Bonnie Docherty is a Lecturer on Law and Clinical Instructor at the International Human Rights Clinic of Harvard Law School's Human Rights Program. She is also Researcher in the Arms Division of Human Rights Watch (HRW). She is an expert on international humanitarian law, particularly involving cluster munitions and civilian protection during war. For Human Rights Watch, she has conducted field research and written reports on cluster munition use in Lebanon (2006) and Afghanistan (2001-2002) and the civilian effects of armed conflict in Israel (2006), Israel/Gaza (2005), and Iraq (2003). Through writing and advocacy, she has participated in the campaign for the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which culminated in its adoption in May 2008. At the Clinic, her areas of focus include international humanitarian law, freedom of expression, and human rights and the environment. She received her A.B. from Harvard University and her J.D. from Harvard Law School. Before law school, she worked as a journalist for three years.
Dan Kuwali, Esq. is Deputy Director of Legal Services in the Malawi Defence Force with the rank of Major. He served as Division Legal Advisor with the UN Mission in the DRC; interned with Amnesty International in the UN Office in New York and held a research fellowship with the Danish Institute of Human Rights in Copenhagen, exploring the protection of civilians in armed conflicts. Dan has been a Marie Curie Researcher at the Grotius Centre of International Legal Studies in The Hague, investigating the question of accountability of Private Military Corporations and Guest Researcher at the Nordic African Institute, examining the implementation of the right of intervention by the AU. Dan attained Honourable Mention in the 2008 Human Rights Award, Washington College of Law, American University, writing on climate change as a challenge to human rights. He is earning a doctoral degree in Public International Law (Dr. iur) at Lund University in Sweden. Major Kuwali was Malawi’s Plenipotentiary in the Oslo Process to ban cluster munitions. He is a Correspondent of the Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law.
E. Benjamin Skinner, raised in Wisconsin and northern
Nigeria where his father served as a British colonial administrator, Ben first learned about slavery
as a child in Quaker meeting. In 2003, as a writer on assignment in Sudan for Newsweek International,
Skinner met his first survivor of slavery. Having flown in along with an
Evangelical group, purporting to buy slaves en masse to secure their freedom, he hitched a ride
on a U.N. Cessna to the frontlines of the north-south Sudanese civil war. There he met Muong Nyong.
Like Skinner, Nyong was 27 at the time, yet unlike Skinner, he had spent the first part of his life
in bondage. Since that time, Skinner has traveled the globe to find others like Nyong, a task
which would prove to be the most daunting challenge of his professional life. Going undercover when
necessary, he has infiltrated trafficking networks and slave quarries, urban child markets and
illegal brothels. In the process, he has become the first person in history to observe the
sales of human beings on four continents. His book, A
Crime So Monstrous tells the stories of the lives of a few of these slaves, as well as of
his own often harrowing encounters with those who sell, own, and free them.
Felisa Tibbitts is Co-Founder and Director of Human Rights Education Associates (HREA). She has worked as an educator, evaluator and materials developer on the topics of monitoring children's rights, the human rights-based approach to programming and the integration of human rights themes in curricula. Felisa has carried out adult trainings with educators and humanitarian workers in over 20 countries and serves as a consultative expert for the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, UNICEF, UNESCO, UNDP, OSCE, the Council of Europe and the Organization of American States. She is presently working on a doctoral thesis that examines the roles of INGOs and national actors in promoting human rights education in national secondary school curricula in European countries during the United Nations Decade for Human Rights Education (1995-2004).
Leonardo Vivas is a Sociologist from Central University in his native Venezuela. He has published two books about Venezuela’s political crises and co-edited another about grass roots management. In the US, Leonardo has been a fellow and associate researcher at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University, founder and Executive Director of Latin Roots, and Lecturer at Tufts University, where he has taught a course about the Chavez Era in Venezuela. He is also devoted to advocating for democracy in Venezuela, mainly through the Boston-based organization VENERED. He has published several articles at the Fletcher Forum of World Affairs about Venezuela and is finishing a forthcoming book provisionally titled, “Revolution vs. Democracy, Venezuela’s Ambiguous Journey under Hugo Chávez.”
Radwan Ziadeh was a Senior Fellow at United States Institute of Peace (USIP), is the founder and director of the Damascus Center for Human Rights Studies and is the secretary of the Syrian Organization for Transparency. Prior to his time at USIP, Ziadeh was editor of Tyarat magazine and a researcher with the UNDP project "Syria 2025.” In 2004, Ziadeh was named as best researcher in the Arab world in political science by Jordan's Abdulhameed Shoman Foundation. Ziadeh was one of the major players in "Damascus Spring,” a period of intense debate about politics and social issues and calls for reform in Syria after the death of President Hafez al-Assad in 2000. He has lectured in institutions, universities, and conferences around the world. Ziadeh has published studies, research projects and articles in local and international magazines in Arabic, English, Spanish and French and has also written for a wide range of Arabic and International publications including Al-Hayat (London), Almustaqbal, an-Nahar (Lebanon), Alghad (Jordan), Al-Ahram (Cairo) and the International Herald Tribune. He is a frequent political commentator to several U.S, European, and Middle Eastern media, including Aljazeera, Alarabiya, B.B.C and Alhura. Ziadeh regularly contributes articles in Arabic to various academic journals and writes a bimonthly op-ed for the leading Arab daily Al-Hayat.
Elliott Prasse-Freeman is currently an Associate
Research Fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University, where he is researching
human rights movements; human trafficking/modern day slavery; and state power, development assistance, and
human rights in Burma/Myanmar. An honors graduate of Harvard College, Prasse-Freeman spent five years
working in international development for various agencies from the UN to international NGOs. He began working in
communications and advocacy for a human rights organization focusing on ethnic cleansing in eastern Burma. He
then lived in Burma for one year and worked for the United Nations system (UNICEF and UNDP), and then in
Thailand for three years, where he was the Regional Project Coordinator for the International NGO
Education Development Center (EDC). There, he managed domestic projects and also conducted regular
field visits to China, India, Lao, Cambodia and Vietnam. His work for EDC also allowed him to
participate in global initiatives, including consulting for PEPFAR (President's Emergency Plan
for AIDS Relief) and special assignments such as disaster recovery after the Indian Ocean Tsunami
in 2005. In May 2008, Prasse-Freeman returned to Burma after the devastating Cyclone Nargis,
helping to coordinate the UN's early recovery efforts. His professional and research interests
include public health (HIV/AIDS), microenterprise and microfinance, educational access,
development, and human rights.
