The patrons

Paul Gee

Paul is the son of Joyce Gee, whose original idea this was.
He writes:
‘I have followed the project with interest over the years.  I helped my mother to formulate her vision when she first talked about it some years ago. It has been lovely to see how the seed of an idea  – with the support and inspiration  of lots of other people –  has grown and developed.‘

Adrian Dorber

Dean of Lichfield Cathedral

Clive Stafford Smith

Clive is the founder of Reprieve, a charity which provides free legal and investigative support to some of the world’s most vulnerable people: those facing execution, and those victimised by states’ abusive counter-terror policies – rendition, torture, extrajudicial imprisonment and extrajudicial killing. After graduating from Columbia Law School in New York, Clive spent nine years as a lawyer with the Southern Center for Human Rights working on death penalty cases and other civil rights issues. In 1993, Clive moved to New Orleans and launched the Louisiana Capital Assistance Center, a non-profit law office specialising in representation of poor people in death penalty cases.

He has has represented over 300 prisoners facing the death penalty primarily in the southern United States. In recognition of his work, Clive has received a great many awards and honours. In 2000 he was awarded an OBE for ‘humanitarian services’. He was a Soros Senior Fellow, Rowntree Visionary (2005) and Echoing Green Fellow (2005). In addition, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from The Lawyer Magazine (2003) and The Law Society, the Benjamin Smith Award from the ACLU of Louisiana (2003), the Gandhi Peace Award (2004), a Lannan Foundation Cultural Freedom Award (2008), International Freedom of the Press Award (2009), Unione Nazionale Cronisti Italiani (for the defence of Sami el Haj) and the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Award (2010).

Diana Francis

photo by Simon Boedecker

Diana has been a peace campaigner since her teens. She is also a peace worker, writer and speaker, a Programme Associate with Conciliation Resources, a member of Rethinking Security’s Council, a Vice President of the Movement for the Abolition of War and a member of the Society of Friends (Quakers).

She has many years of international experience in supporting groups of people who are working for change, especially those involved in or affected by social and political conflict, acting as a facilitator, trainer, mediator and consultant.

Now her overriding aim is to help promote a movement for change in the way people think about security, starting in the UK, in order to transform international relations policy so that it is no longer driven by the urge to dominate but by the will to cooperate for the common good. See her website for more details.