Lara karam Boustany

Lara Karam Boustany is a former university president (La Sagesse University) and law professor at Saint Joseph University of Beirut. Holding a doctorate in law from Panthéon-Assas University Paris II, she has over 30 years of experience in the academic field. She has held numerous key positions throughout her career, in addition to being the first woman and first layperson to be appointed president of a prominent Christian university in Lebanon.

She was also elected president of the Conference of Rectors of the Middle East (CONFREMO 2021-2023), which brings together more than 50 universities and university presidents from the Middle East and GCC countries. Professor Boustany is a member of the board of directors of the International Federation of Catholic Universities and a member of the board of directors of various French and Lebanese associations working in the fields of justice, university, and health. She has also acted as an expert, representing Lebanon and Arab countries at UNESCO in the international expert group responsible for advising the Organization on the revision of the historic 1974 recommendation concerning education for international understanding, cooperation, and peace, and education relating to human rights and fundamental freedoms.

Professor Boustany has also acted as a legal and diplomatic advisor to the Minister of Justice of Lebanon, working on laws and bilateral treaties relating to detainees, extraditions, prisons, women's rights, the law of the sea, and various legal issues. She represented the Ministry of Justice and the Republic of Lebanon at the Human Rights Council in Geneva in 2010 during Lebanon's first universal periodic review. She has trained, as an expert designated by the Westminster Foundation, parliamentary assistants in legal drafting. Professor Boustany specializes in constitutional and administrative law. She is the author of a legal work published in France and has several articles published in various legal fields.

She has also drafted several laws, bills, and legal studies, including: the law on public-private partnerships, the law on maritime zones, more than 8 bills relating to the exploitation of maritime zones ranging from the environment to offshore works and the right of innocent passage in the sea of Lebanon, decrees on economic free zones to stimulate the economy, studies on the port of Beirut, electricity in Lebanon, the issue of immigration, cluster munitions, the implementation of Resolution 1701. She has also been appointed as an expert in the preparation of tenders and contracts for the Lebanese state in the energy and renewable energy sector. She holds a Ph.D. in Law from Panthéon-Assas University Paris II.