Feisal Istrabadi is the Deputy Permanent Representative of Iraq to the United Nations, and one of Iraq's most important constitutional thinkers. He was one of the principal legal drafters of Iraq's interim constitution (adopted on March 8 of 2004) and the lead author of its Bill of Fundamental Rights. During 2002-2003 he was a member of the Democratic Principles Working Group and the Transitional Justice Working Group of the Future of Iraq project. A native of Iraq, he was schooled in the United States and practiced law in the central United States for fifteen years, with extensive trial and appellate court experience. He holds Bachelor's of Science and Doctor of Jurisprudence degrees from Indiana University, and has been a senior fellow at the International Human Rights Law Institute, College of Law, DePaul University, Chicago.

Barry Weingast is the Ward C. Krebs Family Professor and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Professor of Political Science at Stanford University. He served as chair of the Political Science Department from 1996 to 2001. He is also a professor of economics, by courtesy, at Stanford.Weingast is an expert in political economy and public policy, the political foundation of markets and economic reform, U.S. politics, and regulation. Weingast authored (with Robert Bates, Avner Grief, Margaret Levi, and Jean-Laurent Rosenthal) Analytic Narratives, published in 1998. Weingast is editor, with Kenneth A. Shepsle, of Positive Theories of Congressional Institutions (University of Michigan Press, 1995). His current research focuses on the political determinants of public policymaking and the political foundations of markets and democracy.

Douglass C. North was the winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Economics. He is currently the Hoover Institution's Bartlett Burnap Senior Fellow. His 1990 Cambridge University Press Book, Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance, is a staple in graduate courses in political economy around the world. North's current research activities include research on property rights, transaction costs, economic organization in history, a theory of the state, the free rider problem, ideology, growth of government, economic and social change, and a theory of institutional change.

John Wallis is a Professor of Economics at the University of Maryland. He is the author of American Economic Growth and Standards of Living Before the Civil War, with Robert Gallman, NBER, University of Chicago Press, 1992, as well as numerous articles and book chapters on American economic history.

Feisal Istrabadi is the Deputy Permanent Representative of Iraq to the United Nations, and one of Iraq's most important constitutional thinkers. He was one of the principal legal drafters of Iraq's interim constitution (adopted on March 8 of 2004) and the lead author of its Bill of Fundamental Rights. During 2002-2003 he was a member of the Democratic Principles Working Group and the Transitional Justice Working Group of the Future of Iraq project. A native of Iraq, he was schooled in the United States and practiced law in the central United States for fifteen years, with extensive trial and appellate court experience. He holds Bachelor's of Science and Doctor of Jurisprudence degrees from Indiana University, and has been a senior fellow at the International Human Rights Law Institute, College of Law, DePaul University, Chicago.

He will be speaking about his experiences in drafting the Iraqi interim constitution as well as the current political situation in Iraq.

Noted expert on political and economic development in South East Asia, Professor Michael Ross will present a paper dealing with the relative benefits for the poor of democracy versus authoritarian forms of government.

Liz McBride, Director of the Post-Conflict Development Initiative at the London-based Internatinal Rescue Committee will discuss state reconstruction challenges following violent conflict in the developing world. McBride is a visiting researcher in the spring quarter at CDDRL. She has worked in humanitarian relief and post-conflict reconstruction in Tanzania and Rwanda. McBride's responsibilities at the International Rescue Committee include creating and ensuring implementation of new institutional program frameworks in response to the changing nature of humanitarian aid; overseeing technical areas of community driven reconstruction, good governance, civil society, local capacity development, conflict resolution and economic development; and supporting service delivery technical units in defining post-conflict strategies and priorities (i.e. health, education). She also works intensively with the International Rescue Committee's primary target post-conflict countries: Sudan and South Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Afghanistan, Liberia.

Professor Kimberly Marten will speak on her experiences travelling with peace keepers in Afghanistan. Her talk will be based on her forthcoming book on international peace keeping and democratization efforts in transitional states like Afghanistan.

This event is co-sponsored with CISAC.

Jason Brownlee is a CDDRL Post-Doctoral Fellow and Assistant Professor of Political Science, UT Austin. He will discuss the resiliency of authoritarian regimes in the Middle East in particular.

CDDRL Director and Graham H. Stewart Professor of International Politics, Stephen D. Krasner will discuss his most recent work on sovereignty and its relationship to economic and democratic development.