The International Prison Chaplains’ Association Sixth Quinquennial Conference
“Forgotten People”
Clarion Hotel, Stockholm Sweden
August 19-25, 2010
Conference Speakers
Plenary Speakers IPCA VI

Lauran Bethell, M.Div, D.D., has been working for more than two decades on behalf of and caring for women who have been exploited and abused. Most recently, she serves as a consultant with grassroots organizations, encouraging the development of new projects dealing with the issues of prostitution, trafficking in persons and other forms of abuse and exploitation. While based in The Netherlands, she travels extensively throughout Europe, Asia and the Americas, teaching, training and consulting.

As the first Director of the New Life Center in Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand (1987), Lauran pioneered projects in Southeast Asia that specifically addressed the issue of child prostitution and trafficking of women and children. The Center was started with 18 residents in an effort to offer young tribal women an opportunity to receive an education and vocational training which provided alternatives to prostitution and other forms of exploitation. Rev. Bethell directed the Center for 14 years; Chiang Rai. Lauran received an award on behalf of the New Life Center from the Prime Minister of Thailand.

In January 2001, Lauran began working full-time as an international consultant. Her main goals are to initiate and encourage new grass-roots projects addressing the exploitation and abuse of women and children, many of whom are victims of trafficking. In August 2004, Lauran directed the first “International Christian Conference on Prostitution” (ICCP) bringing together the leaders of faith-based organizations from more than 30 countries who are involved in this work. Second and third similar conferences were held in 2006 and 2008.

Hans Corell (Sweden) served as Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs and the Legal Counsel of the United Nations from March 1994 to March 2004. In this capacity, he was head of the Office of Legal Affairs in the United Nations Secretariat.

Before joining the United Nations, he was Ambassador and Under-Secretary for Legal and Consular Affairs in the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1984 to 1994.

He received his Law Degree from the University of Uppsala in 1962. From 1962 to 1972, he served first as a law clerk and then as a judge in the courts of first and second instance. He was appointed Judge of Appeal in 1980. In 1972, he joined the Ministry of Justice where be was engaged in legislative work concerning real estates, property formation, joint stock companies and incorporated associations, data protection, secrecy, general administrative law, the relation between the Realm and the Church of Sweden, and constitutional law. In 1979, he became Director of the Ministry’s Division for Administrative and Constitutional Law. Two years later, he was appointed Chief Legal Officer of the Ministry. Corell has been a member of Sweden’s delegation to the United Nations General Assembly 1985-1993 and has had several assignments related to the Council of Europe, OECD and the CSCE (now OSCE). Together with two other rapporteurs, he was author of the CSCE proposal for the establishment of the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, transmitted to the United Nations in February 1993. He was the Secretary- Generals representative at the 1998 UN Conference that adopted the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

During his service in the United Nations he was also involved in the establishment of the International Tribunal for Rwanda, the Special Court for Sierra Leone and the Extraordinary Chambers of the national courts of Cambodia for trial of the senior Khmer Rouge leaders.

Since his retirement from public service in 2004, Corell is engaged in many different activities in the legal field, inter alia as legal adviser, lecturer, and member of different boards. Among other, he is involved in the work of the International Bar Association, the International Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life at Brandeis University and the Hague Institute for the Internalisation of Law. Since 2006 he is Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Raoul Wallenberg Institute for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at Lund University. Corell is the author of many publications. He holds honorary Doctor of Laws degrees at Stockholm University (1997) and Lund University (2007).

Andrew Coyle, CMG is Professor of Prison Studies in the School of Law at King's College London. Between 1997 and 2005 he was founding Director of the International Centre for Prison Studies. Before that he worked for 25 years as a prison director in the UK. He has been a prisons adviser to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the UN Latin American Institute, the Council of Europe, including its Committee for the Prevention of Torture, the ICRC, the WHO and several national governments. He is a member of the UK Foreign Secretary's Expert Committee against Torture.

Chuleepran Srisoontorn Rev. Dr. Chuleepran Srisoontorn is one of the teachers at Payap University in Chiang Mai. She's a member of the executive committee at McGilvary College of Divinity and Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs.

Ajarn Chuleepran, who is an IPCA member, is a key person for Prison Ministry in Chiang Mai. With her connections in other parts of Thailand, she's also a network builder between people with a heart for prison chaplaincy in Thailand.

Ajarn Chuleepran, who has a Th.D. in Pastoral Counseling from Boston University. completed her Theological education with law studies. This because she felt the need of tools when she meets people in prison, and especially the different tribes in the country. ?Many of them are in a lack of citicenship in the country - or in any country - and quite a few of them doesn't speak thai.

Other areas Ajarn Chuleepran is involved with is actions against human trafficking and ecumenical networking.

Baroness Vivien Stern CBE is Senior Research Fellow at the International Centre for Prison Studies (ICPS) at King’s College, London. She is also Honorary President of Penal Reform International (PRI), a non-governmental organisation promoting penal reform throughout the world which she founded with others in 1989 and she has visited prisons in nearly fifty countries. From 2003 to 2009 she was the Convenor of the Scottish Consortium on Crime and Criminal Justice; she has been a Crossbench Peer since 1999 and was a member of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights from 2004 to 2008. From 1999 to 2003 she was a member of the House of Lords European Select Committee. She is a member of the Advisory Council of the International Legal Foundation in New York, and a member of the Advisory Council of the Legal Policy Research Centre in Kazakhstan. In September 2009 she was appointed by the UK Government to lead a review of how rape complaints are handled from when a rape is first disclosed until the court reaches a verdict.

Her publications include Bricks of Shame: Britain’s Prisons, A Sin Against the Future: Imprisonment in the World, Alternatives to Prison in Developing Countries, Developing Alternatives to Prison in East and Central Europe and Central Asia and Sentenced to Die? The problem of TB in prisons in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Her latest book, Creating Criminals: People and Prisons in a Market Society, was published by Zed Books in May 2006.