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The Center for Global Peace |
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Who We Are: The Iraq Human Rights Commission Project
Click on a name below for a short bio In keeping with American University’s mandate for global education, the Center for Global Peace was established in 1996 as a University-wide center to provide a framework for programs and initiatives that advance the study and understanding of world peace within a sustainable world order. The importance of our University-wide status is that the Center for Global Peace is able to establish collaborative relationships with faculty, teaching units and other centers and institutes throughout the University. The Center for Global Peace provides a forum for analysis of a wide range of multi‑disciplinary and cross‑cultural approaches to peace and conflict resolution, democratization, civil society building and sustainable development. By analyzing local, national and global linkages for each of the international projects undertaken, the Center for Global Peace is able to provide a basis for understanding and policy recommendations regarding social, political, cultural, economic, and civic structures whose deterioration can lead to violence and social upheaval. The ten year history of American University’s Center for Global Peace (AU-CGP) has produced 12 international conferences, 8 edited volumes in print (and 2 in the pipeline), a refereed journal, 3 endowed activities, 4 government grants, and raised a total of $7.5 million. The Center is honored to be able to partner with the diverse community of human rights advocates in Iraq to establish an independent, Iraqi National Human Rights Commission. Our experience with programs similar in scope and complexity to this project indicates that a key to effective mobilization and implementation will be a strong, skilled and experienced program management team. AU-CGP is confident that this human rights commission support project in Iraq will produce sustainable and mutually beneficial relationships between the Iraqi National Human Rights Commission, ministries of the Iraqi government, Iraqi NGOs, human rights commissions in other countries, and international NGOs. Our project team includes highly competent and experienced human rights lawyers and human rights education and training experts, as well as project management experts who are each highly committed to the project. The AU-CGP team provides exceptional expertise in human rights from the perspective of human rights NGOs and governmental commissions, as well as training and field work in post-conflict situations, including Iraq from international human rights experts and legal scholars. Our management team includes the Project Director, Professor Carole A. O’Leary, and two academic advisors, Professors Abdul Aziz Said and Mary Gray, both of whom are senior, tenured AU faculty with significant expertise in the field of human rights and the Middle East region. AU Professor Julie Mertus, AU Scholar in Residence Janet Lord and AU Practitioner in Residence Kathy Guernsey will oversee program development and implementation, as well as direct our technical team in the field. Mohammad Radhi, AU alumnus who has extensive experience working within Iraq, will play an important role in establishment of in-country contacts.
Carole A. O'Leary: Project Director |
click to email O'Leary is the Scholar-in-Residence for the Middle East Initiative and Program Director at the AUCGP. She established an Iraq Project at the AUCGP in 2001 to examine the premise that federalism is the best organizing framework for governance in a future Iraq. Professor O’Leary is a member of the Iraq Working Group at the United States Institute of Peace and a former outside expert for the US Department of State Future of Iraq Project (2003). O'Leary joined the School of International Service as a research professor in 1995, cross-appointed to the Divisions of International Peace and Conflict Resolution (IPCR) and Comparative and Regional Studies (CRS). Professor O'Leary has traveled widely throughout the Middle East and conducted research on the politics of identity, including gender, and educational development in Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, the GGC states, Iran and Lebanon. She conducted research in the former Kurdish safe haven of northern Iraq in June 2001 and again in July 2002 focused on ethnic community interaction among Kurds, Turkmen and Assyrian-Chaldeans, democratization, civil society and education transformation in the region. She also worked with the KRG Ministries of Education, Higher Education and Human Rights to develop civic and human rights education capacity. In 1994, she received a two year grant from the United States Institute of Peace to train American social studies teachers and develop curricula on the role of ethnic identity in international conflict situations. In 1997-1998, she led a study tour to Oman for American experts in the field of curriculum development for social studies.
Professor O'Leary is the
editor of "Islam: An Introduction," published by the
American Institute for Islamic Affairs (AIIA) in 1985
and the editor of AIIA's Occasional Paper Series on
Islam and the Muslim World, published between 1985-87.
With Karna Eklund, she is the author of “Pluralism vs.
Modern Iraqi Nationalism: Root Causes of State-Sponsored
Violence against Iraq’s Kurdish Community and the Search
for Post-Conflict Justice,” published in the Michigan
State Journal of International Law (Volume 13, No. 1/2,
Spring 2005). She is also the author of “The Kurds
of Iraq: Recent History, Future Prospects,” published in
the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA)
Journal in December 2002; and “Are the Kurds a Source of
Instability in the Middle East?,” The Kurdish Question
and the 2003 Iraqi War, edited by Mohammed M.A. Ahmed
and Michael M. Gunter, Mazda Press, 2004. With
Charles MacDonald, she is the co-editor of a volume on
Kurdish Identity: Human Rights and Political Status,
published by the University Press of Florida in October 2007.
Julie Mertus:
Human Rights Commissions Expert &
Trainer
Mary Gray:
Programmatic Content Evaluation Tools
and Analysis Janet Lord: Human Rights Specialist & Trainer Janet Lord is an international lawyer specializing in human rights, disability and the rights of disadvantaged groups. She has designed and implemented democracy and governance, rule of law and human rights programming in more than 15 countries worldwide. A former World Bank attorney, Janet has implemented programs for UNDP, OHCHR, UN DESA, UNMAS, the US Department of State and USAID and works with a broad range of NGOs on international development. She was centrally involved in the negotiations for a UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, providing legal counsel to disabled peoples organizations and lead governments. Janet is the Director of the American University/Amnesty International Summer Human Rights Institute. She has taught international law, human rights and international environmental law at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, University of Baltimore School of Law and American University, School of International Service. She holds law degrees from the University of Edinburgh (LLB; LLM), an LLM in International and Comparative Law from the George Washington University law School and a BA in History from Kenyon College.
Katherine Guernsey:
Human Rights Specialist & Trainer
Mohamad Radhi:
Senior Associate
Christopher Argyris:
Project Manager |
click to email
Abdul Aziz Said:
Principle Investigator He is a frequent lecturer and participant in national and international peace conferences and dialogues and is deeply involved with a number of professional associations and Service Academies. He has lectured in more than one hundred universities in the United States and all over the world. His past and current public service includes consulting the U.S. Department of State, the Department of Defense, the United Nations and the White House Committee on the Islamic World. He has served as the president of the regional chapter for the International Studies Association and as moderator for the Ecumenical Council of Washington. He advises and serves on the Board of Directors for various international non-governmental organizations including Search for Common Ground, Global Education Associates, the National Peace Foundation, PAX International, International Youth Advocate Program, The Omega Institute, Nonviolence International, and Global Alliance for Transnational Education, International Center for Religion and Diplomacy, and the Jones International University-University of the Web. He also serves on the editorial boards of Human Rights Quarterly and Peace Review. He served as advisor to the Democratic Principles Working Group of the United States Department of State's Future of Iraq Project in 2002-2003 and was an advisor to the members of the Iraqi Governing Council. He has written, co-authored and edited more than seventeen books including Contemporary Islam: Dynamic, not Static, Peace and Conflict Resolution in Islam: Precept and Practice, Cultural Diversity and Islam, Concepts of International Politics in Global Perspective , Human Rights and World Order, Ethnicity in an International Context, The New Sovereigns: Multinational Corporations as World Powers, Theory of International Relations: The Crisis of Relevance, Ethnicity and U.S. Foreign Policy and articles on various aspects of world politics.
His deep commitment to nonviolence, human rights, political
pluralism, cultural diversity, and ecological balance has
furthered the expansion of Peace and Conflict Resolution as
a field of study throughout the world.
Betty Sitka:
Associate Director, Center for Global Peace |
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