Mr. Cambacérès graduated from the Bordeaux National School of Agricultural Work Engineers (ENITA) in 1971, with an agricultural techniques engineer degree. He also holds a degree in political sciences from the Grenoble Political Studies Institute (1977). In 1977 and 1979, he studied for an oriental civilization and language unilingual degree (DULCO) and for a superior Chinese language degree, both from the Paris Oriental Language School. Eventually, Mr. Cambacérès graduated from the Paris National Administration School (ENA) in 1980.

His career started as a counsellor in the Nice administrative tribunal (1980-81), and rapidly picked up speed within the Cabinet of the Ministre d’Etat, Minister of the Interior from 1981 to 1984. Then, from 1984 to 1986 within the Cabinet of the Ministre d’Etat, Minister of Land Settlement and Planning. In 1986, Mr. Cambacérès was Chargé d’Affaires at the Mediator of the Republic Cabinet until 1988. He was appointed special adviser to the Cabinet of the Ministre d’Etat, Minister of Education in 1988. He was then appointed Representative at the Parliament (1988-93) for the Gard region’s second constituency. From 1993 to 1999, he served as Special Civil Administrator for the Administration General Directorate of the Ministry of the Interior.

From 1973 to 1992, Mr. Cambacérès was tasked with a great array of responsibilities within the French Socialist Party, inter alia as the Asian Affairs National Officer for the Socialist Party under François Mitterrand and Lionel Jospin. He holds memberships within numerous congressional friendship groups with Asian countries.

He was the Founding President of the think-tank AGIR from 1992 to 1997, and from respectively 1993 and 2000, he has been the Founding President of the Association France-Asie and the Association Cambodia, Buddhism and Francophony. He is also a member of the sustainable development-oriented workgroup “MEDICIS Committee”. He is an eminent specialist on Asia, and particularly China, with respectively more than 100 trips to Asia in general and 50 trips made to China. He is a teacher in two French universities.

He is Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters and Knight of the Legion of Honour.

Dr. Gheorghe was born in 1945, in Bucharest, Romania.
He holds a M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the Faculty of Power Engineering, Bucharest Polytechnic Institute (1968), and a Ph.D. in Systems Science / Systems Engineering, from City University, London, (1975). In 1985, he obtained an MBA from the Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest (1985). Lastly, he holds a M.Sc. Engineering-Economics, from the Bucharest Polytechnic Institute.

He was professor of Industrial - Energy Policy and Organisational Management at the Bucharest Polytechnic University and Department of Physics, University of Bucharest. He is currently Professor of Industrial Risks and Decision Analysis at the Faculty of Chemical Engineering, University POLITEHNICA Bucharest. He is also Professor (Visitor) of Operations Research and Decision Analysis – see http://www.ifor.math.ethz.ch, and Director of the Centre of Excellence on Risk and Safety Sciences, Senior Scientist, with the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zürich, Switzerland; see www.lsa.ethz.ch.

Lastly, he was appointed in March 2006 Professor of Engineering Management and Systems Engineering and Batten Endowed Chair on System of Systems Engineering with the Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia, USA (from March 2006); see www.odu.edu.

Amb. Nazarkine graduated from the Moscow Institute of International Relations in 1956. From 1956 to 1992 he served under the Soviet/Russian Foreign Ministry. He is specialized in international security, arms control, non-proliferation, peaceful use of outer space and nuclear energy.

He participated in the Soviet delegations to the United Nations (First Committee), the Conference on Disarmament as well as to the Nuclear Watchdog of the UN, the IAEA. Amb. Nazarkine was appointed Head of the Arms Control Department, Ambassador-at-Large. Between 1987 and 1989 he was the Soviet Ambassador to the Conference on Disarmament. In 1989-91 he led the Soviet delegation on the Soviet-American nuclear arms control talks (START). He eventually worked with the Security Council of the Russian Federation as Deputy Head of Staff, chief of department in 1992-95.

He was a faculty member of the Geneva Centre of the Security Policy (GCSP) from 1996 to 2001 and a senior fellow of the Geneva Centre of Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF) between 2001 and 2004. He is now retired.