News Article

Stephen Lewis, named by Time magazine as one of the world's most influential speakers on human rights, social justice, and international development, will deliver the Gonzaga University School of Law’s 2008 Luvera Lecture on Monday, Oct. 27 in Seattle and that evening in Spokane.

The annual lecture is to begin at noon at the Columbia Tower Club, located on the 75th floor of the Bank of America Building in Seattle (at Fifth Avenue and Columbia Street), and is open to the public. Lewis will travel to Spokane to deliver the lecture again at 5 p.m. in the Barbieri Courtroom at the Gonzaga University School of Law. The lecture at the Gonzaga Law School is free and open to the public.

Lewis is co-director of AIDS-Free World, a new international advocacy organization that works to promote more urgent and effective global responses to HIV/AIDS (www.aids-freeworld.org).

Time magazine named Lewis one of its “100 Most Influential People in The World” in 2005. The Paul N. and Lita Barnett Luvera Lecture in Law series was created by an endowment gift from the Luveras. Paul N. Luvera received a law degree from the GU Law School in 1959 and gave the first address of the series in 1990. Lita Barnett Luvera received a GU law degree in 1977. The Luveras have worked as partners in the Luvera Law Firm for more than 25 years. Lita is the managing partner of the firm devoted to representing plaintiffs in major damage cases. The Luveras’ design for the lecture is to inspire Gonzaga Law students and alumni with discourse from some of the nation’s brightest minds on a range of subjects.

Among several senior United Nations roles spanning more than two decades, Lewis was the U.N. Secretary-General’s special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa from June 2001 through 2006. From 1995 to 1999, he was deputy executive director of UNICEF – the United Nations Children’s Fund – at its global headquarters in New York. From 1984 through 1988, he was Canada's ambassador to the United Nations.

In addition to his work with AIDS-Free World, Lewis is a professor in Global Health, faculty of social sciences at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. He is a member of the board of directors of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative and is the chair of the board of the Stephen Lewis Foundation in Canada.

Lewis also authored the best-selling book, “Race Against Time.” He holds 28 honorary degrees from Canadian universities and is a Companion of the Order of Canada, Canada's highest honour for lifetime achievement. In 2007, the Kingdom of Lesotho invested Lewis as Knight Commander of the Most Dignified Order of Moshoeshoe. The order, named for the founder of Lesotho, is the country's highest honor. Lewis has received many other prestigious awards, including: Jonathan Mann Health and Human Rights Award from the International Association of Physicians in AIDS Care (2003); and the Health and Human Rights Award from Doctors of the World, USA (2007).

For more information, contact Nancy Fike, GU Law School alumni director, at (509) 313-3605 or via e-mail at nfike@lawschool.gonzaga.edu.