H.E. Edmond Rizk is a member of the Advisory Committee of the Lebanon Dialogue Initiative (LDI) of Notre Dame University-Louaize (NDU). He was born in 1934 in Jezzine, South Lebanon. He studied Law at the Lebanese Academy, and is a member of the Order of Lawyers of Beirut since 1959. He had an early career in teaching Arabic (1951-1958) at several educational institutions, including the Sagesse School, the Antonine School, and the Lebanese Institute in Beit Chabeb. He was elected a member of the Council of the Teachers’ Syndicate (1952-1956), and he was a member of the Editors’ Syndicate (1956-1959). In 1956, he has founded the Association of the Youth of Jezzine and Maghdoucheh and later the same year the Foutyan Al Shallal, an educational and Sports club in Jezzine. He worked as a journalist between 1952 and 1968 in several newspapers including Al-Ruwad, Al-Siyassah, Al Aamal, and Al-Anwar. Member of the Kataeb party since a very young age, he was elected to its political bureau a first time in 1961. In 1968, he was elected as Member of the Lebanese Parliament representing the Jezzine circumscription, a seat he held until 1992. He has participated in the Francophone Parliamentary activities: he was part of the Lebanese parliamentary delegation to the Versailles Palace, France, at the invitation of General Charles de Gaulle (1968), he was elected Vice-President of the Public Relations Committee, and was awarded the Francophone Medal; he has also participated in the Francophone General Assembly’s conferences in Montreal, Canada (1970), and in Dakar, Senegal (1972). In 1973, he was appointed Minister of Education (Government of Amine El Hafez and Government of Takieddine El Solh). In 1976, he participated in the National Dialogue Committee. In the same year, he was chosen by then President of the Republic Sleiman Frangieh to be his personal representative before Pope Paul VI with whom he met to present the Lebanese concerns. In 1984, Mr. Rizk resigned from the Kataeb Party, and three years later (1987), he founded, the Independent Parliamentary bloc, a non-sectarian group. He participated in the 1989 Taif Conference, and he was a member of the National Reconciliation Accord’s drafting committee. In the first government formed following the Taif Agreement, he held the portfolios of Justice and of Information. He carried out the first judicial formations in the history of Lebanese courts, and he was commissioned by the cabinet to amend the Constitution as per the Taif Agreement. He has a long history of public speeches for the Kataeb party, and on various political and religious occasions notably Ashoura and Eid El Ghadir. In addition to the countless articles he has produced as a journalist, Mr. Rizk is the author of a large number of books: His first book was published in 1958, and the first collection of his works was grouped in a twelve-book set in 1996. Mr. Rizk currently heads the Culture and Heritage Committee in the Lawyers’ Syndicate, a post he has been occupying since 2010. He is married to René Dimitri Christodolo, and he has six children (Amine, Bahjat, Nadim, Nagy, Fadi, and Joumana) and nine grand children.