Lord John Thomas Alderdice

John, Lord Alderdice is a psychoanalytic psychiatrist by profession, a Liberal Democrat life member of the House of Lords at Westminster (where he sits on the Select Committee for International Relations and Defence) the UK Government Trade Envoy to Azerbaijan and the five countries of Central Asia, and a former president - now President of Honour - of Liberal International, the world federation of some 100 liberal political parties.

As leader of the Alliance Party, he was a key negotiator of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, then appointed the first Speaker of the new Northern Ireland Assembly and, subsequently, one of four international commissioners overseeing security normalisation.

He is now a Senior Research Fellow at Harris Manchester College, Oxford, an Honorary Fellow at Pembroke College, Oxford, a Visiting Fellow at Jesus College, Cambridge, Professor of Practice at both Queens University Belfast and the University of Wales Trinity St David, and a recipient of many honorary degrees and professorships from various universities around the world. He lectures, consults, and writes on intractable violent political conflict, religious faith and fundamentalism, and the problems of indigenous peoples. He is the founding Chair of The Concord Foundation and the current Chair of the Just Society Trust (formerly the John Smith Trust).