Samira Hanna el Daher

On May 12-13, AGS faculty member Ambassador Samira Hanna-El-Daher participated in a workshop entitled "Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities" which took place in Brussels, at the Hungarian Permanent Representation to the European Union. The event was organized by the Madariaga-College of Europe Foundation and the Folke Bernadotte Academy (FBA), with the support of the Hungarian Presidency of the European Union and in close cooperation with the European Peacebuilding Liaison Office and the European External Action Service.

Representatives of International Organizations, European institutions, and NGOs active in the field gathered with conflict prevention experts and university professors to exchange experiences and discuss possible strategies for genocide prediction and prevention, conflict management, and peacebuilding. Discussions stressed the necessity to develop international cooperation and partnerships to better enforce the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and the "Responsibility to Protect" norm set out during the 2005 UN Summit. "The workshop combined the long term ambition to prevent and stop massacres with a more short term and very realistic approach about how to minimize the atrocities during existing conflicts." says Ambassador Hanna-El-Daher.

See organizers' concept note

See list of participants

On March 9, AGS faculty member Ambassador Samira Hanna-El-Daher gave a presentation at the French Airforce Academy (Ecole de l'Air) on the subject of Lebanon.

Professor Hanna-El-Daher spoke to an audience of over 400 Air Force officers and future officers who are students, alumni or faculty of the Ecole de l'Air. Her presentation was followed by a Question-and-Answer session. She talked about the National Pact that laid the foundations of Lebanon in 1943 and still shapes its politics today, and the specificities of the Lebanese Constitution which produces a democratic regime based on equality of participation of the various communities regardless of their numbers. She referred to what she called the "three Rs" of Lebanon: Resistance, Resonance and Resilience, arguing that these three qualities have made for the sustainability of Lebanon, allowing it to survive many invasions and the cohabitation of Christians, Muslims and other religious communities.

Ambassador Hanna-El-Daher is a member of the AGS faculty along with her position as Representative of Lebanon to the Executive Board of UNESCO. She is a career diplomat who was the first woman in Lebanon to be named Ambassador, and the first woman worldwide to be an Ambassador in Japan. She also served as Head of Mission in China, Australia, and Great Britain, Ambassador to the Philippines, Switzerland, and Cyprus, as well as Consul General in New York and Legal Advisor of the Lebanese Permanent Mission to the United Nations.

AGS professor Ambassador Samira Hanna-El-Daher was one of the election observers in Chad during the last legislative elections on February 13, as a member of the delegation of the International Organization of the Francophonie (Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie).

Durnig her assignment which extended from February 8-16, she worked in cooperation with the other election monitoring missions there: that of the European Union, that of the African Union, and the small delegation of the UNDP (United Nations Development Program). She met with the President of the Chad Republic, the Chadian Minister of Foreign Affairs, and officials from the National Electoral Commission and the HCC (High Council of Communication).

On the day of the elections she went with another election observer to some of the polling stations in the North of the country outside of N'Djanema: "What was striking and made the election process particularly difficult is the very high illiteracy rate especially outside of the capital city. Most voters could not read the ballots and did not even know how to hold a pen to mark a cross next to a name. But overall from what I saw the elections went well with no outburst of violence".

Ambassador Hanna-El-Daher is a member of the AGS faculty along with her position as Representative of Lebanon to the Executive Board of UNESCO. She is a career diplomat who was the first woman in Lebanon to be named Ambassador, and the first woman worldwide to be an Ambassador in Japan. She also served as Head of Mission in China, Australia, and Great Britain, Ambassador to the Philippines, Switzerland, and Cyprus, as well as Consul General in New York and Legal Advisor of the Lebanese Permanent Mission to the United Nations.

Ambassador Samira Hanna-El-Daher, who teaches the course on Foreign Policy Formulation and Diplomacy at AGS, was invited to be a member of the jury of a Ph.D. in Political Science dissertation defense at Université de Montpellier I in France on November 26.

The Ph.D. dissertation was on the following topic: "The Founding of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Lebanon under Béchara el-Khoury's Presidency (1943-1952); the Institutionalisation of the Foreign Policy and its Limitations." (La Fondation du Ministère des Affaires Etrangères du Liban sous la Présidence de Béchara el-Khoury (1943-1952); l'Institutionalisation de la Politique Etrangère et ses Limites). It was authored Carmen Hassoun Abou Jaoudé under the advisorship of Professor Jacques Aben, Director of Higher Education at Ecole de l'Air, the French Military School training Airforce officers. In addition to Professors Hanna-El-Daher and Aben, other members of the jury included Mustapha Adib, professor at the Lebanese University, Paul Allies, Professor at Université de Montpellier I, and Louis Balmond, Professor at Université de Nice-Sophia Antipolis in France.

Ambassador Hanna-El-Daher is a member of the AGS faculty along with her position as Representative of Lebanon to the Executive Board of UNESCO. She is a career diplomat who was the first woman in Lebanon to be named Ambassador, and the first woman worldwide to be an Ambassador in Japan. She also served as Head of Mission in China, Australia, and Great Britain, Ambassador to the Philippines, Switzerland, and Cyprus, as well as Consul General in New York and Legal Advisor of the Lebanese Permanent Mission to the United Nations.