Ghanim Al-Najjar is professor of political science at Kuwait University. Previously, he was a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Middle East Center, served as director of the Center for Strategic and Future Studies, and was the editor of the Gulf Studies Series Journal, United Arab Emirates. Dr. Al-Najjar has been a visiting scholar at several universities, including Harvard's Human Rights Program, Law School, and the Kennedy School of Government. Until recently, he was the UN independent expert for Human Rights in Somalia, a mandate he held for 8 years. Dr. Al-Najjar headed and participated in a number of international fact-finding missions in several countries including Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Egypt, and Somalia. He is a member of the board of the Arab Human Rights Fund based in Beirut, as well as an international commissioner with the International Commission of Jurists in Geneva. Moreover, he is a member of the editorial boards of several academic journals. The publication "The Challenges Facing Kuwaiti Democracy", which appeared in the Middle East Journal, is one of many of his published works.