Luis Antonio Miguel Quintales, born in the Spanish city of Salamanca in 1962, is a professor in the Department of Computer Science and Automation at the oldest of the existing Hispanic universities. His teaching and research work focuses on the areas of Bioinformatics and Computational Genomics, about which he has published in leading journals in these scientific fields.

He also stands out for his contribution to the study and dissemination of historical and Jacobean routes, through publications such as Ruta del Camino Fonseca. De Salamanca a Santiago de Compostela, which is one of the first guides on the section of the Vía de la Plata that links the capital of the province of the same name with Santiago de Compostela.

Likewise, Miguel Quintales is a key player in the recovery of Jacobean routes that have fallen into oblivion, specifically the Camino Torres. The route was taken up again after an exhaustive work of cartography, georeferencing, photography and documentation. To disseminate it, the website of the Camino Torres was created in 2011, which has allowed numerous pilgrims and cyclists to follow in the footsteps of Diego de Torres Villarroel, through Spain and Portugal. This route obtained the institutional support of the municipalities it crosses and of the Alumni Association of the University of Salamanca.

Miguel Quintales is also a trail technician for the Spanish Federation of Mountain Sports and Climbing and collaborates with the magazine Grandes Espacios, which specialises in outdoor activities.

The honorary presidency of the jury of the XXVII International Prize Grupo Compostela-Xunta de Galicia went to the head of the Galician Executive, Alfonso Rueda Valenzuela.

As for the presidency, it was held by the Regional Minister of Culture, Education, Vocational Training and Universities, Román Rodríguez González; while the vice-presidency was taken by the president of the Compostela Group of Universities (CGU), Marek Kręglewski.

As in previous editions, the ex officio member was the rector of the University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain), Antonio López Díaz. Moreover, the following authorities from the regional and university government teams also participated as members:

• The General Secretary for Universities of the Xunta de Galicia, José Alberto Díez de Castro.
• The General Director for Culture of the Xunta de Galicia, Anxo Manuel Lorenzo Suárez.
• The Rector of the Technical University of Madrid (Spain), Guillermo Cisneros Pérez.
• The Rector of the Peruvian University of Applied Sciences (Peru), Edward Roekaert Embrechts.

Besides, the executive secretary of the GCU, María Teresa Carballeira Rivera, acted as secretary of this body.

Peter Maurer, who was born in 1956 in the Swiss town of Thun, is notable for his long diplomatic career in his home country and the international arena. Prior to that, he studied history and international law in Berne, after which he obtained a doctorate.

He began his diplomatic career in the Swiss Confederation in 1987, before being appointed deputy permanent observer at the Swiss mission to the United Nations in 1996. As an ambassador and permanent representative of Switzerland to the United Nations (2004), he worked for the integration of his country into multilateral networks. He then chaired the UN’s Fifth Committee (2009), in charge of the organisation’s administrative and budgetary affairs.

In 2010, he returned to his home country and became Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Since 2012, he has served as President of the International Committee of the Red Cross and under his leadership, the organisation carries out humanitarian work in over 80 countries.

The meeting of the jury of the XXVI International Prize Grupo Compostela-Xunta de Galicia was chaired by the Director General for Culture of Xunta de Galicia, José Anxo M. Lorenzo Suárez, on behalf of the Regional Culture, Education, Vocational Training and Universities of the Xunta de Galicia, Román Rodríguez González.

This body is also composed of the following authorities:

• The General Secretary for Universities of the Xunta de Galicia, José Alberto Díez de Castro.
• The President of the Compostela Group of Universities, Marek Kręglewski.
• The Rector of the University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain), Antonio López Díaz.
• The Rector of the University of Oviedo (Spain), Ignacio Villaverde Menéndez.
• The Rector of the CETYS University (Mexico), Fernando León García.

The Executive Secretary of the Compostela Group of Universities, María Teresa Carballeira Rivera, served as secretary to the jury.

Francisco Javier Solana de Madariaga is a Spanish politician and diplomat with a notorious career in the national and international arena. He was Spain’s Minister of Culture (1982-1988), Minister of Education and Science (1988-1992), and Minister of Foreign Affairs (1992-1995). He was also General Secretary of NATO (1995-1999), High Representative of
the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (1999-2009) and Commander-in-Chief of EUFOR (1999-2009).

As for his academic career, Javier Solana holds a PhD and a professorship in Physical Sciences from the Complutense University of Madrid (Spain). After graduating from this university, he continued his education in the United Kingdom and the United States of America, where he completed his postgraduate studies.

He currently chairs EsadeGeo-ESADE’s Center for Global Economy and Geopolitics, the Royal Board of Trustees of the Prado Museum, the Aspen Institute Spain, and the executive committee of the Barcelona Institute for Global Health. He is also a member of the boards of trustees of the Fundación Bancaria La Caixa and the Fundación Telefónica.

The meeting of the jury of the XXV International Prize Grupo Compostela-Xunta de Galicia was chaired by the General Secretary for Universities of Xunta de Galicia, José Alberto Díez de Castro, on behalf of the Regional Minister for Culture, Education and University, Román
Rodríguez González. The following authorities were likewise members of this jury:

• The General Secretary for Culture of the Xunta de Galicia, Anxo Lorenzo Suárez.
•  The President of the Compostela Group of Universities, Marek Kręglewski.
• The Rector of the University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain), Antonio López Díaz.
• The Rector of Jaume I University (Spain), Eva Alcón Soler.
• Dr Dermot McCluskey, acting on behalf of the Rector of the Anáhuac Xalapa University (Mexico), Luis Linares Romero.

The Executive Secretary of the Compostela Group of Universities, María Teresa Carballeira Rivera, served as secretary to the jury.

Carlos Villanueva Abelairas is a Full Professor of Music at the University of Santiago de Compostela since 2000 and Emeritus Full Professor since 2020. His first lines of research focused mainly on the performance of early music and medieval instruments, and later on music criticism, Spanish and Latin American music of the 20th century, music and exile, and music and identities.

Besides, his publications related to the instruments of the Portico de la Gloria at Santiago de Compostela Cathedral are a reference in international musicology and he was co-director of the project to build the instruments of this space, sponsored by Barrié de la Maza Foundation and developed between 1990 and 1994. With the aim of spreading this project internationally, he toured all over the world and made numerous recordings with the Chamber Group of the University of Santiago de Compostela, internationally recognized for its specialization in Early Music. With this group, which he conducted from 1977 to 2004, he recorded ten albums and contributed to the dissemination of the Spanish musical repertoire of the 12th and 17th centuries at an international level.

In his extensive literary production, the works El Códice Calixtino y la música de su tiempo, Polifonía jacobea. Los villancicos al Apóstol de José de Vaquedano, El sonido de la piedra (Encuentro sobre instrumentos en el Camino de Santiago), the edition of the Cancioneiro Musical de Galicia de Castro Sampedro e Folga and the monograph on Víctor Said Armesto. Unha vida e romance stand out.

Carlos Villanueva also stands out for his work as a curator of exhibitions such as Jesús Bal and Gay. Tientos y Silencios 1905-1993 or as scientific responsible in the project Centenario Said Armesto (1914-2014).

Content available only in Spanish. 

The meeting of the jury of the XXIII International Prize Grupo Compostela-Xunta de Galicia was chaired by the Regional Minister for Education, University and Professional Training of Xunta de Galicia, Carmen Pomar. The following authorities were also members of this jury:

• The General Secretary for Universities of Xunta de Galicia, José Alberto Díez de Castro.
• The General Technical Secretary of the Regional Ministry for Education, University and Professional Training of Xunta de Galicia, Jesús Oitavén Barcala.
• The President of the Compostela Group of Universities, Marek Kręglewski.
• The Rector of the University of Santiago de Compostela, Antonio López Díaz.
• The Rector of the University of Salamanca (Spain), Ricardo Rivero Ortega.
• The Rector of the University of Malaga (Spain), José Ángel Narváez Bueno.

The Executive Secretary of the Compostela Group of Universities, María Teresa Carballeira Rivera, acted as a secretary to the jury.

George D. Greenia is the founder of the Institute for Pilgrimage Studies and the president of Alpha Delta Gamma National Honorary Society for Medieval & Renaissance Studies, both established at the Higher Education institution William & Mary in Williamsburg (U.S.A).

Author of several Spanish language textbooks and numerous articles on Hispanic Medievalism. He is currently editor of the medieval newsletter and journal La Crónica sobre lengua y literatura españolas of the Division on Medieval Spanish of the Modern Language Association and member of the advisory board of Cuadernos de Estudios Gallegos of the Instituto de Estudios Gallegos Padre Sarmiento of CSIC, as well as the scientific committee of the journal of Jacobean studies and pilgrimage Ad Limina of the S.A. de Gestión del Plan Xacobeo.

Among the more than twenty distinctions and awards he holds, the Encomienda de la Orden de Isabel la Católica granted by S.M El Rey de España and the Ángel del Camino award conferred by the Enxebre Orden de la Vieira, a confraternity of Galician expatriates who support the Camino de Santiago.

The meeting of the jury of the XXIII International Prize Grupo Compostela-Xunta de Galicia was chaired by the Regional Minister for Education, University and Professional Training of Xunta de Galicia, Carmen Pomar. The following authorities are also members of this jury:

• The General Secretary for Universities of Xunta de Galicia, José Alberto Díez de Castro.
• The General Technical Secretary for Education of the Xunta de Galicia, Jesús Oitavén Barcala.
• The President of the Compostela Group of Universities, Marek Kręglewski.
• The Rector of the University of Santiago de Compostela, Antonio López Díaz.
• The Rector of the University of Seville, Miguel Ángel Castro Arroyo.
• The Vice-Rector for Higher Education of the University of Monterrey, Carlos Basurto.

The Executive Secretary of the Compostela Group of Universities, María Teresa Carballeira Rivera, acted as a secretary to the jury.

María Pilar Alonso Abad is coordinator of the Marie Curie European project in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage, member of the Ernst-Herzfeld-Gesellschaft Society for the Study of Islamic Heritage and member of the International Scientific Committee of the Asociación de Municipios del Camino de Santiago. Author of works such as El Real Monasterio de Las Huelgas de Burgos and Las Vidrieras de la Catedral de Burgos.

Graduate in Philosophy and Arts from the University of Navarra and in Humanities from the University of Burgos. Doctor in Humanities with a specialization in Art History from this Castilian-Leonese university and professor of this department at the academic institution.

Marcelino Oreja Aguirre is President of the University Institute for European Studies of the San Pablo-CEU University (Spain), President of the Ad Sanctum Iacobum Peregrinatio Foundation, as well as honorary member of both the Royal Academy of Moral and Politics Sciences and the European Academy of Sciences and Arts.

Doctor in Law by the Complutense University of Madrid (Spain), he has held numerous positions of political and diplomatic significance in the Spanish and European institutions, as for instance: Minister for Foreign Affairs in Spain during the Transition (1976-1980), Secretary General of the Council of Europe (1984-1989) and European Commissioner (1994-1999).

It is praiseworthy his intervention in the signing acts of the Declaration of Human Rights at the United Nations and in the joining of Spain to the Council of Europe, as well as his collaboration in the elaboration of the first draft of European Union By-Laws, which culminated in the Maastricht Treaty (1992).

Adoptive Son of Santiago de Compostela and winner of the Golden Medal of Culture of Santiago de Compostela, he is the promoter of the Declaration of Santiago de Compostela, which designated the Camino de Santiago as the first cultural route of the Council of Europe.

CIRCOM was founded on 1983 as initiative of a team of professionals from different European televisions, with the main purpose of supporting the development of regional identities in Europe. The basis was to use the main role of television in the development of the European idea.

Nowadays CIRCOM is composed of 300 tv channels from 3 European States, and its main objectives are:

• To be a forum for ideas and experience and a network for exchanging personnel and equipment;
• To make coproductions and encourage the exchange of regional programmes;
• To develop the regional culture and identities;
• To contribute the development of regional identities from an innovative and practical angle, among others.

Erasmus is a European Commission student mobility programme in education and training, established at 1987. It has enabled over three million students from across Europe to pursue enriching learning experiences in other countries.

This academic programme is designed to support the efforts to efficiently use the potential of Europe’s human talent and social capital, while confirming the principle of lifelong learning by linking support to formal, non-formal and informal learning throughout the education, training and youth fields.

The renewed Erasmus + Programme replaces seven programmes with one, with the same spirit: to support young people, students and adults for gaining experience and skills by studying, training and volunteering abroad.

Lennart Levi is Professor Emeritus of Psychosocial Medicine and was the first professor of this discipline at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm (Sweden) in 1978. In this institution, he founded in 1959 and led the department of Stress Research, which in 1973 was designated as the first center dedicated to the discipline by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Between 1982 and 2005, he chaired the Occupational Psychiatry section of the World Psychiatric Association and, since 2001, the International Association for the Treatment of Stress.

Prior to his retirement in 1995, he was an adviser to WHO, the International Labour Organization and the European Commission in his field of expertise.

During the period 2006-2011, Levi was a member of the Swedish Parliament and spokesperson for Public and Occupational Health issues of the Centre Party.

Television channel Euronews produces simultaneously news and programmes in 13 language services: Arabic, English, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish and Ukrainian. Although it was born as a service for Europe, Euronews ended up broadcasting in Europe, America and North Africa. It currently reaches 400 million households in 155 countries via cable, digital satellite and terrestrial windows.

The College of Europe is an independent university institute of postgraduate European studies, with two campus in Bruges (Belgium) and Natolin (Poland). It brings together more than 400 students coming out from all over Europe.

It was founded in 1949 by leading European figures and founding fathers of the European Union such as Salvador de Madariaga, Winston Churchill, Paul- Henri Spaak and Alcide De Gasperi. It was born in the wake of the Hague Congress of 1948 to promote “a spirit of solidarity and mutual understanding between all the nations of Western Europe and to provide elite training to individuals who will uphold these values” and “to train an elite of young executives for Europe”.

Neelie Kroes is currently the Vice-president of the European Commission and Digital Agenda Commissioner. Born in the Netherlands, she has developed a long career in her country’s politic arena. Kroes was deputy at the national Parliament and served as Minister for Transport, Public Works and Telecommunication from 1982 to 1989.

Besides, she held several positions both in the academic field, as President of Nyenrode University, and at company management. As well as in charity foundations as an advisor for the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund and World Cancer Research Fund.

Mohamed ElBaradei diplomatic career began in 1964 in the Egyptian Ministry of External Affairs, where he served in the Permanent Missions of Egypt to the United Nations in New York and Geneva, in charge of political, legal and arms control issues. From 1974 to 1978, he was a special assistant to the Egyptian Foreign Minister. In 1980, he became a senior fellow in charge of the international law program at the United Nations Institute for Training and Research. He was also Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) from December 1997 until November 2009.

In October 2005, ElBaradei and the IAEA itself were announced as joint recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize for their “efforts to prevent nuclear energy from being used for military purposes and to ensure that nuclear energy for peaceful purposes is used in the safest possible way”. He donated all his winnings to building orphanages in his home city of Cairo. The IAEA´s winnings were spent on training scientists from developing countries to use nuclear techniques in combating cancer and malnutrition.

 ElBaradei has received many awards for his work as an international civil servant, such as the Franklin Roosevelt Four Freedoms Award, the James Park Morton Interfaith Award, the Human Security Award from the Muslim Public Affairs Council, the El Athir Award -Argelia´s highest national distinction-, the Golden Dove of Peace Prize from the President of Italy, the Honorary Patron of Trinity´s University Philosophical Society, the Award for Distinguished Contribution to the Peaceful Worldwide Use of Nuclear Technology or the International Peace Award of the Mostar Centre for Peace and Multiethnic Cooperation.

 He earned a Bachelor´s degree in Law from the University of Cairo in 1962, followed by a DEA degree in International Law at the Graduate Institute of International Studies HEI in Geneva and a PhD in International Law at the New York University School of Law in 1974. From 1981 to 1987, he was an Adjunct Professor of International Law at New York University School of Law.

Amin Maalouf was born in 1949 in Beirut (Lebanon). He writes mainly in French and his works have been translated into different languages. In 1993, he received the Goncourt Prize for his novel Rock of Tanios. He studied Sociology at the French University in Beirut and until the break of the Civil War in his country in 1975, he worked as a director for the Lebanese journal Al- Nahar. That same year, he moved to France, where he still lives.

His work is marked both by the Civil War experiences and by migration. His characters are generally voyagers between different lands, languages, and religions. His most regarded book at the international level is Leo Africanus, but among his fiction works, we can also highlight the following titles: The First Century after Beatrice, Gardens of Light, Ports of Call, and Balthazar’s Odyssey. He also produced nonfiction works such as The Crusades through Arab Eyes, In the Name of Identity: Violence, and The Need to Belong and Origins: Memoirs.

The public-service television channel ARTE acts as a showcase for the rich cultural diversity of Europe. Its purpose is “to conceive and produce television programmes which, in a broad sense, are cultural and international in character and conducive to promoting understanding and rapprochement among Europe’s nations”. ARTE’s policy is to broadcast high-quality national and international co-productions in cinema, drama and documentaries as well as news, live and performing arts. Based on an Agreement between France and Germany, ARTE is composed of three entities, the headquarters in Strasburg and two members, ARTE France in Paris and ARTE Deutschland TV GmbH in Baden-Baden. The channel is financed through the television licence fee in both countries. ARTE is broadcast simultaneously in French and German all around Europe. Moreover, it has entered into Agreements with other public service broadcasters like, for instance, RTBF in Belgium, TVP in Poland, ORF in Austria, SRG SSR Idée Suisse in Switzerland, TVE in Spain, YLE in Finland, BBC in the United-Kingdom and SVT in Sweden.

Castells is one of the most prestigious sociologists in the world and the main scientific reference for the Information Society. He is the author of more than twenty books and the intellectual father of the Network Society concept, which serves as a theoretical basis for many communication policy actions.

His scientific production focuses almost exclusively on the new communication technologies, mainly the Internet. He is one of the most serious analysts of the influence of the new communication structures, which are based on networks, on the different groups that make up a society. These new technologies are increasing the dimension of education and research all over the world.

In addition, he has received several awards and holds honorary doctorates from twelve universities around the world.

The Commission established in November 1999 a group composed of officials and gender experts from the 15 Member States of the European Union (EU) and the 15 countries associated to the Fifth Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration activities of the European Community (1998-2002), specifically dedicated to the women and science issues. It is often referred to as the Helsinki Group on Women and Science, as its first meeting was held in Helsinki during the Finnish Presidency of the EU.

Historian, publicist, former Polish Foreign Minister, he has always been active on behalf of human beings. As a young man he came into contact with the resistance against the National Socialists and helped persecuted Jews. After his arrest and deportation to the Auschwitz concentration camp, he recounted his experiences in his first book, The Autumn of Springs, after which he became a DAAD scholarship holder at the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin.

After the war, he spent seven years in Stalinist prisons, and when he was rehabilitated, he worked as a journalist and scientist, writing numerous books and articles, and as a teacher at the Catholic University of Lublin. His political involvement led him to join the Solidarnosc trade union. He was re-arrested after the implementation of the martial law in 1981 until his release two years later thanks to the protests of his friends in the West. Between 1983 and 1990 he taught contemporary history at the universities of Munich, Eichstätt and Augsburg. He then went to Vienna as Poland’s first non-communist ambassador. In 1995 he became Polish Foreign Minister, during which he made the famous speech to the German Federal Assembly on the 50th anniversary of the end of the war. He became an ambassador again from 2000 to 2002.

Miguel fought on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War after his studies were interrupted by the war in Barcelona. After some time teaching at the London School of Economics, he introduced the concept of modern industrial psychology in Spain. His book From the country to the suburb received the Spanish National Literature Prize.  

He became a successful professor of psychology at the University of Barcelona and appointed director of the Institute of Educational Sciences at the same university. He played an important role in the educational system that brought about the political transition and the autonomy of Catalonia. He later focused on psycholinguistics, children’s language and the problems of bilingualism. In 1974 he organised the Seminar on Languages and Education, which is still held every year in Sitges, Spain.  

In 1993, devised by the European Union, he directed the survey on the knowledge and use of the languages of Spain in the autonomous communities that have their own language for the Spanish Sociological Research Centre (CIS). 

He is an Emeritus Professor at the University of Barcelona and Dean of the Faculty of Psychology, coordinator of the UNESCO scientific project LINGUAPAX, member of the European Academy and holds honorary degrees from the universities of Genoa and the Basque Country. 

Emeritus Professor at the University of Santiago de Compostela. Former professor of Latin Philology at the universities of Valencia, Salamanca and Santiago de Compostela. 

Researcher who since the 1950s has devoted his activity to the field of Latin Philology and medieval studies, becoming one of the world’s leading figures in both fields. Proof of this are the 37 doctoral theses he has supervised and the eight research projects he has carried out.  

Author of 22 books and more than 250 articles, as well as organiser of many conferences, five of them international: 

His numerous awards and decorations include the following:  

• Medal for teaching merit from the Order of Alfonso X El Sabio.  
• Silver Medal of Galicia from the Xunta de Galicia.  
• Gold Medal for Cultural Merit from the city of Santiago.  

• National prize for research in Humanities.  

Dr. Honoris Casusa from the universities of Lisbon, Salamanca, León and Coimbra. He has given many courses and lectures in many European and American universities.  

He is one of the great promoters of Jacobean Studies, participating in a multitude of projects, publications, congresses and the creation of research centres throughout Europe dedicated to the study of the Pilgrims’ Road to Santiago and its indulgence in the construction of the European world. 

His most outstanding works are, among others: 

• Isidore of Sevilla. Etymology, general introduction. Madrid 1992. 
• The Tumbs of Compostela. Santiago, 1985. 
• The Codex Calixtinus of Santiago’s Cathedral. Santiago, 1988. 
• Christian life and culture in Spain between the VII and the X centuries. London, 1992. 
• Facsimile edition of manuscript 609 of the Book of Hours by Fernando I of Leon. Santiago, 1995.

Alvaro Joaquim de Melo Siza Vieira was born in Matosinhos, Porto, in June 25, 1933. He studied in the School of Fine Arts in Porto and worked with the Portuguese architect Fernando Tavora between 1955 and 1958. He taught at the School of Architecture (ESBAP) from 1966-69 and was appointed Assistant Professor of Construction in 1976. 

He has been a Visiting Professor at the Ecole Polythechnique of Lausanne, the University of Pennsylvania, the Los Andes School in Bogota and at the Graduate School of Design of Harvard University as Kenzo Tange Visiting Professor. He continues to teach at the Porto School of Architecture from Porto University.  

Among many current designs, 1200 homes were built in Malagueira, Evora, with the designs for the Setubal College of Education, the Porto Faculty of Architecture, the Aveiro University Library and the Santiago de Compostela University’s Faculty of Information Sciences. Designs include the Galician Museum of Contemporary Art in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, the Porto Modern Art Museum and, recently, a major mixed-use development in Boavista, Oporto. He has been co-ordinating the Schilderswijk Zone 5 Renovation Plan in The Hague, Holland, since 1985, and is drawing up a scheme for blocks 6-7-8 in Ceramique Terrein, Maastricht. He is also supervising reconstruction of the fire-damaged area of Chiado in Lisbon. Other major works include the Praca de Espanha/Avenida Malhoa Master Plan in Lisbon and the design for the Meteorological Centre of the Olympic Village in Barcelona. 

The Portuguese Department of the International Association of Art Critics awarded him the Prize for Architecture in 1982. He received an Award from the Portuguese Architects Association in 1987. 

In 1988 he was awarded the Gold Medal for Architecture by the Colegio de Architectos, Spain, the Alvar Aalto Foundation Gold Medal, the Prince of Wales Prize in Urban Design from Harvard University, and the European Architectural Award by the EEC/Mies van der Rohe Foundation, Barcelona. In 1992 he was awarded the Pritzker Prize by the Hyatt Foundation of Chicago for his lifelong achievements. In 1993 he was awarded the National Architecture Prize by the Portuguese Architects Association. Doctor Honoris Causa by the University of Valencia (1992) and by the Ecole Polythechnique Federale of Lausanne (1993). 

General Prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. She was born in February 1947, in Lugano, Switzerland and worked as a lawyer in Berne, Geneva and Lugano, as well as being the Swiss Attorney-General. Since 1981, she has been working in various high profile cases, against organized crime, financial and economic crimes, terrorism, drug trafficking, money laundering, illegal trafficking in arms and for international legal cooperation in these issues. 

The Tribunal, located in The Hague, Netherlands, was established by Security Council resolution 827 on 25 May 1993. Its objective is to prosecute and try persons allegedly responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law committed on the territory of the former Yugoslavia since 1991. For the first time in history, an acting Head of State, Slobodan Milosevic, has been accused of “crimes against mankind” on April 22 1999. 

The Tribunal´s authority is to prosecute and try four types of offences: 

– Grave breaches of the 1949 Geneva Conventions (Article 2); 
– Violations of the laws or customs of war (Article 3); 
– Genocide (Article 4); 
– Crimes against humanity (Article 5). 

The President of the Galician Government, Manual Fraga, presided over the jury of the VII International Compostela Group-Xunta de Galicia Award. The jury was also composed of the following members: 

• The President of the Compostela Group of Universities, Michael Cooper, from Karlstad University (Sweden). 
• The Rector of the University of Zaragoza (Spain), Felipe Pétriz, represented by the Vice-Rector for International Relations, Mercedes Jaime Siso. 
• The Rector of the University of Karlstad (Sweden), Christina Ullenius, represented by the Vice-Rector, Bengt-Ove Gustavsson. 
• The Rector of Freiburg University (Switzerland), Paul-Henri Steinauer, represented by the Vice-Rector Georges Darms. 
• The Regional Minister of Culture, Social Communication and Tourism, Jesús Pérez Varela. 
• The Regional Minister for Education and Universities, Celso Currás. 
• The Director General for Universities, José Eduardo López Pereira. 

The executive secretary, Marta González, acted as secretary of the jury. 

Cees Nooteboom is considered one of the most important and original European writers. Among his novels, we can mention Rituals, In the mountains of Holland, and Mokusei!; and among his essays, The Kidnapping of Europe, which is a compilation of conferences on the subject of the identity of European citizens, and also Roads to Santiago, which describes a personal journey to Compostela across the Peninsula. 

Helmuth Rilling was born in 1933 in Stuttgart in the bosom of a family fond of music and studied in that same city (organ with Karl Gerock, composition with Johann Nepomuk David and choral direction with Hans Grischkat) in Rome (with Fernando Germani and in the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena) and in New York (with Leonard Bernstein). While being still a student, he founded his first choir, which counted with forty members. He centred his career on the institutions created by him: that same choir, Gähinger Kantorei, and the orchestra Bach Collegium from Stuttgart, with which he gained international fame. He was also an organist and choir maestro in the Gedächtniskirche of Stuttgart, since 1957, and teacher of choral direction and organ in the Sacred Music School of Spandau. After studying some time in New York, next to Leonard Bernstein, he took up a chair of choral direction in the State Music Higher Education School of Frankfurt and directed until 1981 the choir of Frankfurt. He was the first director who recorded Bach’s Sacred Cantatas; he has also performed for the first time Rossini’s Requiem Mass, which was considered to be lost, or Schubert’s Lazarus. In 1981 he created the Internationale Bachakademie of Stuttgart, which organises seminars in different countries aiming at increasing the knowledge of the interpretation and direction of Johann Sebastian Bach’s works. These academies act regularly in Japan, Poland, Spain, Hungary, Russia or Venezuela. In 1996, he created in Santiago de Compostela the Real Philharmonic Orchestra of Galicia.  

In 1976, Rilling became the first German director who was invited to direct the Philharmonic Orchestra of Israel accompanied by his choir. Nowadays he keeps a close relation with this orchestra, and since then he has directed a high number of concerts in Haifa, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.  

Rilling’s discography is large and varied. His more remarkable records are the ones that contain his interpretations of the complete works of Johann Sebastian Bach’s choral music. However, at times, he also performs oratorios and less known dramatic works from the XVIII and XIX centuries. 

Czech intellectual and politician. He was the last president of the Czechoslovak Republic and the first president of the Czech Republic (Prague, 1936-2011). He studied drama at the Prague Academy of Arts (1963-67) and went on to a distinguished career as a playwright, including plays critical of the society of the time. 

He was a dissident against the dominant communist regime in Czechoslovakia: he was president of the Independent Writers, supporting the Prague Spring (1968), which made it impossible for his plays to be published later, and a spokesman for defence movements that led to his imprisonment. 

When the country’s communist dictatorship weakened, Havel and much of the opposition participated in the Civic Forum in 1989. He was a leader of the Velvet Revolution in the same year which, with great popular support, succeeded in peacefully overthrowing the regime and ushering in a democracy in which he was elected president. 

This presidency was markedly pro-European. The social consequences of the fall of the previous government were costly for today’s Slovakia, leading to a strong nationalism that led to its independence in 1992. Although Havel resigned when he disagreed with this separation, he was elected president by its parliament in 1993 where he promoted NATO membership for the Czech Republic and the other Warsaw Pact countries. He was elected again in 1998.

Jacques Santer was born in Wasserbilling, in the frontier between Germany and Luxembourg but also very near France on the 18 May 1937. He had to learn, as all Luxembourg children, French and German since primary school. His mother tongue is, however, the letzeburger, a language derived from German but with some French terms. Afterwards, he will broaden his linguistic knowledge by learning English. 

He studies law in the University of Strasbourg and finishes his doctorate in Paris, where he also studies Political Sciences. His professional career starts as an assistant at the prestigious lawyer’s office of Tony Biever in Luxembourg. At the same time, he joins the Catholic Youth Movement of his country. His firs political post is that of Parliamentary Secretary of the Social Christian Party. The following year, in Israel, he meets a French woman, a university assistant, Daniele Binot, whom he marries. They have two children, Patric y Jerôme. After his marriage, he begins to work at the Cabinet of the Minister for Labour and Social Security, in 1967. State Secretary for Cultural and Social Issues; General Secretary of the Social Christian Party and afterwards, President of the same party; Member of the European Parliament and Vice-president of the same institution; Minister for Public Finance, Labour and Social Security. In 1984, he takes up the position of Head of the Luxembourg government, a government of coalition of christians, democrats and socialists. He will resign from this post in order to become President of the European executive. While being in this post, he presided two of the European Councils more relevant in the development of the European Union: the approval of the Single European Act and the Treaty of the Union.