Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe (image: Cisac, Stanford University)

Update 18:50  Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - US President Barack Obama has nominated two more women for key posts in Geneva. Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe is nominated as US ambassador to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, as a member of the US Mission to the United Nations. Her name had been circulating earlier in the year as a possible candidate for the post of US Ambassador to the UN in Geneva, and thus head of the US Mission, but Obama 24 October nominated Betty King for that post.

Laura Kennedy has been nominated as US ambassador to the Conference on Disarmament (CoD), as part of the Department of State, but the CoD is based in Geneva. The Conference has 65 member nations, and it famously ended a 12-year stalemate in May 2009 with a new work programme. The new agenda’s priority work is to develop the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty, which would end production of fissile materials for use in atomic bombs.

The two nominations, as well as that of Betty King, are subject to review by the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, which then makes recommendations to the full Senate, and it votes on each appointment. The process normally takes two to three months.

Chamberlain Donahoe’s background, provided by the US Mission in Geneva:

Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe is an Affiliated Scholar at the Center for international Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. Her research has focused on norms on use of force, UN reform, and the international rule of law. Her 2006 PhD dissertation entitled: “Humanitarian Military Intervention: The Moral Imperative Versus the Rule of Law,” addressed conflicting legal and ethical justifications for humanitarian military intervention. Previously, Ms Donahoe was a litigation associate at Fenwick & West in Silicon Valley, where she served technology clients in intellectual property and commercial disputes. Prior to that, she was a teaching fellow at Stanford Law School and law clerk to the Honorable William H Orrick. Ms Donahoe has worked with various human rights organizations including The Lawyer’s Committee for Human Rights, where she did research on the nexus between US foreign policy and human rights, and Amnesty International’s Ginneta Sagan Fund, where she did strategy work related to human rights concerns of women and children. She received her BA from Dartmouth College, a Masters in Theology from Harvard University, her JD from Stanford Law School, an MA in East Asian Studies from Stanford University, and her PhD in Ethics from the University of California’s Graduate Theological Union.

Laura Kennedy’s profile, from the US Mission:

Laura E Kennedy, a member of the Senior Foreign Service, was most recently Deputy Commandant at the National War College since 2007. Prior to that, she was a member of the State Department’s Board of Examiners from 2005-2007. From 2004-2005 she was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs (EUR). She served as the Dean of the State Department’s Senior Seminar from 2004-2005. Ms Kennedy was Ambassador to Turkmenistan from 2001-2003 where she focused on support for civil society as well as support for operations in neighboring Afghanistan. She was the Deputy Chief of Mission, United States Mission to the United Nations from 1998-2001. From 1995-1997 she was the Director of the Office of Central Eurasian Affairs. She has also held postings in Moscow (twice), Vienna (to the negotiations on conventional forces in Europe) and Ankara. She has been detailed as charge at the new U.S. Embassy in Yerevan, as a guide at an official exchange exhibit in Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Tajikistan. Ms Kennedy holds a BA from Vassar College and an MA from American University.

Links to other sites: ArmsControl.org, UNOG (United Nations Office in Geneva) on the Conference on Disarmament

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