Laura E. Kennedy

Ambassador Laura E. Kennedy

Permanent Representative of the United States to the Conference on Disarmament

And

U.S. Special Representative for Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC) Issues

Ambassador Laura Kennedy, a Minister Counselor in the Foreign Service, presented her credentials to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva on March 22, 2010. She was also named the U.S. Special Representative for Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC) Issues on December 3, 2010. Ambassador Kennedy will serve in these two capacities concurrently. As BWC Special Representative she will conduct the multilateral diplomacy leading up to the December 2011 five-year Review Conference for the BWC and coordinate U.S. efforts at the Conference.

Most recently she served as International Affairs Advisor and Deputy Commandant of the National War College. After returning in 2003 from service as Ambassador to Turkmenistan, she directed the 46th class of the Senior Seminar, the State Department’s interagency leadership program. She subsequently served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State with responsibility for Southern Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus.

Previous foreign assignments included Turkey, a detail to Operation Provide Comfort during the Kurdish refugee crisis that followed the Gulf War, and service as Charge at the newly established U.S. Embassy in Armenia. She served twice in the former Soviet Union at U.S. Embassy Moscow and on a detail to an official exchange exhibit in Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan. Kennedy served twice in Vienna, first with the U.S. delegation to the conventional arms control talks (MBFR and CFE) and later as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Mission to the UN in Vienna which has responsibility for IAEA, CTBTO, space, and international narcotics and crime control programs. Earlier Washington assignments included the China and Soviet desks, Deputy Director of the Office of Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Palestinian Affairs and Office Director for Central Eurasia and Caspian energy.

Her education includes a B.A. from Vassar College, an M.A. from American University, a diploma from the National War College, a sabbatical year at Stanford, and the Senior Seminar. Her languages are Russian and Turkish and she has also studied French, German and Indonesian. In addition to the Distinguished Honor Award bestowed by Secretary of State Colin Powell, she has received Presidential Performance, Superior and Meritorious Honor Awards. She is married to fellow diplomat John J. Feeney and has two children, Martin and Patrick Feeney.

Ambassador Michael Punke

AMBASSADOR MICHAEL PUNKE
DEPUTY U.S. TRADE REPRESENTATIVE

Michael Punke serves as Deputy United States Trade Representative and U.S. Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva, Switzerland.

Michael Punke has worked in the field of international trade law and policy for two decades. From 1995 to 1996, Punke served as Senior Policy Advisor at the Office of the United States Trade Representative. There, he advised the USTR on issues ranging from agricultural trade to intellectual property protection.

From 1993 to 1995, Punke served at the White House as Director for International Economic Affairs with a joint appointment to the National Security Council and the National Economic Council. His responsibilities included assisting in the management of the interagency process. From 1991 to 1992, Punke was International Trade Counsel to Senator Max Baucus, then Chairman of the Finance Committee’s International Trade Subcommittee. Punke has also worked on international trade issues from the private sector, including as a partner at the Washington, D.C., office of Mayer, Brown, Rowe, & Maw. From 2003 to 2009, Punke advised clients on public policy issues out of Missoula, Montana.
Punke has also worked as an adjunct professor at the University of Montana and as a writer, authoring a novel, two books of nonfiction, and two screenplays. Punke is a graduate of George Washington University and Cornell Law School, where he was elected Editor-in-Chief of the Cornell International Law Journal.

Ambassador Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe

Ambassador Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe is the first United States Permanent Representative to the UN Human Rights Council.  She represents the United States at the 47-member body of elected states, which is the lead UN entity for addressing human rights.

Before undertaking her role as Ambassador, Ms. Chamberlain Donahoe was an Affiliated Scholar at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. Her research focused on norms on use of force, UN reform, and the international rule of law. Her Ph.D. dissertation addressed conflicting legal and ethical justifications for humanitarian military intervention.

Her legal career included work as a litigation associate at Fenwick & West in Silicon Valley, where she served technology clients in intellectual property and commercial disputes, as a teaching fellow at Stanford Law School, and law clerk to the Honorable William H. Orrick.

Ms. Donahoe has worked with various human rights organizations including The Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights and Amnesty International’s Ginetta Sagan Fund.  She holds a B.A. from Dartmouth College, an M.T.S. from Harvard University, a J.D. from Stanford Law School, an M.A. in East Asian Studies from Stanford University, and a Ph.D. in Ethics from the University of California’s Graduate Theological Union.

Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe

Excerpt from the U.S. Senate Record of March 3, 2010

The following civilian Executive Nominations were confirmed by the Senate during the current congress.

March 03, 2010

DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe, of California, for the rank of Ambassador during her tenure of service as the United States Representative to the UN Human Rights Council.

———

Short Biography from Nomination

Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe is an Affiliated Scholar at the Center for international Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. Her research has focused on norms on use of force, UN reform, and the international rule of law. Her 2006 Ph.D. dissertation entitled: “Humanitarian Military Intervention: The Moral Imperative Versus the Rule of Law,” addressed conflicting legal and ethical justifications for humanitarian military intervention. Previously, Ms. Donahoe was a litigation associate at Fenwick & West in Silicon Valley, where she served technology clients in intellectual property and commercial disputes. Prior to that, she was a teaching fellow at Stanford Law School and law clerk to the Honorable William H. Orrick. Ms. Donahoe has worked with various human rights organizations including The Lawyer’s Committee for Human Rights, where she did research on the nexus between US foreign policy and human rights, and Amnesty International’s Ginetta Sagan Fund, where she did strategy work related to human rights concerns of women and children. She received her B.A. from Dartmouth College, a Masters in Theology from Harvard University, her J.D. from Stanford Law School, an M.A. in East Asian Studies from Stanford University, and her Ph.D. in Ethics from the University of California’s Graduate Theological Union.

Harold Hongju Koh speaking at a press briefing in Geneva (Archive Photo)

State Department Legal Adviser Harold Koh describes rights review process

The Brookings Institution
Washington, D.C.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Well, let me say first how great it is to be back at Brookings where I spent many happy hours as a trustee before I was forced to resign, to serve in the U.S. government. It’s also great to be here with so many good friends and colleagues from the human rights world.

I had the pleasure of serving on the delegation to the now discredited Human Rights Commission with my dear friend, Nancy Rubin who was our ambassador, Karin Ryan who was also on the delegation, to work with Mort Halperin and Ted Piccone, and to work with so many of our colleagues from the human rights community and other parts of the world.

This is my fifth time in the U.S. government, and every time I’m struck by a story. Forgive the parochialism, but it comes from the American sport of baseball. It concerns a now famous athlete called Mickey Mantle who was a great baseball player for the New York Yankees, and he was also–oh, George Moose is here too.

George, how are you? He was also the leader of our delegation for these many years.

Mickey Mantle was a great baseball player, but he was also a famous carouser and drunkard. One night, he hurt himself, and so he was told he wouldn’t play the next day. He went out and got extraordinarily drunk. Then the next day during the game, in the ninth inning, he was summoned out to pinch hit.

As it’s told, he staggered to the plate, swung mightily at the first pitch and missed by several feet. The second pitch comes in, he swung mightily and missed by several by several feet. And the third pitch came in, and he hit a tremendous home run, and he ran around the bases.

And they won the game. There was cheering and a call for him to emerge from the dugout to receive his congratulations. And he squinted at the crowd, and he said, “Those people don’t know how hard that really was.”

This, of course, is a reminder to me that every time I’m outside the government it seems very obvious what the U.S. government should do. Every time I’m in the government, I’m amazed at how hard it is to get done even the most modest of things.

The second point, the second story is the story told of two Irishmen who were in the wilds of Connemara and one of them says to the other, “How do we get to Dublin?” And the other says, “I don’t know, but I wouldn’t start from here.”

When you’re looking at many of the issues that face this administration, not just the economy, foreign policy questions, et cetera, if it was our choice, we wouldn’t start with the hand that we were given. We would not have started with Guantanamo. We would not have started with the policies of detainee treatment. We wouldn’t have started with two wars. We wouldn’t have started with a recession. We wouldn’t have started with the kind of bitterly divided legislative environment in which we’re functioning.

So when people ask me, “Well, why don’t you ratify Treaty X, Y or Z,” I ask them, “Have you noticed them getting the 60 votes necessary for health care?” Since they have not, that seems seven votes short of what you might hope they could do with regard to a human rights treaty. It’s just the basic politics of the situation.

Or how about this basic fact? Betty King, our Ambassador to ECOSOC in the last administration, nominated to succeed George Moose as Ambassador to Geneva, an extraordinarily well-qualified person, was confirmed two days ago in the middle of the night, for the political problem of actually being qualified for her position.

Eileen Donahoe, who is being nominated for the Special Human Rights Ambassador position, was actually not confirmed, for no obvious reason.

I, myself, now know what a treaty feels like. I was held for several months.

Mike Posner, who is the Assistant Secretary of Human Rights, didn’t get confirmed for many months.

And so, even the most basic aspects of what we’re supposed to do have been rendered difficult by the situation that we’re in. This is not an excuse, but it is at least a partial explanation as to why those people don’t know how hard it really is.

That having said, I’m here playing a little bit out of position in that my previous job was Assistant Secretary for Human Rights. Now I’m the Legal Advisor of the State Department, but my lifelong commitment has been to human rights. So I thought I would give a quick overview, focusing on five points:

First, what I’d call the emerging Obama-Clinton Doctrine in foreign policy;

Second, how that doctrine or that approach affects our approach to the Human Rights council;

Third, what the approach had been before we arrived and what the United States government under this administration is trying to do, both with regard to the Council and the 2011 Review, applying three principles- -the principle of engagement, the universal application of human rights law and fidelity to the truth;

And then suggest what this means for particular issues before the Council–thematic topics like defamation of religions, the Goldstone Report, country-specific situations, the Iran Universal Periodic Review that occurred yesterday.

And one reason that I’m here is that Mike Posner, who I think was originally hoping to be here, appeared for the U.S. yesterday to speak on the Iran UPR, and then the United States’ own approach to its own UPR which is coming up in November of this year.

And then, fifth and finally, taking a hard look at our own human rights practices and what the U.S. government is attempting to do in that regard.

Let me start first with what I’d call the Obama-Clinton Doctrine. We’re at the one-year anniversary, and you hear a lot of pundits and others saying, there’s a basic continuity of foreign policy, or they haven’t changed that much, or things like that. I disagree. I think that it may well be that many of the particular actions being adopted by the U.S. government have similar substance to things that were done in the past. That’s always true with regard to foreign policy.

But I believe that the foreign policy of this administration is guided by four basic commitments. The first is to multilateral commitments, a strategic multilateralism, and I think this is just something that’s very endemic to our President’s approach to thinking. This is a man whose father came from Kenya. He spent his life as a child in Indonesia. He has said in Cairo that the challenges of the 21st Century can’t be met by any one leader or nation. He’s committed to working across regional divides, and much of what we have been trying to do in our initial relationship with the Human Rights Council is to infuse the spirit of Cairo into what the Human Rights Council ought to be doing.

The second plank is what I would call a universality, and this has been expressed both by President Obama from his inaugural address to Secretary Clinton in the speech that she gave in Georgetown, that our commitment to human rights starts with the universal standards, holding everyone accountable to those standards, including ourselves.

The third, and this is where my current role as Legal Advisor comes in, is commitment to our values and expressed in fidelity to laws, domestic and international law. If there’s a difference between our counterterrorism policy, it is one that is going to be conducted consistently with our values and consistently with the law, domestic and international.

Now that doesn’t mean that we are not able or not able to operate within the legal framework to battle against people who are trying to blow buildings in the United States or blow up aircraft or anything else. There’s nothing illegal about certain forms of response. It’s a basic tenet that the last administration too quickly abandoned these values and fidelity to law, in doing what was a necessary national task, and what we’re trying to do is to bring that policy back within the framework of law and our values.

And this suggests, as the President said in his Nobel lecture, that adhering to international standards strengthens those who do and isolates those in don’t. In other words, it’s a reaffirmation of our basic commitment to the framework of international law.

And then fourth and finally, the approach to be applied to this multilateralism, this commitment to universal values, this fidelity to our values and the rule of law should be expressed through the exercise of what Secretary Clinton likes to call smart power–in other words, not just military tools but a kind of principled pragmatism, the intelligent use of all policy tools at our disposal, not just diplomacy, development, human rights, but also promotion of democracy and use of the legal tool.

What I would argue is that our approach to the Human Rights Council is just a particular instance of the application of this broader Obama-Clinton Doctrine. You can see it in many different settings, but the first and most important focus was the decision to join the Human Rights Council.

The last administration had participated in the negotiations. Ended up voting against the adoption of the General Assembly resolution that created the Council. Then decided not to run for a seat. Participated as observer, but then decided that even that level of engagement was too much. Withdrew even further.

Now none of us who went to the old Commission would say that it was a perfect institution. It was flawed in many respects. It was dominated by regional groups. It was often dominated by countries– China and Cuba–who could use the Commission to pursue their particular goals. And so in 2060, when the General Assembly created the new body, the Human Rights Council, it would have been great if the United States had been able to be there in the early going, to help to influence the way in which the Council operated. That did not happen. So this is another example of what I would call the “I wouldn’t start from here”.

Here it is then, the fall of 2009, with the Council which has already had some unfortunate incidents, and the United States faced with one of two choices, which are: Do we maintain the distance, let the Council continue along a path without U.S. engagement? Or do we try to engage and fight for better outcomes?

The administration made a very important and necessary decision, I think, to be engaged.

Now, notice that the Council is different from the Commission in at least four respects. First, the Universal Periodic Review process, about which we’ll say more, it requires each member state to defend its record every four years. There are about close to seven weeks a year in which there’s representation. It creates a possibility for a real human rights dialogue.

Second, the Human Rights Council meets much more frequently throughout the year. Our mission in Geneva, as George Moose and Nancy Rubin would recognize, is now so consumed with the business of the Human Rights Council. It’s extraordinarily exhausting, particularly when the key ambassadorial figures haven’t been confirmed.

Third, while the Human Rights Council membership includes still some authoritarian regimes, the election criteria has done a reasonable job, I think, of sorting out some of the membership.

But part of the process of this is that–and this is the fourth difference–the western group lost some seats on the Human Rights Council which has affected a number of human rights initiatives, which created a possibility that you can call for a special session with only 16 votes which means that it’s possible for special sessions to be called for particular agendas such as, for example, criticizing Israel or anything else for which you can get 16 votes. And this, I think, is already becoming clear as an uncomfortable situation for us to engage.

Now in September, last September, the question was how to go to the Council. We were in a very funny situation. We had a confirmed Assistant Secretary for International Organizations, Esther Brimmer. She went and opened our session. Mike Posner, my successor as head of the Human Rights Bureau, was actually, the week before the Human Rights Council session, still unconfirmed. We literally did not know on Thursday whether he could be there for Monday.

One reason that I went and ended up co-chairing our delegation with him was that we literally had no idea whether the Senate would release him. By the way, they had no objections to him; they just wouldn’t confirm him. If you’re going to have a cloture vote, it would probably have taken several more months. On the Friday night, he was confirmed, and so we were there together. But, literally, we bought him a plane ticket without knowing whether he could go.

Then the first issue that came up, of course, was the Goldstone Report which consumed a huge amount of time and energy for our first session, about which I’ll say more in a moment.

Now I would urge to read Mike Posner’s introductory remarks at the September session, where he talked about our commitments to principled engagement, by which he means looking for common ground but being willing to stand alone when necessary, trying to transcend traditional geographical groupings and a very special concern of Secretary Clinton– making sure the Human Rights Council is not just a talk shop, that it actually works for change on the ground, affecting real individuals, and particularly to take up the cause of human rights defenders, who I know are represented broadly in this group, who are obviously the critical force multiplier on human rights issues.

Secondly, the commitment to apply standards universally.

And third, a deep commitment to truth telling, which means that we are concerned by efforts to eliminate or weaken country mandates. On the other hand, we urge that application of country mandates be done in an objective and unbiased and consistent way.

So one of the first things that Mike Posner pointed out, and I think just any fair-minded person would say it, is that the human rights mechanisms of the United Nations have been disproportionately focused on Israel. If you look at the grand scale of human rights conduct and the amount of attention that’s actually devoted to one country that has its own item, it’s disproportionate.

So, with this background, we are very much focused on the 2011 review. Again, the basic focus of the U.S. government is three-fold: First, to help the Human Rights Council become a better collector of information, not just through special rapporteurs, the UPR mechanism. Then secondly, to make sure that information is assessed. And then third, to make sure that action is actually directed or guided based on the collection and the assessment of information.

Now one of the first acts of the U.S. at the plenary session in 2009 was to work on the Freedom of Expression Resolution with Egypt. This actually arose out of the Cairo speech that the President gave. His focus was on how to find a universal understanding of freedom of expression. We believe that that was a very useful resolution and has set the stage for what will be a main focus in March, which is the Defamation of Religions Resolution.

This is a resolution that has been run regularly by the Organization of the Islamic Conference. We think as a matter of human rights, law and practice, religions don’t have rights, individuals have rights, and that the function of the Defamation of Religion Resolution has essentially been one of chilling of freedom of expression, and it’s one that we would like to address at the next session.

Now this brings me to the Goldstone Report.

I should add, by the way, with regard to freedom of expression and hate crimes, this is in no way to sanction hate crimes or to suggest that that’s an acceptable way to proceed. We presented an action plan in October that included robust implementation of anti-discrimination laws, enactment and enforcement of hate crimes laws, governmental approaches to members of minority groups, ensuring that they have full voice in public discourse, human rights education, interface, activities. In other words, we believe there is a way in which the genuine mistreatment of minorities can be addressed without overbroad speech-impeding resolutions.

Now on the Goldstone Report, this has been the subject of tremendous discussion. I’ve expressed my views on this in a number of forums and to Hina herself. I would say on this that the United States’ position I think has been misunderstood. We never impugned any individual of the Goldstone Commission. This is an extraordinarily able group of human rights advocates.

Nevertheless, we didn’t give the report a pass either. I think there are many things about the report that could be challenged, and we did indeed challenge. We think the imputation of intent to attack civilians was not based on strong evidence. We think that the report was imbalanced in terms of its focus.

And I think the greatest criticism I would have of the report, as a human rights advocate, is it did not set a clear path for what the Human Rights Council should do. It did not designate an institution within the human rights mechanism that should act on the report, to achieve a good human rights outcome.

Now what ended up happening at the end of the September session was that the Goldstone Report was carried over to the March session with all of the participants. Israel, Palestine, Hezbollah were supposed to be preparing for that session with the possibility of doing their own independent investigations.

I would argue that that outcome which existed on September–I forget what day, September 19th, but I then met you at Wilton Park–would have achieved a better outcome than what ended up happening, which was the call for the special session, the bringing of this issue to every conceivable U.N. mechanism, most of these resolutions being voted on political grounds, the Human Rights Council itself not clearly playing a positive human rights role. It allowed the various subjects of the report to call themselves victimized by the report, which took the pressure off of them to do the kinds of independent investigations that they were under pressure to do.

And I think what it revealed is a certain lack of sophistication about what a gigantic report of this nature is supposed to accomplish. It does seem to me the Human Rights Council needs to be managed better to achieve human rights outcomes and not simply commissioning reports that make recommendations to everybody in the whole world.

One thing that all of us, as friends of the Council, can do is to start thinking about that question. Particularly, I think it’s something that’s a challenge to the High Commissioner of Human Rights, whose office I think might have a very special role to play.

On particular country situations–Burma, North Korea, the Sudan situation, Guinea–we can say more as time goes on. The Iran UPR, I think, yesterday was a powerful example of a way in which the U.S. engagement can put attention onto the right set of issues. If you look at the statement that Mike Posner gave yesterday, he talked about the unjust and violent suppression of innocent Iranian civilians, concerns about the electoral process, growing restrictions on the freedom of expression, the status of detainees, governmental violation of religious freedom, including of Bahá’ís and others, and a broader set of issues regarding internet freedom. To me, this is a good example of the way in which human rights law and practice have changed.

In the sixties and seventies, we don’t know how many people died in the Cultural Revolution in China. By 1989, people were faxing for democracy by; this is at Tiananmen Square. And then in the most recent round of Iranian demonstrations, despite other efforts to control the flow of information, Twitter, which I think up until that point had been a tool for teenage kids and 60-year-old politicians, had suddenly become a human rights tool that could send out various forms of messages. I think it’s a challenge for the Human Rights Council how to capture and harness these technologies for human rights purposes.

And let me finally say something about taking a hard look at ourselves. The great Lou Henkin liked to say that in the world of human rights the United States, that in the cathedral of human rights the United States is more a flying buttress than a pillar, standing outside the structure, supporting it, but refusing to come within for its examination.

We are making efforts to change that dynamic. The U.S. will be participating in the Universal Periodic Review this November. Our goal is to make a report which is a model for how such reports ought to be done. As Secretary Clinton has said, holding ourselves accountable doesn’t make us weaker, it makes us stronger.

We think it will give us a chance to engage civil society. People from the State Department and the other governmental agencies responsible are, through the process of the Interagency Working Group on Human Rights convened by the 1998 executive order, meeting to discuss ways in which these reports can be implemented. This is happening along the same track as the second U.S. report on the ICCPR and the Committee Against Torture.

We are doing outreach in about nine different locations around the country. I believe New Orleans, Washington, New York, San Francisco and a number of other locations, to reach out and talk about priorities with members of civil society and the human rights community.

I think this also fits into presentations we’re making under the optional protocol, the convention on the Rights of the Child, our reports on human trafficking, and other goals in revitalizing the interagency process on human rights.

Now I think there are those who would say that this administration hasn’t done enough on human rights. I think that the main point is that it’s a long-term effort to get from where we were to where we would like to be. We are in an important step along the way. I think our commitment to the Human Rights Council is long-term.

I think it’s one in which both the Council and we need to change. There is, of course, the famous joke about how many psychiatrists does it take to screw in a light bulb, and the answer is the light bulb has got to want to change. Here, there are not one, but two light bulbs, and the U.S. government is trying to change.

I think the Human Rights Council has to recall itself to its original function, despite some of the challenges it has faced over its initial years, and I think that working together we can bring about an institution that’s much focused on the actual challenges of individuals and the human rights needs of the 21st Century.

Thank you.

Ambassador Betty E. King - Official Portrait

Betty E. King

Biography

Ambassador Betty King was nominated on October 22, 2009, by President Obama to serve as the Representative of the United States to the Office of the United Nations and Other International Organizations in Geneva. She was confirmed by the U.S. Senate and attested by the President on February 12, 2010.

Ambassador King served as the United States Representative to the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. In that capacity, she worked on human rights, development, children, aging, and population issues. She was the principal U.S. negotiator on the Millennium Development Goals.

Ms. King has an extensive background in philanthropy having served as the Vice President of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, an organization dedicated to improving the lives of disadvantaged children. She served as the Senior Advisor to the CEO of the California Endowment where she worked to improve health services and systems, and as an advisor to the Atlantic Philanthropies on their programs for children and youth.

In the public sector, Ms King has served as the Deputy Commissioner for Mental Health Services in the District of Columbia, as the Director of the Department on Aging in Arkansas, and as an Assistant professor at the University of Arkansas. Before assuming her duties in Geneva, she also served on the boards of Refugees International, The United Nations Association of the United States, Phoenix House, and on the Advisory Board of the Annenberg School of Public Diplomacy.

Ms King earned a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada, a Masters Degree at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, was a National Humanities Fellow at Harvard University, and a Public Policy Fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Ambassador Betty E. King, Official Portrait

Betty E. King was confirmed on February 11, 2010 by a Voice Vote of the U.S. Senate as Representative of the United States of America to the Office of the United Nations and Other International Organizations in Geneva.

Below is Ambassador King’s Official Bio:

Betty E King: Biography

Ambassador Betty King was nominated on October 22, 2009, by President Obama to serve as the Representative of the United States to the Office of the United Nations and Other International Organizations in Geneva. She was confirmed by the U.S. Senate and attested by the President on February 12, 2010.

Ambassador King served as the United States Representative to the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. In that capacity, she worked on human rights, development, children, aging, and population issues. She was the principal U.S. negotiator on the Millennium Development Goals.

Ms. King has an extensive background in philanthropy having served as the Vice President of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, an organization dedicated to improving the lives of disadvantaged children. She served as the Senior Advisor to the CEO of the California Endowment where she worked to improve health services and systems, and as an advisor to the Atlantic Philanthropies on their programs for children and youth.

In the public sector, Ms King has served as the Deputy Commissioner for Mental Health Services in the District of Columbia, as the Director of the Department on Aging in Arkansas, and as an Assistant professor at the University of Arkansas. She currently serves on the boards of Refugees International, The United Nations Association of the United States, Phoenix House, and on the Advisory Board of the Annenberg School of Public Diplomacy.

Ms King earned a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada, a Masters Degree at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, was a National Humanities Fellow at Harvard University, and a Public Policy Fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Below is the Official Record of the Nomination and Confirmation process.

Nomination: PN1111-111
Date Received: October 22, 2009 (111th Congress)
Nominee: Betty E. King , of New York, to be Representative of the United States of America to the Office of the United Nations and Other International Organizations in Geneva, with the rank of Ambassador.
Referred to: Senate Foreign Relations
Reported by: Senate Foreign Relations

Floor Action: October 22, 2009 – Received in the Senate and referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations.

Committee Action: December 01, 2009 – Committee on Foreign Relations. Hearings held.

Committee Action: December 08, 2009 – Committee on Foreign Relations. Ordered to be reported favorably.

Floor Action: December 08, 2009 – Reported by Senator Kerry, Committee on Foreign Relations, without printed report.

Floor Action: December 08, 2009 – Placed on Senate Executive Calendar. Calendar No. 602. Subject to nominee’s commitment to respond to requests to appear and testify before any duly constituted committee of the Senate.

Floor Action: February 11, 2010 – Confirmed by the Senate by Voice Vote.

Dr. Kerri-Ann Jones

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Kerri-Ann Jones, Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs as the U.S. Special Representative on Avian and Pandemic Influenza. In this capacity she will execute the Department’s mission under the National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza to lead the U.S. Government’s international engagement on avian and pandemic influenza. The Secretary has also appointed Dr. Jones as the Department of State’s Pandemic Influenza Coordinator. In this role, Dr. Jones will serve as the State Department’s focal point for coordination of all domestic and international pandemic preparedness and response activities.

Dr. Kerri-Ann Jones was sworn-in as Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs on August 20, 2009. Her full biography can be found at http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/biog/130147.htm.

Office of the Press Secretary
__________________________________________________________

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

November 9, 2009

President Obama Announces More Key Administration Posts

WASHINGTON – Today, President Barack Obama announced his intent to nominate the following individuals to key administration posts:

• Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe, United States Representative to the United Nations Human Rights Council, with rank of Ambassador, United States Mission to the United Nations

• Laura Kennedy, United States Representative to the Conference on Disarmament, with the rank of Ambassador, Department of State

President Obama will also appoint four individuals to serve on the Ronald Reagan Centennial Commission. Their names and bios are below.

President Obama said, “These individuals will be important additions to our administration as we work to put our nation back on a path to prosperity and make our world more secure. I am grateful for their decision to serve and look forward to working with them in the months and years ahead.”

President Obama announced his intent to nominate the following individuals today:

Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe, Nominee for Representative of the United States of America to the United Nations Human Rights Council, with rank of Ambassador

Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe is an Affiliated Scholar at the Center for international Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. Her research has focused on norms on use of force, UN reform, and the international rule of law. Her 2006 Ph.D. dissertation entitled: “Humanitarian Military Intervention: The Moral Imperative Versus the Rule of Law,” addressed conflicting legal and ethical justifications for humanitarian military intervention. Previously, Ms. Donahoe was a litigation associate at Fenwick & West in Silicon Valley, where she served technology clients in intellectual property and commercial disputes. Prior to that, she was a teaching fellow at Stanford Law School and law clerk to the Honorable William H. Orrick. Ms. Donahoe has worked with various human rights organizations including The Lawyer’s Committee for Human Rights, where she did research on the nexus between US foreign policy and human rights, and Amnesty International’s Ginetta Sagan Fund, where she did strategy work related to human rights concerns of women and children. She received her B.A. from Dartmouth College, a Masters in Theology from Harvard University, her J.D. from Stanford Law School, an M.A. in East Asian Studies from Stanford University, and her Ph.D. in Ethics from the University of California’s Graduate Theological Union.

Laura E. Kennedy, Nominee for Representative of the United States to the Conference on Disarmament, with the rank of Ambassador, Department of State

Laura E. Kennedy, a member of the Senior Foreign Service, was most recently Deputy Commandant at the National War College since 2007. Prior to that, she was a member of the State Department’s Board of Examiners from 2005-2007. From 2004-2005 she was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs (EUR). She served as the Dean of the State Department’s Senior Seminar from 2004-2005. Ms. Kennedy was Ambassador to Turkmenistan from 2001-2003 where she focused on support for civil society as well as support for operations in neighboring Afghanistan. She was the Deputy Chief of Mission, United States Mission to the United Nations in Vienna from 1998-2001. From 1995-1997 she was the Director of the Office of Central Eurasian Affairs. She has also held postings in Moscow (twice), Vienna (to the negotiations on conventional forces in Europe) and Ankara. She has been detailed as charge at the new U.S. Embassy in Yerevan, as a guide at an official exchange exhibit in Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Tajikistan. Ms. Kennedy holds a B.A. from Vassar College and an M.A. from American University.

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary
___________________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                                                    October 22, 2009

President Obama Announces More Key Administration Posts

WASHINGTON – Today, President Barack Obama announced his intent to nominate the following individuals to key administration posts:

• Betty E. King, Representative of the United States to the Office of the United Nations and Other International Organizations in Geneva, with the rank of Ambassador
• Lillian Sparks, Commissioner, Administration for Native Americans, Department of Health and Human Services

President Obama said, “I am grateful that these two talented and dedicated individuals have chosen to serve my administration and the American people, and I look forward to working with them in the months and years ahead.”

President Obama announced his intent to nominate the following individuals today:

Betty E. King, Nominee for Representative of the United States to the Office of the United Nations and Other International Organizations in Geneva, with the rank of Ambassador
Betty E. King served as the United States Representative to the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W Bush. In that capacity, Ms. King worked on human rights, children, development, aging and population issues. She was the principal U.S. negotiator on the Millennium Development Goals. Ms. King has an extensive background in philanthropy, having served as the Vice President of the Annie E. Casey Foundation in Baltimore, Maryland, the Senior Advisor to the CEO of the California Endowment in Los Angeles, CA and an advisor to the Atlantic Philanthropies in New York. She was the Deputy Commissioner of Mental Health in the District of Columbia, the Executive Director of the Southwest Society on Aging, the Director of the Arkansas Department on Aging and an Assistant Professor at the University of Arkansas. She currently serves on the boards of Refugees International, the United Nations Association of the United States, Phoenix House, and on the Advisory Board of the Annenberg School of Public Diplomacy. Ms. King earned a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada, a Masters degree at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and was a National Humanities Fellow at Harvard University.

Lillian Sparks, Nominee for Commissioner, Administration for Native Americans, Department of Health and Human Services
Lillian Sparks, a Lakota woman of the Rosebud and Oglala Sioux Tribes, has served as Executive Director of the National Indian Education Association (NIEA) since 2004. Prior to joining NIEA, Ms. Sparks was a staff attorney with the National Congress of American Indians where she worked on international indigenous rights, sacred sites and religious protection, and issues related to youth and healthcare. She also previously served as a law clerk for the National Indian Gaming Commission in the Department of the Interior where she, among other duties, reviewed tribal gaming regulations to ensure compliance with the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. Ms. Sparks is a member of the National Congress of America Indians, the Native American Bar Association, and the National Trends & Services Committee. In 2004, she was named one of seven young Native American Leaders by the USA Weekend magazine. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Morgan State University and a Juris Doctor degree from Georgetown University Law Center.