Distinguished Lecture Series Archive

Joan B. Kroc Distinguished Lecture Series
Dedicated to creating new knowledge about how to prevent conflict and violence

Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2008

"Integrating Security, Development and Human Rights"

The Honorable Louise Arbour

Former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

The Honorable Louise Arbour was the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2004 until June 2008. Her predecessor in that position, Sergio Vieira de Mello, was killed in the bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad on Aug. 19, 2003. As High Commissioner, Arbour earned an international reputation for courage and tenacity and gained the respect of governments, human rights groups and human rights victims around the world.

Arbour began a distinguished academic career in 1974 (Emi, please check this date against the actual printed invite – I think she corrected it), culminating in the position of associate dean at the Osgoode Hall Law School of York University in Toronto, Canada, in 1987. In 1987, she was appointed to the Supreme Court of Ontario (High Court of Justice) and later served on the Court of Appeal for Ontario. In 1996, she was appointed by the U.N. Security Council as chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda. After three years as prosecutor, she was appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada in 1999.

Arbour has received many awards and medals, including the Medal of Honour from the International Association of Prosecutors (1999), the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Four Freedoms Medal (Freedom from Fear) from the Roosevelt Study Center in the Netherlands (2000), the Lord Reading Law Society's Human Rights Award (2000), the EID-UL-ADHA Award from the Association of Progressive Muslims of Ontario (2001) and the National Achievement Award from Jewish Women International of Canada (2001) and the Order of Canada (2007). She has served on the board of International Crisis Group since 2000. Throughout her career Arbour has sought to liberate both the oppressed and their oppressors by creating a safe climate for diversity and dissent.

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Thursday, April 17, 2008

"Reason for Hope"

Dr. Jane Goodall

World-renowned primatologist, wildlife conservationist and U.N. Messenger of Peace

Jane Goodall began her landmark study of chimpanzees in Tanzania in June 1960, under the mentorship of anthropologist and paleontologist Dr. Louis Leakey. Her work at Gombe Stream would become the foundation of future primatological research and redefine the relationship between humans and animals.

In 1977, Goodall established the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI), which continues the Gombe research and is a global leader in the effort to protect chimpanzees and their habitats. The institute is widely recognized for establishing innovative, community-centered conservation and development programs in Africa and the Roots & Shoots education program which has more than 8,000 groups in nearly 100 countries.

Goodall travels an average of 300 days per year, speaking about the threats facing chimpanzees, other environmental crises and her reasons for hope that humankind will solve the problems it has imposed on our planet. She continually urges her audiences to recognize their personal responsibility and ability to effect change through consumer action, lifestyle change and activism.

Goodall's scores of honors include the Medal of Tanzania, the National Geographic Society's Hubbard Medal, Japan's prestigious Kyoto Prize, Spain’s Prince of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research, the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Life Science and the Gandhi/King Award for Nonviolence. In April 2002, Secretary-General Kofi Annan named Goodall a U.N. “Messenger of Peace,” and she was reappointed in June 2007 by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. In 2004, in a ceremony at Buckingham Palace, Goodall was invested as a Dame of the British Empire, the female equivalent of knighthood. In 2006, she received the French Legion of Honor, presented by Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, as well as the UNESCO Gold Medal Award.

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Tuesday, Mar. 4, 2008

"War, Peace and Climate Change: A Billion Lives in the Balance"

Jan Egeland

Former Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator for the United Nations

Jan Egeland was Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator for the United Nations from Aug. 2003 to Dec. 2006. From 1999 to 2002, he was the U.N. Secretary-General’s Special Adviser. As Under-Secretary, Egeland led joint efforts in providing relief in the wake of a number of disasters – including the devastating earthquake in Bam, the Indian Ocean earthquakes and tsunami, the South Asia earthquake, drought and flooding in Africa and the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season. He traveled to the frontlines of conflicts to bring world attention to suffering in Darfur, Sudan, Colombia, Lebanon and the Palestinian Territories.

Earlier in his career, Egeland served as state secretary in the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1990-97). He co-initiated and co-organized the Norwegian channel between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1992, which led to the Oslo Accord of Sept. 1993. He initiated the two Norwegian Emergency Preparedness Systems, which have provided more than 2,000 experts and humanitarian workers to international organizations. He was head of development studies at the Henry Dunant Institute in Geneva and secretary general of the Norwegian Red Cross.

Egeland holds a magister artium in political science from the University of Oslo. He was a Fulbright scholar at the University of California, Berkeley and a fellow at the International Peace Research Institute in Oslo and the Truman Institute for the Advancement for Peace in Jerusalem. Egeland was chair of Amnesty International, Norway and vice chair of the International Executive Committee of Amnesty International.

Egeland is currently director of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs and Special Adviser to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on conflict prevention and resolution.

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Tuesday, October 23, 2007

"International Strides for Inclusive Peacebuilding"

Priscilla Hayner
Co-Founder of the International Center for Transitional Justice 

Priscilla Hayner co-founded the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ), where she is director of the Peace and Justice Program and the Liberia Program. She has recently undertaken in-depth research into past peace negotiations and how justice issues are handled therein, with publications forthcoming. Hayner is an expert on truth commissions around the world and has written widely on the subject of official truth-seeking in political transitions. She is the author of Unspeakable Truths, published in 2001, which explores the work of more than 20 truth commissions worldwide. Hayner has appeared on numerous broadcasts, including BBC North Ireland Radio, BBC World Service, NPR, SABC in South Africa, and STAR Radio and UNMIL Radio in Liberia. Prior to founding the ICTJ, she was a consultant at the Ford Foundation, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and other organizations. Hayner was previously a program officer on international human rights and world security for the Joyce Mertz-Gilmore Foundation in New York. She holds degrees from Earlham College and the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University.

Read interview.

Lt. Gen. Joseph Olorungbon Owonibi

Former Force Commander of the United Nations Mission in Liberia

Lt. Gen. Joseph Olorungbon Owonibi of Nigeria was appointed force commander of the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) in 2005 and retired from military service in 2006. Beginning in Nov. 2003, Owonibi served as the deputy force commander and chief military observer of UNMIL. Prior to that, he served in several high-level national and international positions, including coordinator of the Nigerian Army Training Group, which undertook the reorganization and training of the Gambian National Army from 1992 to 1994, and commander of the first reconnaissance company in support of the Nigerian battalion within the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon. Owonibi began his service with the Nigerian Army in 1971 and is a graduate of the National War College in Abuja. He holds a Master of Science in strategic studies from the University of Ibadan in Nigeria, and has diplomas in public administration from the Administrative Staff College of Nigeria and the University of Kentucky.

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Thursday, September 20, 2007

"The Dynamics of Human Rights and the Environment"

Kenneth Roth
Executive Director of Human Rights Watch 

Kenneth Roth has held the post of executive director of Human Rights Watch since 1993. From 1987 to 1993, Mr. Roth served as deputy director of the organization. Previously, he was a federal prosecutor for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York and the Iran-Contra investigation in Washington. He also worked in private practice as a litigator.

Mr. Roth has conducted human rights investigations around the world, devoting special attention to issues of justice and accountability for gross abuses of human rights, standards governing military conduct in time of war, the human rights policies of the United States and the United Nations, and the human rights responsibilities of multinational businesses. He has written more than 80 articles and chapters on a range of human rights topics in such publications as the New York Times, the Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, the International Herald Tribune, and the New York Review of Books.  He also regularly appears in the major media and speaks to audiences around the world.

A graduate of Yale Law School and Brown University, Mr. Roth was drawn to the human rights cause in part by his father's experience fleeing Nazi Germany in 1938. He began working on human rights after the declaration of martial law in Poland in 1981, and soon also became deeply engaged in fighting military repression in Haiti. In his thirteen years as executive director of Human Rights Watch, the organization has quadrupled in size, while greatly expanding its geographic reach, and adding special programs devoted to refugees, children's rights, international justice, AIDS, gay and lesbian rights, human rights emergencies, terrorism and counterterrorism, and the human rights responsibilities of multinational corporations.

Human Rights Watch, which started in 1978 as Helsinki Watch, to monitor the compliance of Soviet bloc countries, is the largest human rights organization based in the United States. Human Rights Watch investigates, reports on and seeks to curb human rights abuses in some 70 countries. Human Rights Watch researchers conduct fact-finding investigations into human rights abuses in all regions of the world. Human Rights Watch then publishes those findings in dozens of books and reports every year, generating extensive coverage in local and international media. This publicity helps to embarrass abusive governments in the eyes of their citizens and the world. Human Rights Watch then meets with government officials to urge changes in policy and practice -- at the United Nations, the European Union, in Washington and in capitals around the world. In extreme circumstances, Human Rights Watch presses for the withdrawal of military and economic support from governments that egregiously violate the rights of their people. In moments of crisis, Human Rights Watch provides up-to-the-minute information about conflicts while they are underway. Refugee accounts, which were collected, synthesized and cross-corroborated by our researchers, helped shape the response of the international community to recent wars and outbreaks of violence worldwide.

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Thursday, April 12, 2007

"Preventing Mass Atrocities:
Making 'Never Again' a Reality"

The Honorable Gareth Evans

President and CEO of the International Crisis Group
Former Minister for Foreign Affairs of Australia  

Gareth Evans has been since January 2000 President and Chief Executive of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (Crisis Group), the independent global non-governmental organization with some 130 full-time staff on five continents which works, through field-based analysis and high-level policy advocacy, to prevent and resolve deadly conflict. As a lawyer, Member of Parliament and Cabinet minister, Evans has worked for human rights, conflict prevention and diplomatic responses for several decades. He will be addressing lessons learned from past conflicts on how to prevent escalation, bring parties together, garner the political will to support peaceful resolution and the responsibilities of the international community to protect civilians from mass atrocities.

For Evans’ biographical sketch, click here.
For more information on International Crisis Group, click here.

"We can, if we need to, justify making 'the responsibility to protect' a reality on practical, national interest grounds: states that can’t or won’t stop internal atrocities are the kind of rogue or failed states that can’t or won’t stop terrorism, weapons proliferation, drug and people trafficking, the spread of health pandemics and other global risks. But at the end of the day, the case for 'the responsibility to protect' is one that rests on our common humanity — the impossibility of ignoring the cries of pain and distress of our fellow human beings."

Gareth Evans
Stanford University
Feb. 2007

Read the booklet online
Order the booklet
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Wednesday, October 18, 2006

"Women, War, Peace: Politics in Peacebuilding "

Miria Matembe

Co-founder of Action for Development
(ACFODE)

Miria Matembe is a co-founder of Action for Development (ACFODE) in Kampala, Uganda, and a former member of parliament representing the Mbabara district of Uganda. She represented Uganda in the Pan-African Parliament, where she served as chairperson of its Committee on Rules. As former Minister of Ethics and Integrity, from 1998 to 2003, she formulated the government’s policy on corruption, and helped set standards of ethics for professionals in public office. A former commissioner of the Uganda Constitutional Commission, she later served as delegate to the Constituent Assembly that promulgated the new national constitution in 1995. In 2002, she published a memoir entitled “Gender, Politics and Constitution Making in Uganda”
(Ahfad Journal) in which she documents her experience in bringing gender issues to the forefront of national politics. A lawyer who has focused on human rights law, constitutional law and business law, she was a fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy inWashington, D.C.

Alma Viviana Pérez

Consultant to the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Alma Viviana Pérez, consultant to the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Office of the Presidential Adviser onWomen and Gender Equality, and the Colombian Agency for International
Cooperation, works to raise awareness of gender perspectives and to implement 1325. She was the first secretary of the Colombian Mission to the UN from 2001 to 2003 and has held positions in the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a special adviser to the minister, general director of the Americas, deputy director of regional integration groups, and deputy director for Latin America and the Caribbean, among others. Pérez has worked on foreign policy as a consultant to build bridges between government, civil society and women’s organizations that are working on 1325 in Colombia. Pérez is a member of the faculty of finance, government and international relations at Universidad Externado de Colombia.

Irene Santiago

Chair and Chief Executive Officer of the
Mindanao Commission on Women
and
Co-founder of the Mothers for Peace Movement
in the Philippines

Irene Santiago is the chair and chief executive officer of the Mindanao Commission onWomen and co-founder of the Mothers for Peace Movement in the Philippines. She is a senior adviser to the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (PAPP) where she assists in policy and strategy formulation, specifically on demobilization, disarmament and reintegration. Santiago is one of two women on the Philippine government panel negotiating peace with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). In this role, she has brought gender issues into the peace talks. In 2005, Santiago was a nominee of the 1,000Women for the Nobel Peace Prize. Santiago has consulted on gender issues for theWorld Bank and numerous international institutions, organizations and governments. Santiago served as the executive director of the NGO Forum onWomen, which was organized in parallel with the 1995 UN FourthWorld Conference onWomen in Beijing.

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Thursday, September 7, 2006

"Iran Awakening: Human Rights, Women and Islam "

Shirin Ebadi

2003 Nobel Peace Laureate

Nobel Peace Laureate Shirin Ebadi, Iranian human rights lawyer and activist, is one of only 33 women to win the Nobel Prize (out of 758). In recognizing Dr. Ebadi, the first Muslim woman and first Iranian to win the prize, the Nobel committee in 2003 cited her efforts for democracy and human rights, focused especially on the struggle for the rights of women and children.

In 1969, Dr. Ebadi became the first female judge in Iran. In 1975, Dr. Ebadi was named President of Bench 24 of the Tehran City Court. With the Islamic Revolution of 1979, female judges were removed from their positions, and Dr. Ebadi was made a clerk in the court where she had presided. She resigned and set about trying to obtain a private law license. The bar turned down her application, leaving Ebadi virtually jobless for many years. She used the time to write several books and articles and founded the Association for Children’s Rights in Iran.

Ebadi obtained her private law license in 1992 and began to take many high profile cases, particularly cases related to freedom of speech and political freedom. She has a special passion for cases in which children are involved. Ebadi, who also teaches and holds human rights training courses, argues that social change is best brought about through nonviolent democratic means, and that Islamic law can be interpreted to support democracy and human rights.

From www.nobelprize.org

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Thursday, March 9, 2006

"Tainted Legacy: 9/11 and the Ruin of Human Rights"

William F. Schulz

Executive Director of Amnesty International (USA)

The New York Times Book Review in 2002 said, "William Schulz, the director of Amnesty International USA, has done more than anyone in the American human rights movement to make human rights issues known in the United States."  The Joan B. Kroc Distinguished Lecture Series is honored to present Dr. Schulz speaking on the impact of "the war on terror" on human rights.

Dr. William F. Schulz was appointed Executive Director of Amnesty
International (USA) in March, 1994 and will be leaving his position this spring.  An ordained Unitarian Universalist minister, he came to Amnesty after serving for fifteen years with the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations (UUA), the last eight (1985-93) as President of the Association.

As President of the UUA, Dr. Schulz was involved in a wide variety of international and social justice causes.  He led the first visit by a U. S. Member of Congress to post-revolutionary Romania in January, 1991, two weeks after the fall of Nicolae Ceausescu.  That delegation was instrumental in the subsequent improvement in the rights of religious and ethnic minorities in Romania.

Dr. Schulz spent February, 1992, in India in consultation with the Holdeen India Fund, a fund dedicated to ending communal violence and to the political and economic empowerment of women, bonded laborers and others.  He led fact-finding missions to the Middle East and Northern Ireland and was instrumental in his denomination's opposition to U. S. military aid to El Salvador. 

In 1997 Dr. Schulz led an Amnesty mission to Liberia to investigate
atrocities committed during the civil war there and in 1999 returned to Northern Ireland with Amnesty to insist that human rights protections be incorporated into the peace process.  In September, 2004, Dr. Schulz participated in an Amnesty mission to Darfur, Sudan, to help redress the humanitarian crisis in that region.    During his years with Amnesty he has traveled extensively, both in the US and abroad, including a 2004 trip to Cuba under the sponsorship of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee.

From 1985-93 he served on the Council of the International Association for Religious Freedom, the oldest international interfaith organization in the world.  Throughout his career he has been outspoken in his opposition to the death penalty and his support for women's rights, gay and lesbian rights and racial justice, having organized, participated in demonstrations and written extensively on behalf of all four causes.

He has appeared frequently on radio and television, including "60 Minutes," "20/20," "The Today Show," "Good Morning, America," "All Things Considered," "Talk of the Nation," "ABC World News," "Larry King Live," "Nightline," "Politically Incorrect," and on the BBC, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, FOX News and Bloomberg News.  He has published and is quoted widely in newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Christian
Science Monitor, the New York Review of Books, The Nation, The National Interest and Parade and is the author of several books, including In Our Own Best Interests: How Defending Human Rights Benefits Us All (Beacon Press, 2002) and Tainted Legacy: 9/11 and the Ruin of Human Rights (Nation Books, 2003).

Dr. Schulz has delivered lectures at the Yale Political Union, Oxford
University, McGill, Columbia, Penn, Northwestern and many others and taught a seminar on the role of religion in international social and political conflict at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government (Institute of Politics) in the fall of 1993.  He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. 

He has received the Public Service Citation from the University of Chicago, the Distinguished Achievement Award from the Oberlin College Alumni Association, been included in Vanity Fair's 2002 Hall of Fame of World Nongovernmental Organization Leaders, and been honored with the Human Rights Award from Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights, the Harry S. Truman Award for International Leadership from the Kansas City, MO, United Nations Association, the Cranbrook Peace Award from the Cranbrook Peace Foundation, and the Humanitarian Award from Marylhurst University in Portland, OR, among others.  In 2000 he was named "Humanist of the Year" by the American Humanist Association.

Dr. Schulz is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Oberlin College, holds a Master's degree in philosophy from the University of Chicago and the Doctor of Ministry degree from Meadville/Lombard Theological School (at the University of Chicago).

He is married to the Rev. Beth Graham, also a Unitarian Universalist minister, and they live on Long Island where Ms. Graham serves a congregation.  Dr. Schulz has two grown children from a previous marriage.

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Friday, January 27, 2006

"U.S. Policy in East Asia and the Pacific "

Ambassador Christopher R. Hill

Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs

Ambassador Christopher R. Hill is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service whose most recent assignment was as Ambassador to the Republic of Korea. On February 14, 2005, he was named as the Head of the U.S. delegation to the Six-Party Talks on the North Korean nuclear issue. Previously he has served as U.S. Ambassador to Poland (2000-2004), Ambassador to the Republic of Macedonia (1996-1999) and Special Envoy to Kosovo (1998-1999). He also served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Southeast European Affairs in the National Security Council.

Earlier in his Foreign Service career, Ambassador Hill served tours in Belgrade, Warsaw, Seoul, and Tirana, and on the Department of State's Policy Planning staff and in the Department’s Operation Center. While on a fellowship with the American Political Science Association he served as a staff member for Congressman Stephen Solarz working on Eastern European issues. He also served as the Department of State's Senior Country Officer for Poland. Ambassador Hill received the State Department’s Distinguished Service Award for his contributions as a member of the U.S. negotiating team in the Bosnia peace settlement, and was a recipient of the Robert S. Frasure Award for Peace Negotiations for his work on the Kosovo crisis. Prior to joining the Foreign Service, Ambassador Hill served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Cameroon.

Ambassador Hill graduated from Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine with a B.A. in Economics. He received a Master's degree from the Naval War College in 1994. He speaks Polish, Serbo- Croatian, Macedonian, and Albanian. Ambassador Hill is married and has three children.

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Thursday, October 27, 2005

"Perspective into Conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Contemporary Peacebuilding Efforts "

His Excellency Ketumile Masire

Former President of the Republic of Botswana

Sir Ketumile Masire, born July 23, 1925 at Kanye in the Southern District of Botswana, was trained as a teacher in 1949 at Tiger Kloof, in the former British Bechuanaland. He founded the Seepapitso Secondary School in 1950, took up farming in 1956, and later joined journalism in 1958. In 1966, Sir Ketumile Masire became a Member of Parliament, later becoming Vice-President and Minister of Finance and Development Planning.

On July 18, 1980, President Masire succeeded the late Seretse Khama as the second President of the Republic Botswana and in 1984 won the presidential elections with a landslide of 77% under the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP). During his tenure in office, His Excellency contributed not only to the socio-economic development of Botswana through the promotion of good governance, but to regional development as well. President Masire was Chairman of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and holds the distinction of Co-Chairperson Emeritus of the Global Coalition for Africa (GCA).

His Excellency retired from public office in March 1998. Since retirement, he has been actively involved in conflict resolution and prevention, promotion of good governance and representative democracy, as well as capacity building for young African leaders. Retirement has also provided an opportunity for President Masire to return to his hobby of farming.

His Excellency has been appointed the fourth Balfour African President-in-Residence at Boston University's African Presidential Archives and Research Center (APARC). During his residency at APARC, His Excellency will focus on the process of building a nation. President Masire will also share his experiences as a former head of state securing the sovereignty of Botswana within in a political climate where colonial governments controlled other countries in southern Africa. Other points of interest will include conflict resolution, specifically His Excellency's role with the Organization of African Unity's (OAU) investigation of the 1994 Rwanda genocide, and his efforts with regard to the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Finally, President Masire will address the process of developing sustainable leadership across the continent.

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Thursday, March 31, 2005

"Human Rights and Ethical Globalization"

Mary Robinson

Former President of Ireland
and UN High Commissioner of Human Rights

Ms. Robinson sees a renewed commitment to multilateralism and respect for international law, particularly international human rights law, as needed to address the challenges of a globalizing world. She will address why it is in the national interest of the United States, and in the collective interest of the international community, to defend, strengthen, and reform the multilateral system to meet the challenges of the 21st century. "Key to that effort," says Robinson, "must be a greater sense of shared responsibility for, and commitment to, the implementation of international human rights law."

Mary Robinson, the first woman President of Ireland and more recently United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (1997-2002), has spent most of her life as a human rights advocate. As a woman politician who put her humanity very much at the forefront of her politics, she now chairs the Council of Women World Leaders and is a member of the Global Commission on International Migration. President Robinson is also leading the Ethical Globalization Initiative (EGI), which is based in New York and supported by a partnership of the Aspen Institute, Columbia University (where she is a professor of practice) and the Swiss-based International Council on Human Rights Policy. Its goal is to bring the norms and standards of human rights into the globalization process and to support capacity building in good governance in developing countries.

As an academic, legislator and barrister, Robinson has always sought to use law as an instrument for social change, arguing landmark cases before the European Court of Human Rights as well as in the Irish courts and the European Court in Luxembourg. In 1988, Mary Robinson and her husband, Nicholas Robinson, founded the Irish Centre for European Law at the University of Dublin, and since 1998 she has been Chancellor of the University.

As president of Ireland, Mary Robinson made inclusiveness a hallmark during her widely-praised tenure. She used her office not only for the betterment of marginalized groups within Ireland but also to draw attention to global crises. She was the first head of state to visit famine-stricken Somalia in 1992 and also the first to go to Rwanda in the aftermath of the genocide there. Drawing on Ireland 's own history of colonialism and famine, she articulated a special relationship between Ireland and developing countries, particularly in Africa. Her humanitarian efforts as president, her background in human rights law, and her uncompromising pursuit of justice and equality made her a prime candidate for the position of United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The recipient of numerous honors and awards, including the 1999 J. William Fulbright Prize for International Understanding. President Robinson is a member of the Royal Irish Academy and the American Philosophical Society and is Honorary President of Oxfam International as well as Penal Reform International. A member of the Club of Madrid - a group of former heads of started and government, she serves on many boards including the Vaccine Fund.

President Robinson was educated at the University of Dublin (Trinity College), King's Inns Dublin, and Harvard Law School, to which she won a fellowship in 1967. She holds honorary doctorates from over 40 universities around the world, including Harvard, Yale, Brown, Columbia, Oxford, Cambridge, London, and Edinburgh.

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Thursday, February 10, 2005

"The Responsibility to Protect:
Prescription for a Global Public Domain"

The Honorable Lloyd Axworthy, Ph.D.

President - University of Winnipeg
Former Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs

"It is time to re-examine the fundamental issue of how the international community must challenge the notion of state sovereignty in order to manage transcendent global problems ranging from security against global underworlds, to environmental convulsions, and world-wide pandemics. Responsibility to protect is an idea that can inform the discussion on how to build a global public domain."

The Honorable Lloyd Axworthy, Ph.D., who served in Canada's Parliament for 20 years and in several Cabinet positions including Minister of Foreign Affairs, is internationally known for his advancement of the concept of human security as a human right. Some of the specific areas of human security that Dr. Axworthy has championed include better protection for civilians (particularly women and children) in armed conflict, more efficient peacekeeping operations, and more humane use of sanctions.

Axworthy was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on the Ottawa Convention, a landmark global treaty banning anti-personnel landmines. For his efforts in establishing the International Criminal Court and the Protocol on Child Soldiers, he received the North-South Institute's Peace Award. He also received the Senator Patrick J. Leahy Award, presented by the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation, in recognition of his leadership in the international effort to outlaw landmines, to end the use of child soldiers, and to bring war criminals to justice.

Currently the President of the University of Winnipeg and a board member of several companies and organizations, Dr. Axworthy was recently named UN Special Envoy to Ethiopia-Eritrea to assist in implementing a peace agreement between the countries.

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Wednesday, November 17, 2004

"Women, War, and Peace:
Mobilizing for Security and Justice in the 21st Century"

Noeleen Heyzer, Ph.D.

Executive Director

United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM)

Noeleen Heyzer, Ph.D., is the first executive director from the southern hemisphere to head the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the leading operational agency within the United Nations to promote women's rights and gender equality. Under her leadership, UNIFEM has almost tripled its resources and successfully advocated to put issues affecting women high on the agenda of the UN system.

Since joining UNIFEM, Dr. Heyzer has pioneered new approaches to strengthening women's economic security and rights in the context of feminized poverty and globalization; promoting women's leadership in conflict resolution, peace-building and reconstruction; ending violence against women; and combating HIV/AIDS from a gender perspective. She spearheaded the UN inter-agency regional campaigns to end violence against women and was responsible for the establishment of the United Nations Trust Fund in Support of Actions to Eliminate Violence Against Women, which UNIFEM administers. She played a critical role in the Security Council's adoption of Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security, and in ensuring that it is implemented UN system-wide in order to make a difference to women's lives on the ground. Her work has taken her to many conflict situations around the world to assess first-hand the impact of war on women and to develop programs of action in partnership with women's organizations, the UN system and donors. UNIFEM's efforts in Afghanistan, for example, led to a successful campaign by Afghan women to enshrine their rights in the new Afghan Constitution. UNIFEM's work in Rwanda has resulted in property and land rights for women.

Before joining UNIFEM, Dr. Heyzer was a policy adviser to several Asian governments on gender issues, playing a key role in the formulation of national development policies, strategies, and programs from a gender perspective. She has done extensive work at the community level with women migrant workers, women in the informal sector and in plantations, young women in prostitution, and female workers in free trade zones. She also worked as a textile worker in a free trade zone, organizing women and assisting trade unions to address issues affecting women workers. In 1994-95 she played an important role in the preparatory process for the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, including organizing over 1000 NGOs in the Asia Pacific region to develop the first ever NGO Action Plan.

Dr. Heyzer has been a founding member of numerous regional and international women's networks and has published extensively on gender and development issues, especially economic globalization, international migration and trafficking, gender and trade, and women, peace and security. She has served on numerous boards and advisory committees of international organizations and universities. She chaired numerous UN ministerial roundtables including on gender and HIV/AIDS and on Poverty, HIV/AIDS and Conflict and has received several awards, including the UNA-Harvard Leadership Award and the Woman of Distinction Award from the UN-NGO Committee on the Status of Women.

Born in Singapore, Dr. Heyzer received a B.A. and M.A. from the University of Singapore and a doctorate in social sciences from Cambridge University in the United Kingdom.

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Thursday, November 4, 2004

"Concept, Context, and Process in Peacemaking:
The Palestinian-Israeli Experience"

Hanan Ashrawi, Ph.D.

Secretary General - Palestinian Initiative for
Global Dialogue and Democracy

Hanan Ashrawi, M.A., Ph.D., a compelling and influential voice in Middle Eastern politics, has been a central player in the struggle for a Palestinian homeland. A tireless campaigner for human rights, she has distinguished herself in both academic and political arenas.

Dr. Ashrawi is the founder and Secretary General of the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy- MIFTAH, which was founded in 1998, and an elected member of the Palestinian Legislative Council for the Jerusalem District. Founder and board member of the National Coalition for Accountability and Integrity –AMAN, Dr. Ashrawi is also founder and Commissioner of the Palestinian Independent Commission for Citizen’s Rights (PICCR) and served as its first Commissioner General. From 1996- 1998 she served as the Minister of Higher Education and Research. Dr. Ashrawi was a member of the Intifada Political Committee during the Intifada in 1988 and served on its Diplomatic Committee until 1993. In 1991, she was named Official Spokesperson of the Palestinian Delegation to the Middle East Peace Process and a member of the Leadership committee.
Dr. Ashrawi holds a B.A. and an M.A. from the American University of Beirut and a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville. From 1973-95, Dr. Ashrawi was a faculty member of Birzeit University, held the positions of Dean, Faculty of Arts; Founder and Chairperson, Department of English; and Founder and Head of Birzeit University Legal Aid Committee/Human Rights Documentation Project.

Throughout, Dr. Ashrawi has been an advocate of human rights and gender issues and has made major contributions to peace making and nation building. She is the recipient of numerous international peace, human rights, and democracy awards, such as the Olof Palme Award, Sydney Peace Prize, the Defender of Democracy Award, the Jane Addams International Women’s Leadership Award, Distinguished Alumna Award of the University of Virginia Women’s Center, and Distinguished Lifetime Achievements AUB Alumni.

She is also the author of many books, articles, poems and short stories on Palestinian politics, culture and literature. Her book, This Side of Peace, published by Simon & Schuster in 1995, gained world acclaim.

Dr. Ashrawi serves on the Advisory Board of several international and local organizations including the World Bank Middle East and North Africa (MENA), United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) and the International Human Rights Council. She has also received several Honorary Doctorate Degrees from universities in the United States, Canada, Europe and the Arab World.

Dr. Hanan Mikhail-Ashrawi is married to Emile Ashrawi and has two daughters, Amal and Zeina.

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Thursday, April 15, 2004

"From the Battlefield to the Negotiating Table:
Preventing Deadly Conflict"

General Anthony C. Zinni, USMC (Ret.)

General Anthony C. Zinni, former commander in chief of the U.S. Central Command, will be the final speaker in the 2003-2004 Joan B. Kroc Distinguished Lecture Series. General Zinni will speak about the prevention of deadly conflict based on his experience in military, diplomatic and humanitarian missions as a Marine Corps officer, Special Envoy to the Middle East and State Department envoy in troubled regions around the world.

General Zinni joined the Marine Corps in 1961 and was commissioned an infantry second lieutenant in 1965 upon graduation from Villanova University. He has held numerous command and staff assignments that include platoon, company, battalion, regimental, Marine expeditionary unit, and Marine expeditionary force command. His staff assignments included service in operations, training, special operations, counter-terrorism and manpower billets. He has also been a tactics and operations instructor at several Marine Corps schools and was selected as a fellow on the Chief of Naval Operations Strategic Studies Group. General Zinni's joint assignments include command of a joint task force and a unified command. He has also had several joint and combined staff billets at task force and unified command levels.

General Zinni has made deployments to the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, the Western Pacific, Northern Europe and Korea. He has also served tours in Okinawa and Germany. His operational experiences include two tours in Vietnam, emergency relief and security operations in the Philippines, Operation Provide Comfort in Turkey and northern Iraq, Operation Provide Hope in the former Soviet Union, Operations Restore Hope, Continue Hope, and United Shield in Somalia, Operations Resolute Response and Noble Response in Kenya, Operations Desert Thunder, Desert Fox, Desert Viper, Desert Spring, Southern Watch and the Maritime Intercept Operations in the Persian Gulf, and Operation Infinite Reach against terrorist targets in the Central Region. He was involved in the planning and execution of Operation Proven Force and Operation Patriot Defender in support of the Gulf War and noncombatant evacuation operations in Liberia, Zaire, Sierra Leone, and Eritrea. He has also participated in presidential diplomatic missions to Somalia, Pakistan, and Ethiopia-Eritrea and State Department missions involving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and conflicts in Indonesia.

He has attended numerous military schools and courses including the National War College. He holds a bachelor's degree in economics, a master's in international relations, a master's in management and supervision, and honorary doctorate's from William and Mary College and the Maine Maritime Academy.

General Zinni's awards include the Defense Distinguished Service Medal with oak leaf cluster; the Distinguished Service Medal; the Defense Superior Service Medal with two oak leaf clusters; the Bronze Star with Combat "V" and gold star; the Purple Heart; the Meritorious Service Medal with gold star; the Navy Commendation Medal with Combat "V" and gold star; the Navy Achievement Medal with gold star; the Combat Action Ribbon; and personal decorations from South Vietnam, France, Italy, Egypt, Kuwait, Yemen, and Bahrain. He also holds 36 unit, service, and campaign awards. His civilian awards include the Papal Gold Cross of Honor, the Union League's Abraham Lincoln Award, the Italic Studies Institute's Global Peace Award, the Distinguished Sea Service Award from the Naval Order of the United States, the Eisenhower Distinguished Service Award from the Veterans of Foreign Wars, The Chapman Award from the Marine Corps University Foundation, the Penn Club Award, and the St. Thomas of Villanova Alumni Medal.

He currently holds positions on several boards of directors of major U.S. companies. In addition he has held academic positions that include the Stanley Chair in Ethics at the Virginia Military Institute, the Nimitz Chair at the University of California-Berkeley, the Hofheimer Chair at the Joint Forces Staff College, and the Harriman Professor of Government appointment and membership on the board of the Reves Center for International Studies at the College of William and Mary. He has worked with the University of California's Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation and the Henry Dunant Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue in Geneva. He is also a Distinguished Advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

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Wednesday, January 14, 2004

"Conflict, Gender and Human Rights:
Lessons from the Field"

Ambassador Donald K. Steinberg

In September 2003, Donald K. Steinberg was named Director of the Joint Policy Council, which has as its goal to ensure that our foreign assistance is fully aligned with our foreign policy goals and objectives. In this role, he oversees a dozen working groups addressing such issues as democracy and human rights, post-conflict reconstruction, and social and environmental issues.

Ambassador Steinberg previously served as Principal Deputy Director of Policy Planning for the U.S. Department of State (2001-2003), where he helped formulate and coordinate long-term policies to achieve U.S. foreign policy objectives, especially related to the fight against global terrorism and the security, political, and reconstruction needs for a post-Taliban Afghanistan.

From 1998 to 2001, Ambassador Steinberg served as the Special Representative of the President and Secretary of State for Global Humanitarian Demining. He was also Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration (2000-01), Special Coordinator for Haiti (1999-2001), U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Angola (1995-98); Senior Director for African Affairs at the National Security Council (1994-95), and Deputy White House Press Secretary (1993-94).

In December 2003, he received the Hunt Award for Advancing Women’s Role in Policy Formulation. In 2002, Secretary of State Colin Powell presented him the State Department’s Distinguished Service Award, its highest performance award. He has also received the Frasure Award for promoting international peace, the Presidential Meritorious Honor Award, five State Department Superior Honor Awards, and Columbia University’s Pulitzer Fellowship and Hough Award for excellence in print. In 2000, he addressed the United Nations General Assembly and delivered the keynote address at the commencement at Reed College, his alma mater.

A career Foreign Service officer with the rank of Minister-Counselor, he has had diplomatic postings in South Africa, Brazil, Central African Republic, Malaysia, and Mauritius.

Ambassador Steinberg received his bachelor’s degree in economics from Reed College in Portland, Oregon, and master’s degrees in political economy from the University of Toronto and journalism from Columbia University. He was born in Los Angeles, California.

Click here to read some of Ambassador Steinberg's speeches, articles and testimony.

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Wednesday, October 15, 2003

"Preventing Deadly Conflict"

Justice Richard Goldstone

Former Chief Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia & Rwanda

Richard J Goldstone was born on the 26th October 1938 . After graduating from the University of the Witwatersrand with a BA LLB cum laude in 1962 he practiced as an Advocate at the Johannesburg Bar. In 1976 he was appointed Senior Counsel and in 1980 was made Judge of the Transvaal Supreme Court. In 1989 he was appointed Judge of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court. From July 1994 to October 2003 he was a Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa. In 2004 he will be a visiting professor for the spring term at NYU Law School and for the fall term at Fordham Law School.

From 1991-1994, he served as Chairperson of the Commission of Inquiry regarding Public Violence and Intimidation, which came to be known as the Goldstone Commission. He was the Chairperson of the Standing Advisory Committee of Company Law from 1984 to 2004. From 15 August 1994 to September 1996 he served as the Chief Prosecutor of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda . During 1998 he was the chairperson of a high-level group of international experts, which met in Valencia , Spain , and drafted a Declaration of Human Duties and Responsibilities for the Director General of UNESCO (the Valencia Declaration). From August 1999 until December 2001 he was the chairperson of the International Independent Inquiry on Kosovo. In December 2001 he was appointed as the co-chairperson of the International Task Force on Terrorism, which was established by the International Bar Association. He is a director of the American Arbitration Association.

From 1985 to 2000, Justice Goldstone was National President of the National Institute of Crime Prevention and the Rehabilitation of Offenders (NICRO). He is chairperson of the Bradlow Foundation, a charitable educational trust, and from 1994 to 2003 he was the chairperson of the board of the Human Rights Institute of South Africa (HURISA). He remains a trustee of HURISA.

Justice Goldstone serves as Chancellor of the University of the Witwatersrand , Johannesburg , is a Governor of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem , and President of World ORT (an international technical and technology training organisation). He was a member of the International Panel established in August 1997 by the Government of Argentina to monitor the Argentinian Inquiry to elucidate Nazi activities in the Argentine Republic since 1938.

The many awards he has received locally and internationally include the International Human Rights Award of the American Bar Association (1994) and Honorary Doctorates of Law from the Universities of Cape Town, Witwatersrand, Natal, the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, University of Notre Dame, Maryland University College, Wilfrid Laurier in Ontario, the University of Glasgow, the Catholic University of Brabant in Tilburg, the Netherlands, the University of Calgary, Emory University and Princeton University. He is an Honorary Bencher of the Inner Temple , London , an Honorary Fellow of St Johns College, Cambridge , an Honorary Member of the Association of the Bar of New York, and a Fellow of the Weatherhead Centre for International Affairs of Harvard University. He is a Foreign Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was a member of the faculty of the Salzburg Seminar in 1996 and 1998, and co-chaired sessions on International Law in 2001 and 2003. From October to December 2001 he was a visiting professor at the School of Law of the New York University.

He is married (wife Noleen) and has two married daughters - Glenda and Nicole. He has four grandsons, Jason, Sean, Ben, and Jordan.

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Thursday, May 8, 2003

"The New Nuclear Threat"

Dr. Helen Caldicott

Nuclear Policy Research Institute

Institute for Peace & Justice Theater

Photo Credit: "Amazing Grace"

Dr Helen Caldicott has devoted the last 25 years to an international campaign to educate the public about the medical hazards of the nuclear age, and the necessary changes in human behavior to stop environmental destruction.

While living in the United States from 1977 to 1986, she founded the Physicians for Social Responsibility, an organization of 23,000 doctors committed to educating their colleagues about the dangers of nuclear power, nuclear weapons and nuclear war. On trips abroad she helped start similar medical organizations in many other countries. The international umbrella group (International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War) won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985.

Dr Caldicott was an instructor in pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, specializing in cystic fibrosis, and on the staff of the Children's Hospital Medical Center, Boston, Mass., until 1980 when she resigned to work full time on the prevention of nuclear war. She founded the Cystic Fibrosis Clinic at the Adelaide Children's Hospital in 1975.

Ladies Home Journal, named Dr. Caldicott as one of the "100 Most Important Women of the 20th Century" (May 1999). She has written for numerous publications and has authored five books, Nuclear Madness (1979, revised edition by W.W. Norton in 1994), Missile Envy (1984, Bantam), If You Love This Planet: A Plan to Heal the Earth (1992, W.W. Norton) and A Desperate Passion: An Autobiography (1996, W.W. Norton; published as A Passionate Life in Australia by Random House). Her most recent book is The New Nuclear Danger: George Bush’s Military Industrial Complex, published in April 2002 by The New Press in the US and Scribe Publishing in Australia and New Zealand.

She moved back to the United States in 1995. She lectured at the New School for Social Research on the Media, Global Politics and the Environment, and she hosted a weekly radio talk show on WBAI (Pacifica). Recently, she returned to Australia and now divides her time between the US and Australia where she lectures widely. She is also the Founder and President of the recently established Nuclear Policy Research Institute headquartered in Washington D.C.

This event is open to the public. Parking is limited, but available underneath the Institute building. Reception to follow.

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Tuesday, April 15, 2003

Inaugural Lecture

"The Role of the Church in U.S. Foreign Policy Today"

Dr. Robert Edgar

General Secretary of the National Council of
Churches Institute for Peace & Justice Theater

Dr. Bob Edgar is general secretary of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, the leading U.S. organization in the movement for Christian unity. Thirty-six Protestant, Anglican and Orthodox member communions, to which approximately 50 million congregants belong, work together in the Council to promote unity and to serve churches and people worldwide.

Dr. Edgar took office January 1, 2000, at a time of great opportunity, as the 50-year-oId Council began to reshape its life and mission. Under his leadership, the Council is refocusing its energies on two major initiatives. One is a ten-year domestic Mobilization to Overcome Poverty. The other is an exploration of an expanded ecumenical vision for the new millennium, a conversation that includes Evangelical and Pentecostal churches, the Roman Catholic Church and the Council’s member communions.

An ordained elder in the United Methodist Church, Dr. Edgar came to the Council from Claremont Theological School, Claremont, Calif., where he was president from 1990 to 2000. During that decade, he brought a school on the brink of collapse back to institutional health, confirming his reputation as an optimist, a futurist, and a coalition builder who enjoys meeting a challenge.

Dr. Edgar is well known for his service as a six-term member of the U.S. House of Representatives, where he was the first Democrat in more than 120 years to be elected from the heavily Republican Seventh District of Pennsylvania. His election and service demonstrated the bipartisan, ecumenical quality that has marked his whole life and ministry. Serving in Congress from 1975 to 1987, he led efforts to improve public transportation, authored the community Right to Know provisions of Super Fund legislation, co-authored the new GI bill for the all-volunteer service, fought wasteful water projects and supported environmental goals. Among other appointments, he served as chair of the Congressional Clearinghouse on the Future (1982 to 1986) and was a member of the Select Committee on Assassinations (1976-78) that investigated the deaths of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and President John F. Kennedy. In 1987, true to his belief in term limits, he voluntarily stepped down from office.