International Conference 2024 Speakers - Introduction

Jeremy Corbyn MP

Jeremy Corbyn MP, founder and director of PJP (Peace & Justice Project), is a twice elected leader of the UK Labour Party from 2015 to 2020. He has served as a Member of British Parliament in Islington North for 42 years and is a Parliamentary Member of the Council of Europe. Following the recent election, he is now an Independent MP. His expansive 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, employment rights, Indigenous rights and many social movements.

Prof. Penny Green

Penny Green is Professor of Law and Globalisation, Queen Mary University of London. Professor Green has published extensively on state crime theory, state violence, Turkish criminal justice and politics, 'natural' disasters, genocide, mass forced evictions and resistance to state violence. She has a long track record of researching in hostile environments and has conducted fieldwork in the UK, Turkey, Egypt, Kurdistan, Palestine/Israel, Tunisia and Myanmar. Professor Green is Founder and Director of the award winning International State Crime Initiative (ISCI) - a multi-disciplinary international initiative to collate, analyse and disseminate research-based knowledges about criminal state practices and resistance to them. ICSI is based at QMUL and partnered with the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, Ulster University and the University of New south Wales (UNSW).

Baker Khundakji

Baker Khundakji has been Young Transport Workers Officer and Future of work lead at International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) since Jan 2019. Based in Amman, Jordan, she has worked for the ITF since 2004. Baker has been part of the trade union movement for more than 15 years. She started in the ITF Arab world regional office and advocated for, and implemented, strategic multi-sectoral initiatives and projects for young transport workers, ensuring that all levels of the ITF leadership are fully engaged and supportive of meaningful activities. Baker led the youth work which resulted in a 74% increase in the ITF declared membership of young workers in the last 5 years. She established the gig economy work programme in the ITF and supported unions’ organising and campaigning efforts pushing for legislative changes, and improved living and working conditions. Baker also Supported the creation of regional bottom-up gig workers networks across Europe, Africa, parts of Asia and most recently Latin America.

Walter Baier

Walter Baier was elected President of the European Left in 2022. He has authored many publications, most recent being Marxism: History and Topics of a Practical Theory (2023). Walter was a co-organiser of the large peace demonstration Prevent nuclear war – disarm and in 1983 he was a speaker at the 100,000 Peace March. Baier was National Chairman of the Communist Party of Austria (KPÖ) from 1994 to 2006 and edited the Austrian magazine Volksstimme. Since 2000, he has worked on dialogue between atheists and Catholics through the project DIALOP, leading to meetings with Pope Ratzinger and Pope Francis. From 2007 to 2022, he was political coordinator and board member of the transform! Europe network. Walter works for unity and alliances between progressive and democratic forces, and defending the need to transform European politics to address societal and ecological challenges in favour of the majority.