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Governance
        

Steering Group

GAAMAC is an incubator of new ideas to promote the awareness of atrocity prevention, encourage the coordination among prevention actors and the gradual development of national prevention mechanisms. It provides the contacts and links between resource seekers and resource offerors, in terms of funding, knowledge, experience and technical expertise.
Find out more in GAAMAC's Founding Document

Composition

The Steering Group is led by a State representative and is composed of 12 members appointed by a State, an intergovernmental or civil society organisation. The persons appointed are representing and express the views of the State or the organisation with which they are affiliated.

Argentina

Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Worship

Costa Rica

Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Worship

Denmark

Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Switzerland

Federal Department of Foreign Affairs

The United Republic of Tanzania

Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation

Harvard University

FXB Center for Health and Human Rights, Harvard School of Public Health

Genocide Prevention Advisory Network

Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect

International Coalition for the Responsibility to Protect

Liberation War Museum

Sant'Egidio Foundation for Peace and Dialogue

Subsidiary Bodies

The Steering Group has two subsidiary bodies: the Virtual Working Group on Partnerships and the Virtual Working Group on Regional and Thematic Initiatives. The Steering Group can create further subsidiary bodies whenever it considers it useful.

Chair

The Chair conducts the work of the Steering Group and the Support Office and represents GAAMAC in external relations. In the exercise of his or her functions, the Chair seeks to promote awareness and understanding for GAAMAC, its goals and activities and supports fundraising efforts. The Chair is elected for a mandate of three years and acts under the authority of the Steering Group.

Current Chair
Silvia Fernández de Gurmendi

“In my career, I have seen the achievements States are capable of when they come together and commit political will. As GAAMAC Chair, I want to raise awareness among each and every State that atrocities can and must be prevented. The tools and standards are there: the rest is in their hands.”

Read bio
Silvia Fernández de Gurmendi is the Chair of GAAMAC. She is a former Judge and President of the International Criminal Court (ICC). She is currently the President of the Assembly of State Parties of the ICC and President of the Latin American Society of International Law. She has extensive diplomatic experience and expertise in international humanitarian and human rights law. Among other functions, she has been Special Representative of Argentina to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), Director General for Human Rights at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Argentina and legal adviser at the Permanent Mission of Argentina to the United Nations in New York. She has played a leadership role in the creation and setting up of the ICC. She holds a Law Degree from the University of Cordoba (Argentina), a Master Degree in Public Law from the University of Limoges (France) and a Ph.D. in Law from the University of Buenos Aires (Argentina). She speaks Spanish, English and French.

Past Chairs

Mô Bleeker +

Mô Bleeker acted as the first GAAMAC Chair until November 2019. Former Special Envoy on Dealing with the Past and Prevention of Atrocity at the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA), she has been working for decades in societies engaged in processes of transition, and/or in peace processes in Central America, Colombia, the Balkans, South Caucasus, South and South East Asia, Central Asia, Central, North, and West Africa. She chaired the Transitional Justice and Reconciliation Commission in the Philippines created in 2014 and acted as Chair of the International Advisory Board of the National Historical Memory Commission in Colombia. From 2017 until end of 2021, she also acted as Special Envoy for Peace in Colombia. She holds degrees from  the University of Fribourg (Switzerland) and  the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. Ms Bleeker is now a Member of GAAMAC’s Board.

Related content

Strategy policy “Vision 2022-2024”
Founding Document

Global Meetings