nations representative of the International Alliance of Women. In 2020, she founded the Cities for CEDAW History and Futures Project of which she is currently co-director.
The Norwegian Women's Lobby is a feminist policy and advocacy organization in Norway and works for "the human rights of girls and women in all their diversity, to eliminate all forms of discrimination against all girls and women and to promote a gender equal society." It is described as the country's "main, national, umbrella organization" for women's rights. NWL understands women's human rights and discrimination in an intersectional perspective and works to represent the interests of all those who identify as women and girls. NWL is funded by the government over the national budget. The mission of the organization is to eliminate all forms of discrimination against women and girls on the basis of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, the Beijing Platform for Action and other fundamental international agreements relating to women's human rights. It works to integrate women's perspectives into all political, economical and social processes.
Yoko Hayashi is a Japanese lawyer and partner in the Athena Law Office. She was formerly an alternate member to the United Nations Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights from 2004 to 2006. In 2008, she became a member of the Committee which monitors the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), and in 2015 was serving as Chairperson of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. Hayashi has used her legal expertise to improve the status and protect the rights of women.
Maya Morsy is an Egyptian political scientist, specialist in public policy, and advocate for woman's and human rights. She is an elected president of Egypt's National Council for Women (NCW) on 1 February 2016. She is the third, and youngest, President of the NCW since it was established in 2000, by a ministerial decree. Morsy previously served as regional gender team leader for the Regional bureau of United Nations Development Programme in New York City and Regional Center in Amman before she served as the Country Manager for the United Nations Development Fund for Women. She has been described as "one of the best public policy experts on social gender in Egypt, and perhaps even in all of the Arab world".
Michèle Taylor is an American diplomat who is the United States ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Council. She previously served as a board member of the National Center for Civil and Human Rights and was a founding board member and vice chair of President Joe Biden’s Super PAC, Unite The Country.
Rangita de Silva de Alwis is a Sri Lankan-American academic, lawyer and women's rights expert. She is well known as a strong advocate demanding equal and fair representation of women in all spheres. She has worked in over 25 countries as a human rights scholar with different governmental organizations, non-governmental organizations, and academic institutions.