Mark Muller Stuart QC is the Founder of Beyond Borders Scotland. In addition, he is a Professor in Practice at the London School of Economics, and currently acts as a Senior Mediation Advisor to the UN Department of Political Affairs and the UN Special Envoy to Syria in the Syrian peace talks. Prior to taking the UN post he advised numerous international bodies on conflict resolution, mediation, confidence-building, ceasefires, power-sharing, humanitarian law, constitution-making and dialogue processes and acted as a Senior Advisor to the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (Geneva), Beyond Conflict (Boston) and Inter-Mediate (London). He has first-hand experience of Track 1 and 2 negotiations between governments and armed groups and has worked in a number of conflict zones including in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Syria, Gerogia, Ukraine and southern Africa. He is also co-founder of the Delfina Foundation.

As a senior advocate he has brought numerous human rights and rule of law test cases before the UK courts as well as the European Court of Human Rights and European Court of Justice. Between 2006-12 he acted as Chair of the Bar Human Rights Committee and then Chair of the Rule of Law Group (2012-15) for the Bar Council of England and Wales. He is a graduate of the London School of Economics, a fellow of Harvard Law School and member of the Scottish Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh and Doughty Street Chambers in London. His most recent book Storm in the Desert: Britain’s Intervention in Libya and the Arab Spring, published by Birlinn, is available on Amazon. Information is also at: www.birlinn.co.uk/Storm-in-the-Desert.html .

mmuller@beyondborderscotland.com

Jessica Forsythe is Deputy Director of Beyond Borders Scotland, a role she has held for 7 years. Jessica is responsible for implementing all Beyond Borders’ international projects, namely the Rule of Law and International Dialogue workstreams. Over the years this has included work across the Middle East and North Africa, Eastern Europe and the Caucasus. Prior to setting up Beyond Borders Scotland Edinburgh team, Jessica was Operations Manager of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at The Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) in London, where she worked for almost 5 years. She holds an MA in International Relations from the University of St Andrews and an MSc in Middle East Politics from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London.

jforsythe@beyondbordersscotland.com

Emily Gifford is Projects & Festival Manager at Beyond Borders Scotland. Emily manages Beyond Borders’ international projects, including the Women in Conflict 1325 Fellowship Programme focussing on peacebuilding and conflict resolution, including responsibility for a network of more than 250 Fellows from the Middle East and North Africa, South Asia, and Africa. She also manages Rule of Law programmes in the UK and overseas on topics including human trafficking, drug-related crime, and financial crime.  Emily manages the annual Beyond Borders International Festival held in August at Traquair House in the Scottish Borders, as well as other cultural events throughout the year. Emily holds an MA (Hons) in International Relations & German from the University of St Andrews.

egifford@beyondbordersscotland.com

Esme is a Projects Officer at Beyond Borders, working across all projects but primarily on the Women in Conflict 1325 Fellowship, and the development on the Fellowship Alumnae Programme. In addition to her role at Beyond Borders, Esme is a Projects Officer and Executive Assistant to Mark Muller on the Yemeni Voices project. Esme has an MSc in International Development from the University of Edinburgh and a bachelor’s degree in International Relations and Spanish. Before moving to Scotland Esme worked on multiple NGO research projects focusing on women and youth empowerment in Ghana, Jamaica and Spain.

emarkham@beyondbordersscotland.com

Catherine Muller Stuart is the Director of Heritage at Beyond Borders Scotland. She is currently the 21st Lady of Traquair. She lives at Traquair House where she was born and brought up. Over the past 20 years she has been actively involved in tourism, the arts, heritage and business both locally and nationally. She has been a board member of the Scottish Enterprise Borders, the Broadcasting Council for Scotland and non-Exec director of Border TV. She also sat on the Lord Chancellor’s Advisory Council on Records and Archives and currently is Chair of the Scottish Borders Area Tourism Partnership.

Allan Marson is Director of Development at Beyond Borders Scotland. Prior to this he was a partner at Goldman Sachs and responsible for the commodities business in Asia. From 2000 to 2010 Allan and his family lived in Singapore. He worked at Goldman for 15 years, and prior to that he traded oil for BP in London. Allan studied History at Cambridge University, graduating in 1987. He has retained a strong interest in history, culture, and politics throughout his career.

Paul has been working in the Middle East for over 25 years as the Director of the British Council in Sudan, Syria, South Caucasus and Oman. During his time with the British Council he focussed on rule of law projects working with the Judiciary, Public Prosecution and the legal profession to develop understanding of the international normative frameworks as well as creating links between the legal profession in the UK and the Middle East. He joined Beyond Borders Scotland as a Project Consultant in 2016 while at the same time working on a Master’s degree in Comparative Criminal Justice at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. There he has specialised in human trafficking and modern slavery. He also has a strong interest in the influence of European and international legislation on national criminal justice systems and the changing nature and impact of cross-border crime. A further area of specialization has been in diversion and disposal of criminal cases by the public prosecution and police.

Dr Brian Brivati is a specialist with 20+ years experience in designing and delivering courses, networks, and professional development, leadership and bespoke training programmes for universities, government, INGOS, NGOS, and the private sector across twenty countries. Brian has worked as a special adviser to politicians, government departments and civil society organisations in Central and Eastern Europe, Iraq and other Middle East countries. Since 2008, Brian has consulted on action plans in areas such as good governance, the rule of law, theories of change, network creation, and anti-bribery. Since 2008, he has worked with over 200 John Smith Fellows to realize their action plans. His research interests are focused on theories of change based on peer to peer networks for countering extremism and building economic development, the interface between human rights and cyber security, the evolving nature of conflict, and the place of genocide and crimes against humanity in contemporary politics.

Brian’s academic career evolved from public policy, political history and biography into the teaching of Human Rights. He was Professor of Human Rights and Life Writing at Kingston University. He is Academic Director of the PGI Cyber Academy and Academic Director of Beyond Borders Scotland, an Adviser to Cleave and Co, and Co-chair of the Kurdish Genocide UK advisory council. He was formerly Academic Director of the John Smith Trust. He also sits on the editorial boards of Total Politics and the IPPR Journal. Brian is a frequent contributor to print and broadcast media and a keynote and guest lecturer on a range of topics in the UK and abroad.

Aaron Cezar is the Director of Visual Arts of Beyond Borders Scotland. He is also the founding Director of Delfina Foundation, where he develops and oversees its interrelated programme of residencies, exhibitions and public platforms. He is involved in the boards, committees and advisory groups of organizations such as All Change Arts, Shubbak, the Young Arab Theatre Fund, the Marrakech Biennale and the Jarman Award 2012.

Stephen Gethins is a Professor of Practice within the School of International Relations at the University of St Andrews and former Member of Parliament for North East Fife, where he also sat on the House of Commons Select Committee for Foreign Affairs. Prior to this, he worked across the political and NGO sectors after having graduated from the University of Dundee with a Law Degree and subsequently obtaining a Research Masters from the University of Kent. He has worked in peace-building, arms control and democratisation in the Caucasus and Balkans. He worked with the NGO Links, based in Tbilisi, with a focus on the conflicts surrounding the breakaway entities in the South Caucasus such as South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Nagorno-Karabakh. He worked for Saferworld on arms control and peace-building in the former Soviet Union and Balkans. He has also been involved in a range of democratisation projects across the former Soviet Union and Western Balkans.Stephen was until recently a Special Adviser to Scotland’s First Minister, advising on European and International Affairs as well as Rural Affairs, Energy and Climate Change. He was also a Political Advisor with the Committee of the Regions in the European Union, a position which saw him working with local authorities from across Europe. He also worked at Scotland Europa, helping Scottish organisations gain influence and funding in the EU.

Allan Little is a former BBC Special Correspondent and a Beyond Borders Scotland Advisor. After graduating from Edinburgh University, he joined BBC Scotland as a news and current affairs researcher before moving to London to train as a radio reporter. He specialized in foreign reporting for BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme including the Revolutions of 1989 in Easter Europe. He then worked as a reported for BBC News reporting from, among others, the 1991 Gulf War, Kuwait, former Yugoslavia, South Africa, Rwanda and Zaire. Mr Little also worked as the BBC Moscow correspondent and reported on the 1995 Afghanistan earthquakes before becoming the BBC’s Africa and then Paris correspondent. In his current role as a BBC Special correspondent he has reported widely on devolution and the questions around Scottish independence. He has won a number of awards, including the Bayeux War Correspondent of the Year, and three Gold Sony Radio Awards. In 2012 he won both the Thomson Reuters prize for Reporting Europe, for his Radio 4 Documentary “Europe’s Choice”, and the Charles Wheeler Award for Outstanding Contribution to Broadcast Journalism.

Maria Muller is the deputy director, external relations for Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts and Beyond Borders adviser in the USA. Ms. Muller was formerly the Director of Development at the British Museum, and Head of Corporate Fundraising and Deputy Head of Development at London’s National Gallery.

Lord Purvis of Tweed is a Liberal Democrat Life Peer, who joined the House of Lords in 2013. During his terms in the Scottish Parliament he was part of the justice committee, and led proposals for further reform to progress more home rule for Scotland: Devo Plus. He was responsible for taking the International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill through the Lords to become Law in 2015. He has a strong specialism in supporting dialogue, good governance and democratic participation. Working with Beyond Borders, Jeremy has supported programmes to assist parliamentary process awareness, devolution and decentralisation of power and effective delivery of reform processes.

Catherine Smith is the Director of Advocacy of Beyond Borders Scotland. Next to her work as an advocate, she is also an Executive Board Member of Justice Scotland, the John Smith Memorial Trust and the Deputy Director of LINKS.

Sylvia Whitman is the Literary Director of Beyond Borders Scotland. She is the proprietor of the Shakespeare and Company bookstore in Paris. Whitman has also started a biennial literary festival, FestivalandCo.