International Programs Consortium

Peacbuilding Conference

Biographies of conference participants

Prof. Ruth Wedgwood

Ruth Wedgwood is Director of the International Law and Organization Program and she is the Edward B. Burling Professor of International Law and Diplomacy at the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D.C. At present she is working as a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. She is a member of the U.S. Secretary of State's Advisory Committee for International Law and the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board. Dr. Wedgwood was recently elected as the U.S. member of the United Nations Human Rights Committee in Geneva. From 1986 to 2002, she was Professor of Law at the Yale Law School. She is a widely published author in the fields of public international law, international humanitarian law, criminal law, United Nations politics, and national security studies. These publications include: "Post-Conflict Reconstruction", in American Journal of International Law, 2001, After Dayton: Lessons of the Bosnian Peace Process, editor, 1999, Toward an International Criminal Court? co-authored, 1999, American Interests and the United Nations, co-authored, 1996. She also frequently comments on foreign policy, criminal law and terrorism on the media.

Dr. Radha Kumar

Radha Kumar directs the project on Partitions and Conflict processes and writes regularly for the Indian Express. She was a Senior Fellow for Peace and Conflict Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Dr. Kumar directs the Council's Project on Ethnic Conflict, Partition, and Post-Conflict Reconstruction. Prior to working at the Council, Dr. Kumar was a Warren Weaver Fellow at The Rockefeller Foundation in New York (1996-97). She also was an Associate Fellow at the Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University (1994-96); and Executive Director of the Helsinki's Citizen's Assembly (1992-94). Dr. Kumar's most recent book is Divide and Fall? Bosnia in the Annals of Partition (Verso, 1997, 1999). Her other books include Bosnia-Herzegovina: Between War and Peace (editor, 1993) and A History of Doing: An Illustrated Account of Movements for Women's Rights and Feminism in India, 1800-1900 (1993, 1995). She has published some three dozen articles in edited volumes and for such publications as Foreign Affairs, Feminist Review, SAIS Review, The Brown Journal of World Affairs, WorldLink, Economic and Political Weekly, Indian Economic and Social History Review, as well as over fifty op-eds in the South Asian newspapers such as the Times of India and the Nation (Pakistan). Her present research focuses on ethnic conflict, partition, civil society, South Asia, and the Balkans. She received her B.A. and M.A. from Cambridge University and her Ph.D. from Jawaharlal Nehru University.

Prof. William Rose

Professor William Rose serves as Chair of the Government department at Connecticut College. He has written extensively on the subjects of partition and conflict resolution. His most recent articles on the subject are "The Security Dilemma and Ethnic Conflict: Some New Hypotheses," Security Studies (Summer2000) and "Sudan's Islamic Revolutions as a Cause of Foreign Intervention in its Wars: Insights from Balance of Threat Theory," Civil Wars Vol. 5, No. 3 (Autumn 2002). He is currently working on a case-study analysis of Sri Lanka and how to achieve durable peace there. He has published several books which include The Role of the United States in a Changing World: Choices for the 21st Century, co-authored with Mark Lindeman for the Center for Foreign Policy Development at Brown University (Guilford, CT: Dushkin Press Group, 1993). Professor Rose received his B.A. in International Conflict Studies and B.S. in Aeronautical Engineering from Washington University, and his Ph.D. from University of California, Berkeley.

Mr. Konrad Huber

Konrad Huber is a Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. In 2001-03, Konrad Huber was UNICEF's adviser and program manager for peace-building issues in Indonesia, focusing particularly on Muslim-Christian strife in the Malukus. Prior to his work in Indonesia, Mr. Huber served in 1993-95 as adviser to the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities, mandated to prevent ethnic conflict in the former Soviet Union and Central and Eastern Europe. During this period, he also launched the Foundation on Inter-Ethnic Relations, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting the role of the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities. From 1995-98, he served in various positions with the U.N. Human Rights Field Operation in Rwanda, including as head of field-team coordination and reporting to the Government of Rwanda. He received his B.A. from Brown University and his MPA from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Public Administration.

Prof Charles King

Charles King is an assistant professor in the School of Foreign Service and the Department of Government at Georgetown University, where he also holds the university's Ion Ratiu Chair of Romanian Studies. A former Marshall Scholar, he received a doctorate in political science from Oxford University. Dr. King has worked as a research fellow at New College, Oxford, and as a research associate at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. He is a frequent traveler to eastern Europe, especially the Balkans, and is a fluent speaker of Romanian. His books include Nations Abroad: Diaspora Politics and International Relations in the Former Soviet Union (1998) and The Moldovans: Romania, Russia, and the Politics of Culture (2000). His articles on the post-communist world have appeared in World Politics, Foreign Policy, International Security, Slavic Review, and other journals, and he has contributed opinion pieces to such newspapers as The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Christian Science Monitor. He is also a frequent contributor to the Times Literary Supplement (London). He is currently writing a history of the Black Sea. Dr. King's research interests include ethnicity and nationalism in the former Soviet Union and eastern Europe, especially the Balkans. He has lectured widely on these and other topics and has appeared frequently as a commentator on CNN, the BBC, Voice of America, and other media.

Prof. John Richardson

John M. Richardson Jr. writes, lectures and consults in the fields of applied systems analysis, and conflict-international development linkages, with a particular emphasis on ethnic conflict. He is presently Director of American University's Center for Teaching Excellence and Professor of International Development in the School of International Service. At American University, he also founded and directed the Social Science Computer Laboratory and served as Director of the Center for Technology and Administration. Dr. Richardson is the author, co-author or editor of five books. His most recent book is Democratization in South Asia: The First Fifty Years (1998; co-edited with S.W.R.de A. Samarasinghe). His current work focuses on the causes of political conflict in Third World nations and non-violent strategies for development. Recent publications on this subject have appeared in Futures, Ethnic Studies Report and as chapters in several edited volumes. In 1989, he received a grant from the U.S. Institute of Peace to support work on his forthcoming book, Development and Deadly Conflict, which focuses on a case study of Sri Lanka.. In 1990, he was selected to deliver the quadrennial G.C. Mendis Memorial Lecture, commemorating the father of modern Sri Lankan historical studies.

Dr. Marina Ottaway

Marina S. Ottaway works at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and specializes in democracy and global policy issues. She is a Senior Associate in the Democracy and Rule of Law Project, a research endeavor that analyzes the state of democracy around the world and the efforts by the United States and other countries to promote democracy. Her new book, Democracy Challenged, a comparative study of semi-authoritarian regimes in Africa, the Caucasus, Latin America, and the Middle East, was published in January 2003. She is launching a study of state reconstruction efforts. She is also a lecturer in African Studies at the Nitze School for Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. Ottaway carried out research in Africa and in the Middle East and taught at the University of Addis Ababa, the University of Zambia, the American University in Cairo, and the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa.

Prof Hugh Agnew

Professor Agnew is Associate Dear of the Elliot School of International Affairs and Associate Professor of International Affairs and History at the George Washington University. Professor Agnew earned an Honors B.A. in history from Queen's University, and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Stanford. He teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on Eastern Europe and the European history survey. He focuses on nationalism in the region, especially Czech nationalism. Among his publications are Origins of the Czech National Renascence (1993), and "Noble Nation and Modern Nation: The Czech Case," in Austrian History Yearbook (1992). He has appeared on C-SPAN, Voice of America's Czech service, and Radio Prague.

Prof Quansheng Zhao

Quansheng Zhao is Professor and Division Director of Comparative and Regional Studies, and Chair of AU's Asia Council. He is also Associate-in-Research at the Fairbank Center for East Asian Research of Harvard University. A specialist in comparative politics and international relations in East Asia, Dr. Zhao is author of Interpreting Chinese Foreign Policy (Oxford University Press) and Japanese Policymaking (Oxford University Press/Praeger). He also co-edited Politics of Divided Nations: China, Korea, Germany and Vietnam. He has published three books in Chinese, two books in Japanese, and a book in Korean. Professor Zhao has been chair of the American Political Science Association's Conference Group on China Studies, Series Editor of "Comparative Perspectives in Modern Asia" for Palgrave (St. Martin's Press), and a member of the editorial advisory board of the Journal of Strategic Studies, The China Review, and the Journal of Contemporary China.

Ms. Kathleen Jennings

Kathleen Jennings is a Research Associate at the Center for Preventive Action at the Council on Foreign Relations. She has degrees from Stanford and Oxford, and previously worked at the Federal Trade Commission.

Mr. Peter Gantz

Peter Gantz is Peacekeeping Associate at Refugees International. Peter received his BA in International Relations at Kennesaw State University (KSU), in Georgia. Prior to coming to Washington DC, Peter was employed at the Carter Presidential Center, in various capacities. From March 2001 to March 2003, Peter served as Program Manager for Peace Operations with the World Federalist Association, a grassroots organization. In this capacity, he took on and built up the Partnership for Effective Peace Operations (PEP), a policy working group/network dedicated to the improvement of public policy concerning international peace operations. In April 2003, Peter (and the PEP) moved to Refugees International, an advocacy organization that seeks the end of conditions that create refugees and internally displaced peoples. At RI, Peter works with other NGOs, think tanks, and post-conflict practitioners, through the PEP, to develop and advance public policy proposals with Congress and the administration. Peter's advocacy efforts seek the improvement of the UN peace operations system, and the elimination of post-conflict capacity gaps within the U.S. government.

Prof Christopher Joyner

Professor Joyner taught previously at George Washington University, the University of Virginia, Dartmouth College and Muhlenberg College and has been a senior research fellow with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the Institute for Antarctic and Southern Ocean Studies at the University of Tasmania, Australia. Professor Joyner's research interests include human rights, economic sanctions, and legal issues affecting the Middle East, the United States and the United Nations, as well as the oceans and Antarctica. He has published extensively in law journals, among them the American Journal of International Law, Ocean Development and International Law, The International Lawyer, Natural Resource Journal, Harvard International Law Journal, Michigan Journal of International Law, and the Virginia Journal of International Law. Among his books are Governing the Frozen Commons: The Antarctic Regime and Environmental Protection, Antarctica and the Law of the Sea, Eagle Over the Ice: The U.S. in the Antarctic, Reigning in Impunity for International Crimes (editor and contributor), The United Nations and International Law (editor and contributor), United Nations Legal Order (co-editor), Reining in Impunity for International Crimes, The Persian Gulf War (editor and contributor), and The Antarctic Legal Regime (editor and contributor). He is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the American Council on the United Nations and past Chair of the International Law Section of the International Studies Association, and serves on the Executive Council of the American Society of International Law, as Chair of the International Law Association's Committee on Antarctica, and as a member of the ILA's Committee on the Law of the Sea.

Prof Nathan Funk

Professor Funk is a Visiting Assistant Professor for International Affairs at the George Washington University. He received his B.A. from Gustavus Adolphus College (St. Peter, MN) and his Ph.D. in International Relations from American University. He has authored or co-authored writings on international conflict resolution, the contemporary Middle East, Islam, and United States foreign policy. His doctoral dissertation, "Theory and Practice of Track-Two Diplomacy: Impact and Dynamics of the Search for Common Ground in the Middle East Initiative," analyzed and evaluated a major dialogue project intended to support official Arab-Israeli peacemaking efforts. With Abdul Aziz Said and Ayse S. Kadayifci, he co-edited the volume, Peace and Conflict Resolution in Islam (University Press of America). Funk has lived in the Middle East and South Asia, designed an internet course on conflict management and resolution, served as a guest speaker at the Inter-American Defense College, and worked on research and training projects for the United States Institute of Peace and the Academic Consortium for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution (a consortium that includes Columbia University, American University, the Conflict Management Group, and three universities in northern Iraq). His present research focuses on opportunities and constraints in American relations with the Islamic Middle East.

Prof Todd Eisendstadt

Todd A. Eisenstadt is Assistant Professor of Government and director of the United States Agency for International Development's (USAID) four-year Mexico Elections Project, administered by AU and by the University of New Hampshire, where Eisenstadt taught from 1999 to 2003. He is the author of Courting Democracy in Mexico (Cambridge University Press, 2004), based on his University of California, San Diego dissertation, as well as several articles in journals such as Latin American Politics and Society, Democratization, and the International Political Science Review. A recipient of Fulbright and National Security Education Program fellowships, he was a visiting scholar at Harvard University's David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, and a visiting professor at El Colegio de México, in Mexico City. His current research focuses on comparative electoral reform, and on public opinion of Mexico's indigenous communities regarding integration with the Mexican state. Eisenstadt received an MA from The Johns Hopkins University's School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS), and a BA with honors from Brown University.

Prof Ray Jennings

Dr. Ray Salvatore Jennings is a Fellow at the United States Institute for Peace. Ray Jennings has extensive experience with community development assistance projects in war-torn societies. He spent the last year working on projects in Afghanistan for the Cooperative Housing Foundation and the World Bank. From 1996 to 2001 he held country director and senior field adviser positions with the United States Agency for International Development's Office of Transition Initiatives in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro, Kosovo, Macedonia, Peru, and Sierra Leone. Earlier he worked in Bosnia-Herzegovina as program manager for the International Rescue Committee and as donor community spokesman for the International Observer Group (1995-96). Jennings began his career in teaching, as chair of the interdisciplinary studies program at Sheldon Jackson College (Sitka, Alaska, 1990-94) and continues to teach as an adjunct faculty member of Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. He has also been a lead instructor in the leadership development program at the Naval Post-Graduate School in Monterey, California, where he has led seminars on peacekeeping and peace-building, political assessment techniques, and leadership models in the Balkans. Jennings' published work includes articles on peace-building in Bosnia for Worldview Journal, the Seattle Times, and The Day. His most recent work includes the USIP publication "Nation Building in Japan, Germany, and Afghanistan: Lessons in Endurance and Political Will". He holds a Doctor of Arts in international relations from Idaho State University.