Nicola Sturgeon, served as First Minister of Scotland and leader of the Scottish National Party (2014-2023). She also represented the Member of Scottish Parliament for Glasgow Southside. Formerly a graduate of Law from the University of Glasgow, she originally worked as a solicitor. Having already become a member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, she was first elected to the Scottish Parliament in 1999 and served as the SNP’s shadow minister for education, health and justice. Since then, she has held multiple positions within the party serving as Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing, Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure, Investment and Cities, deputy leader of the party and Deputy First Minister of Scotland before becoming First Minister. She has won several awards including both the title of Scottish Politician of the Year and the Donald Dewar Debater of the Year Award.

Mary Kenny has extensive experience as a traditional storyteller with people of all ages and abilities, and is an established member of the Scottish Storytelling Directory. A visual artist and sculptor for 40 years, she has always welcomed opportunities to actively engage with others creatively. From 2017, Mary worked as Community engagement officer at Abbotsford House, home of Sir Walter Scott, before retiring in 2026. Originally from the Midlands, the Borders have been her Home for many, many years.

Geoffrey Baskerville studied Modern History at Merton College, Oxford, before starting a career in arts administration, working largely with émigré Russians pursuing careers in the west. He subsequently turned to freelance writing and journalism and then joined the BBC, where he worked first as a diarist and subsequently as a producer of arts programmes for BBC Scotland, and as a presenter for Radio 3, Radio 4 and the World Service. He has now turned back to writing and editing, and is currently working on a biographical project about Peter Darrell, one of Britain’s most significant post-war choreographers and the founder of The Scottish Ballet.

Lucy Ash is a journalist and broadcaster. She began her radio career as a producer in the BBC Moscow bureau just as the Soviet Union was falling apart. After four years covering the chaotic birth of the New Russia, she returned to the UK and began presenting foreign affairs features and documentaries. Best known for her award winning reports on Radio 4’s Crossing Continents, Lucy has also presented documentary films on BBC2 and BBC World. She is a regular contributor to From Our Own Correspondent. Lucy also sometimes presents Outlook – an interview programme featuring remarkable personal stories – on the BBC World Service. Lucy currently works as a freelance broadcast journalist, reporting on foreign affairs topics including the Ukraine War and human rights.

Misha Glenny is an award-winning journalist, author, broadcaster, and public intellectual. He gained widespread recognition as the BBC’s Central European Correspondent. He is prominently featured across several official publisher and broadcasting platforms. 

Timothy W. Ryback is a historian, author and co-founder of the Institute of Historical Justice and Reconciliation at Leiden University in the Netherlands. His work focuses on 20th-century European history, particularly the rise of the Nazi’s and the cultural history of Hitler’s Germany.

Lyse Doucet is a Canadian journalist who is the BBC’s Chief International Correspondent and an occasional Contributing Editor. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Queen’s University at Kingston and gained a Master’s degree in International Relations from the University of Toronto. She presents on BBC World Service radio and BBC World News television, also reports for BBC Radio 4 and BBC News in the United Kingdom, including reporting and occasionally presenting for Newsnight. She also makes and presents documentaries.

Samina Ansari, is the head of public and corporate relations at Equality Check, a Norwegian tech- company with the mission to diversify corporate governance globally. She is also the founding director of Avyanna Diplomacy, a platform with the aim to connect social entrepreneurs from the Middle East and Central Asia to Europe for sustainable growth and stability. She has lived and worked in Kabul, Afghanistan (2015-2021), and actively worked on inclusion in the peace process. Ansari has a background in Cyber Security Law from the University of Oslo and Diplomacy from Sciences Po Paris. She is fluent in English, Norwegian and Dari. Since 2014, Ansari has implemented large-scale social impact projects for North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the United Nations, the European Union, International Trade Center, and Goldman Sachs in the US, Europe, and Central Asia with a focus on human security, economic growth, diversity and inclusion, and human rights.  

Events participated in:

Dispatches from Kabul: Join Allan Little with Eldridge Adolfo, Advisor to the EU Envoy to Afghanistan, Afghan rights campaigner Samina Ansari, Beyond Borders Fellow Mariam Safi, and William Dalrymple, as they discuss the crisis in Afghanistan. (2021)

Martin Griffiths OBE was the former Deputy Head of the UN Supervisory Mission in Syria (UNSMIS) where he was the lead civilian and responsible for political affairs, human rights and civil affairs, working with Kofi Annan.

He was the Founding Director of Geneva based Humanitarian Dialogue Centre where he specialised in developing dialogue between governments and insurgents, and helped lay the foundations for peace in a range of countries across Asia, Africa and Europe.

Mr. Griffiths has worked with UNICEF in Asia, in the British Diplomatic Service, Save the Children, and as Chief Executive of ActionAid. He rejoined the United Nations (UN) in 1994 as Director of the Department of Humanitarian Affairs (which became OCHA) in Geneva and became the Deputy to the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator in New York in 1998. He has also served as UN Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Great Lakes and UN Regional Coordinator in the Balkans with the rank of UN Assistant Secretary-General.

As Chairman and Chief Executive of MOBY GROUP, Saad has been widely applauded for his role in advancing press freedom, empowering civil society and defending women’s rights. Time Magazine recognized him in 2011 as one of the 100 most influential people in the world, while in 2013, Foreign Policy magazine named him among 100 Global Thinkers. In 2016, he was featured in the Business Insider 100 “The Creators” list, and recognized by the BBC as one of 10 men globally championing gender equality.
Saad currently serves on the boards of the International Crisis Group (ICG) and the Washington DC-based International Center for Journalists (ICFJ).

Oscar Guardiola-Rivera is a writer and professor of human rights and political philosophy at Birkbeck College, University of London. After leading the student movement that initiated a wave of constitutional reform throughout Latin America in the late 1990’s, he continued his studies in the United Kingdom where he obtained an LLM with Distinction at University College London, and a PhD in Philosophy at the University of Aberdeen. He is the writer of the award-winning What If Latin America Ruled the World? which was listed as one the best non-fiction books of 2010 by The Financial Times. Dr Guardiola-Rivera is also the co-editor of the contemporary art and theory journal Naked Punch: An Engaged Review of Arts & Theory, and has engaged with an extensive range of publications and broadcasters, including Granta, El Espectador, the BBC World Service Nightwaves, and Al-Jazeera to name but a few. He is currently the Deputy Postgraduate Director of the Department of Law at Birkbeck, University of London and is recognized as one of the most representative voices of contemporary Latin American philosophy and literature.

Dr. Kojo Koram is a legal scholar, writer, and activist. He studied at University of Kent and University of London before becoming a Lecturer at the School of Law at the University of Essex (2016-2018) and then a Senior Lecturer in Law at Birkbeck School of Law, University of London (2018-Present). Throughout his career, Dr. Koram has written for numerous publications, including the Guardian, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the New Statesman. He has also published a number of journal articles and books, including The War on Drugs and the Global Colour Line (2019) and, most recently, Uncommon Wealth: Britain and the Aftermath of Empire (2022).

John Kampfner, is a British author, journalist, broadcaster, and commentator. He was born on December 17, 1962, in London, England. Kampfner is known for his extensive work in the field of international affairs, politics, and human rights. Kampfner began his career as a journalist in the early 1980s, working for the New Statesman magazine and then moving to the Daily Telegraph. He later became the Chief Political Correspondent for the Financial Times and worked as a foreign correspondent in Moscow and Berlin. In 2000, Kampfner became the Editor of the New Statesman, a position he held until 2005. During his tenure, he revitalised the publication and brought it to prominence with a focus on investigative journalism and political analysis. Kampfner has written several books on a wide range of topics. His book “Blair’s Wars” (2003) provides an analysis of Tony Blair’s foreign policy decisions during his time as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He has also authored books on freedom of speech, media ethics, and the future of democracy. In addition to his writing, Kampfner has worked as a broadcaster and commentator. He has hosted programs on BBC Radio 4 and the BBC World Service, covering international politics and human rights issues. He has also contributed to various television programs, including Newsnight and Panorama. Kampfner’s work has been widely recognised and awarded. He has received the Foreign Press Association Media Award and the One World Media Award for his journalism. He is a regular speaker at conferences and events, sharing his insights on global affairs and democracy. He currently serves as an Executive Director at Chatham House. He previously was Chair of the board of the Turner Contemporary art gallery as well as former Chief Executive of Index on Censorship and former editor of the New Statesman. He has written several books, including Blair’s Wars and, most recently Why the Germans do it Better: Notes from a Grown-Up Country.

Nicola Sturgeon, served as First Minister of Scotland and leader of the Scottish National Party (2014-2023). She also represented the Member of Scottish Parliament for Glasgow Southside. Formerly a graduate of Law from the University of Glasgow, she originally worked as a solicitor. Having already become a member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, she was first elected to the Scottish Parliament in 1999 and served as the SNP’s shadow minister for education, health and justice. Since then, she has held multiple positions within the party serving as Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing, Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure, Investment and Cities, deputy leader of the party and Deputy First Minister of Scotland before becoming First Minister. She has won several awards including both the title of Scottish Politician of the Year and the Donald Dewar Debater of the Year Award.

Jenni Fagan is an award-winning Scottish author, poet and screenwriter. She is best known for her novels The Panopticon and Luckenbooth, which explore themes of identity, marginalisation and Scottish history. Fagan’s work has received widespread critical acclaim and has been translated into multiple languages. She is also an advocate for writers from care-experienced backgrounds.

Jim Naughtie FRSE  is a British radio and news presenter for the BBC. He began his career as a journalist at the Aberdeen Press and Journal before moving to the London offices of The Scotsman. He became its Chief Political Correspondent before working for The Washington Post and The Guardian. Mr Naughtie later moved into radio presenting and has anchored every BBC Radio UK election results programme since 1997, and worked on every US presidential election since 1988. He has been the main presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme and his radio presenting has earned him two Sony Radio Awards: Radio Personality of the Year in 1991 and Voice of the Listener and Viewer Award in 2001. That same year, Mr Naughtie received an honorary doctorate from the University of Sterling and was appointed as its chancellor in 2008. He retired from regular presenting duties in 2016 and is currently the BBC’s Special Correspondent responsible for charting UK constitutional reform, as well as the BBC news’ Book Editor.

Sir Don McCullin is one of the world’s most celebrated photojournalists, renowned for his powerful black and white images documenting war, conflict and humanitarian crises. His work spans decades and includes coverage of Vietnam, Northern Ireland, and the Middle East. Recently awarded the Companion of Honor, McCullin has received numerous awards for his services to photography. 

Fi Martynoga is an environmental activist, journalist, museum researcher and a renowned figure in Scottish nature, sustainability, history and food circles.

Events participated in:

A Nature Walk Through Traquair: Submerse yourself in the beautiful Scottish borders landscape and stroll around the scenic Traquair grounds led by Fi Martynoga for a foraging walk. (2024)

Walk and Talk with Fi Martynoga: Experience a taste of the Scottish Borders with Fi Martynoga as she leads a foraging walkaround the grounds of Traquair. (2023)

Foraging Walk: Experience a taste of the Scottish Borders as Fi Martynoga leads a foraging walk around Traquair. (2022)

Foraging Walk: Experience a taste of the Scottish Borders as Fi Martynoga leads a foraging walk around Traquair. (2021)

Woodland Hike with Fi Martynoga: Join Fi Martynoga on a hike from Traquair Houseon the Southern Upland Way, before exploring thenew footpath up to the Satyr Sykes and returningto Traquair House. Please note that this walk involves hills, but is on a sturdy path. (2019)

Foraging Walk with Fiona Martynoga: Take a walk on the wild side as local foraging expert Fi Martynoga leads a walk through the surroundings of Traquair House. (2018)

Foraging Walk with Fiona Martynoga: Take a walk on the wild side as local foraging expert Fi Martynoga leads a walk through the surroundings of Traquair House. (2017)

Taste the Wild with the Foraging Fionas: Join local writer and foraging expert FionaMartynoga and Fiona Bird on a foraging walkaround the grounds of Traquair House. (2016)

A Forager’s Tale: Discover a delicious new side to the Borders ona foraging walk with Fi Houston in the groundsof Traquair House and taste the foraged goodslater in the Festival Café. (2015)

Where the Wild Things Are – A Borders Foraging Walk: Delve into the wild in the surroundings of Traquair House with foraging experts to discover a delicious new side to the borders. (2014)

Walk – Walking Scott’s Border Ballads: At yon castle wa’ join Fiona Houston as she talks to acclaimed modern artist and Harvard Lit Professor Peter Sacks and leads him through true Elfyn-land and beyond to rediscover the Medieval Border Ballads saved, and tinkered with, by Sir Walter Scott. (2013)

Scotland’s Wild Harvests: Local writer and foraging expert Fiona J. Houston discusses a new guide for wild food enthusiasts. (2012)

The Literary Walk: Join local writer Fiona Houston for a literary walk around the hills of Traquair and meet Scottish artists Silvia Woodcock-Clarke, Caroline McNairn, Andrew Brown, and Joseph Maxwell Stuart in situ. (2010)

Kirsty Brimelow QC is a lawyer with specialisation in human rights and international law. Ms Brimelow is chairwoman of the Chairwoman Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales and was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 2011. She has been involved in various human rights cases and projects around the world, including in Tanzania, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe, and was involved in the peace process in Colombia. Ms Brimelow holds a degree in law from Birmingham University.

Susanne Baumann is a senior German diplomat, currently acting as the German Ambassador to the United Kingdom. Prior to her ambassadorship, she served as the State Secretary of the Federal Foreign Office in Berlin from 2021 to 2025 and worked as the Federal Government commissioner for Disarmament and Arms Control.

Louis Charalambous, a partner at London -based law firm Simons Muirhead Burton, is widely regarded as one of the country’s leading media litigators. His level of expertise spans from criminal allegations to political disputes.

Jeremy Corbyn, independent MP for Islington North, founder and director of the Peace and Justice Project (PJP), was twice elected leader of the British Labour Party (2015-2020). He has served as Member of the British Parliament for Islington North for 42 years and he was a member of the Council of Europe (2020-2024).

His extensive and lifelong campaigning for peace, justice and human rights has taken him across the world, advocating in senior roles for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, the Palestinian Solidarity Committee, Stop the War, the UN Human Rights Council in New York (review of the Geneva Convention), nuclear non-proliferation, trade unions, Labour rights, Indigenous rights and many social movements. Corbyn has twice been awarded prizes for promoting peace, including the Seán MacBride Peace Prize for his sustained and powerful political work for disarmament and peace. He founded the People’s Forum after winning the 2024 elections.

Steve Richards is a British TV presenter and political columnist who has written for the Guardian, Independent, News Statesman and Spectator. An insightful observer of the British political scene, he has produced many television talks on influential political leaders and major political turning points. Mr Richards regularly presents Radio 4’s Week in Westminster and hosts a vibrant one man stand up show called Rock & Roll Politics. He has written numerous books, including his latest The Prime Ministers We Never Had: Success and Failure from Butler to Corbyn, which was awarded Book of the Year by The Times, The Guardian and Prospect.

William Dalrymple is a Scottish-born bestselling author and historian. While studying at the University of Cambridge, he mirrored – on foot – the route of Marco Polo from Jerusalem to Mongolia and wrote his first book, In Xanadu about the journey. This became a bestseller and in 1990 he won the Yorkshire Post Best First Work Award and a Scottish Arts Council Spring Book Award. He has written several books about his travels, particularly around India, and his historical works have earned him several notable awards. Among them are the Wolfson Prize, the Scottish Book of the Year prize and three honorary doctorates of letters from the Universities of St Andrews, Lucknow and Aberdeen. His most recent written work The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company (2019) was shortlisted for numerous prizes. He is one of the co-founders and co-directors of the world’s largest writers festival, the annual Jaipur Literature Festival.

Humza Yousaf is a Scottish politician who served as the former First Minister of Scotland and the leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP) in March 2023. Yousaf studied Politics at the University of Glasgow and began his political career as an aide to several SNP politicians. In 2011, he was elected the Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for the Glasgow region. Yousaf has held  several positions at his time in the Scottish Government including Minister for External Affairs and International Development (2012-2014), Minister for Transport and the Islands (2016-2018), Cabinet Secretary for Justice (2018-2021) and Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care (2021-2023). His role as former First Minister of Scotland held historical significance as the first Muslim and person of Asian descent to hold office in Scotland.

Jim Naughtie FRSE  is a British radio and news presenter for the BBC. He began his career as a journalist at the Aberdeen Press and Journal before moving to the London offices of The Scotsman. He became its Chief Political Correspondent before working for The Washington Post and The Guardian. Mr Naughtie later moved into radio presenting and has anchored every BBC Radio UK election results programme since 1997, and worked on every US presidential election since 1988. He has been the main presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme and his radio presenting has earned him two Sony Radio Awards: Radio Personality of the Year in 1991 and Voice of the Listener and Viewer Award in 2001. That same year, Mr Naughtie received an honorary doctorate from the University of Sterling and was appointed as its chancellor in 2008. He retired from regular presenting duties in 2016 and is currently the BBC’s Special Correspondent responsible for charting UK constitutional reform, as well as the BBC news’ Book Editor.

Allan Little is an award-winning Scottish journalist and presenter who has reported from more than 80 countries including a variety of war zones, revolutions and natural disasters. After graduating from the University of Edinburgh, Mr Little joined BBC Scotland as a news and current affairs researcher before moving to London to train as a radio reporter. He specialised in foreign reporting for BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme, including accounts from the revolutions of 1989 across Eastern Europe. He then worked as a reporter for BBC News, reporting from hostile environments such as 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 later, Paris correspondent. He has won several awards, including three Gold Sony Radio Academy Awards for Reporter of the Year, the Bayeux War Correspondent of the Year, and in 2012 he won both the Thomas Reuters prize for Reporting Europe for his Radio 4 documentary, Europe’s Choice and the Charles Wheeler Award for Outstanding Contribution to Broadcast Journalism. Mr Little left the BBC in 2014 and today chairs the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

Eldridge Adolfo is a Senior Advisor for Dialogue and Mediation at the Folke Bernadotte Academy in Stockholm. He has worked as an advisor to senior envoys, SRSGs, EURS and diplomats as a Mediation Advisor at the European External Action Service (EEAS), as well as the United Nations. He has extensive experience in mediation and negotiating with armed conflict parties and process design in various countries including Ukraine, Georgia, Sudan, South Sudan, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Colombia, Venezuela, Georgia, Myanmar, Western Balkans and Afghanistan. Adolfo is currently working on Ukraine and as Presidential Adviser on Social Cohesion. He holds a Master’s degree in International Relations from Stockholm University.

Martin Griffiths OBE was the former Deputy Head of the UN Supervisory Mission in Syria (UNSMIS) where he was the lead civilian and responsible for political affairs, human rights and civil affairs, working with Kofi Annan.

He was the Founding Director of Geneva based Humanitarian Dialogue Centre where he specialised in developing dialogue between governments and insurgents, and helped lay the foundations for peace in a range of countries across Asia, Africa and Europe.

Mr. Griffiths has worked with UNICEF in Asia, in the British Diplomatic Service, Save the Children, and as Chief Executive of ActionAid. He rejoined the United Nations (UN) in 1994 as Director of the Department of Humanitarian Affairs (which became OCHA) in Geneva and became the Deputy to the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator in New York in 1998. He has also served as UN Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Great Lakes and UN Regional Coordinator in the Balkans with the rank of UN Assistant Secretary-General.

Janine Di Giovanni is widely regarded as one of the most accomplished foreign correspondents of her generation. She is the Executive Director and CEO of the Reckoning Project, a transactional war crimes documentation initiative. 

Over a career spanning more than three decades, di Giovanni has reported from nearly every major conflict zone of our time: the siege of Sarajevo and conflicts throughout Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, South Sudan, Yemen, and Ukraine. 

Previously, she was the Senior Foreign Correspondent for the Times of London and from 2013-2018, served as Middle East Editor at Newsweek. 

She is the author of eight novels and her work has garnered widespread critical acclaim. The Daily Telegraph called her the “finest foreign correspondent of our generation”. 

Through the Reckoning Project, she helped pioneer a model for documenting war crimes that is rooted in both trauma-informed interviewing and international legal standards. Her work directly supports prosecutions by Ukrainian courts and international mechanisms, including the International Criminal Court. She has advised the United Nations, Nato, and the European Union on issues related to conflict and transitional justice, and has played a vital role in elevating the importance of survivor testimony.