Ali A. Allawi served as the Interim Minister of Trade in the
new Government of Iraq from 2003-2004 until he was appointed the first Interim Minister of Defense
of Iraq. In April 2005 Mr. Allawi was appointed Minister of Finance in the Transitional Iraqi
Government. Born in Baghdad, Iraq, Mr. Allawi graduated from MIT with a BSc in Civil Engineering
and continued his postgraduate studies at the London School of Economics. In 1971 he received
his MBA from Harvard University. He has just published The Crisis in Islamic Civilization (Yale
University Press) and is working on another book that will be a comprehensive political biography
of Faisal I of Iraq, set against the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the formation of the modern
state system in the Middle East and Iraq.
Ali A. Allawi is a recipient of the
Gebran G. Tueni Human Rights Fellowship Program Award..
email:
ali_alawi@hks.harvard.edu
phone:
617.496.0351
office:
R-112
Paul Fishstein is a Fellow with the State Building and Human
Rights in Afghanistan & Pakistan program. Mr. Fishstein (MS, Agricultural and
Resource Economics; BA, English Literature) served as Director of the Afghanistan Research and
Evaluation Unit (AREU), a Kabul-based, policy research institution, from 2005 to 2008. Before
joining AREU as Deputy Director in 2004, Paul worked in Kabul and at provincial levels on
USAID-funded initiatives to strengthen the management of health care delivery, and from
1989-93 managed refugee assistance and “cross-border” reconstruction activities in Quetta
and Islamabad, Pakistan. Paul first worked in Afghanistan during 1977-79 as a teacher
trainer in Kabul and northern Afghanistan. Paul has also worked as a Researcher at the
World Bank in Washington, focusing on agricultural policies and food security in India
and Africa, and provided assistance on financial analysis, organizational development,
and sustainability planning to health organizations in developing countries, including
Bangladesh, Nepal, Romania, and Tanzania. Paul is currently involved in a research project
looking at the relationship between aid and stabilization in Afghanistan.
Siddharth Kara
is an Affiliate of the
Human Rights and Social Movements Program, and a Fellow with the Carr
Center Initiative to
Stop Human Trafficking. He is also the author of Sex Trafficking: Inside
the Business of Modern Slavery. Kara first encountered the horrors of
slavery in a Bosnian refugee camp in 1995. Subsequently, he traveled to
fourteen countries across four continents to research these crimes, interviewing
over four hundred slaves, witnessing firsthand the sale of humans into slavery, and
confronting those who trafficked and exploited them. His book provides a rare
business and economic analysis of the global sex trafficking industry, and recommends
legal and tactical measures to help abolish slavery once and for all.
Kara advises on slavery for several organizations worldwide, including the Clinton
Global Initiative and Humanity United. Since 2004, he has served on the
board of directors of Free the Slaves. In 2005, he testified as an expert on
human trafficking before the US Congressional Human Rights Committee. He serves
on the committee founded by Kirk Douglas that is lobbying Congress to provide an
official apology for pre-bellum slavery. In 2009, he was selected as
a Fellow for the acclaimed TEDIndia conference.
Previously, Kara was an investment banker at Merrill, Lynch, then ran his own
finance and M&A consulting firm. He holds a Law degree from England,
MBA from Columbia University, and BA from Duke University.
email:
siddharth _kara@hks.harvard.edu
phone:
617.496.4494
office:
R-203
Gerald Knaus is founding chairman of the European Stability
Initiative (ESI) since 1999. ESI, with 24 staff based in 10 cities from London to Baku, is
today the largest think tank focusing on the Balkans, Turkey and the South Caucasus. Gerald
studied in Oxford, Brussels and Bologna. He taught economics at the University of Chernivtsi (Ukraine)
and worked for five years in Bulgaria and Bosnia for NGOs and international organizations, including
the OHR in Sarajevo and as analyst for ICG. He was director of the Lessons Learned Unit of the EU Pillar
of the UN Mission in Kosovo (from 2001 to 2004). Some of Gerald’s articles have triggered wide public
debates, including "Travails of the European Raj" on Bosnia (2003)
and "Member State Building and the Helsinki Moment" (2004). He
co-authored more than 60 ESI reports as well as scripts for award-winning TV documentaries on South
East Europe. He is a founding member of the European Council on Foreign Relations and a
2007/2008 Open Society Fellow. In 2004 he moved to Istanbul. He regularly writes for
the Rumeli Observer.
email:
gerald_knaus@hks.harvard.edu
phone:
617.495.8331
office:
R-217
David Mansfield has been doing fieldwork in rural
Afghanistan since June 1997. The evidence base he has produced has been at the forefront
of policy development in drugs and development in Afghanistan and represents an important
source of primary data for many policy analysts and academics. By examining the different
factors that influence opium poppy cultivation, David's work has also documented the
diversity in socioeconomic, political and environmental conditions across rural
Afghanistan.
David has worked for a variety of different organizations in Afghanistan including
the Afghan Research and Evaluation Unit, the Aga Khan Development Network and the
United Kingdom's Afghan Drugs Inter Departmental Unit and Department for
International Development. He has also supported the World Bank, Asia Development
Bank and the European Commission in integrating the drugs issue into their rural
development programmers in Afghanistan, including their support to National Priority
Programmes.
Prior to his work in Afghanistan David worked in overseas drugs and development
issues, working in each of the major drug producing regions of South and South East
Asia, and Latin America. His published work has sought to contextualise drugs as a
development issue, and in particular has focused on developing pro-poor approaches to
development in drug producing areas. Copies of his reports can be
found at www.davidmansfield.org.
email:
david_mansfield@hks.harvard.edu
phone:
617.495.8153
office:
R-119
Gerard Russell was a diplomat with the British Foreign
Office for 14 years, working in Jerusalem, Baghdad and as head of the British mission in
western Saudi Arabia. Between 2001 and 2003 he designed and headed up the UK effort to
reach out to opinion in the Arab and broader Islamic world. In 2005 he was adviser to
the Iraqi Prime Minister. Between 2007 and 2008 he headed the political team at the British
Embassy in Kabul. He then returned to Kabul with the United Nations in 2009, serving
as a senior political adviser to Ambassador Peter Galbraith and heading the United Nations
Elections Center until his resignation in autumn 2009. He speaks Arabic and Dari.
Mr.
Russell is presently in Kabul and will come to Harvard in January 2010. His particular
focus at the Carr Center will be on the future of humanitarian intervention.
email:
mail@gerardrussell.com
Rima Merhi is a researcher,
human rights activist, and freelance journalist with publications in leading newspapers and other
media outlets. She recently conducted research at the Middle East Institute and the Library of
Congress in Washington DC. Rima has a BA in public administration and MA in political science (emphasis
international affairs) from the American University of Beirut (AUB), and an MBA from the Lebanese
American University. In July 2005 she testified before the U.S. Congress on youth aspirations for
political, economic, and social reform in Lebanon. Rima then worked for the UN to improve the
humanitarian situation of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and participated in the media and relief
committees organized by the prime minister's office to manage the crisis at Nahr el Bared Palestinian
camp in May 2007. Rima acquired human rights education and training at Oxford and holds numerous
certificates related to the field of human rights. Rima is currently enrolled in media and
journalism classes.
Rima Merhi is a recipient of the
Gebran G. Tueni Human Rights Fellowship Program Award..
email:
rima_merhi@hks.harvard.edu
phone:
617.384.8151
office:
R-113
Nigel Pont
is both a Fellow in and Program Director for the Sate Building & Human Rights in Afghanistan &
Pakistan program. Nigel has recently completed two and
a half years as Mercy Corps' Afghanistan Country Director, focusing primarily on rural
agricultural development in Helmand and Kandahar provinces, natural resource management
in the north east of the country and microfinance in Kabul and Jalalabad. He has
extensive Afghanistan experience having managed a wide range of relief and development
programs during the civil war, the Taliban era and post 9/11. Born in Iran and growing
up in Pakistan he has in-depth knowledge of the region and speaks good Dari and Urdu.
Between 1997 and 2008 Nigel played a leadership role for Mercy Corps in many of the
major humanitarian crises of the past decade including Kosovo, Iraq, Pakistan and
post Tsunami Aceh.
Michael Semple has worked for more than
twenty years in Afghanistan in international development. Mr. Semple most recently
served as head of the political section of the European Union.
email:
michael_semple@hks.harvard.edu
phone:
617.495.8450
office:
R-217
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.
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.”
email:
leonardo_vivas@harvard.edu
phone:
617.496.4120
office:
R-113
Matt Waldman was formerly Head of Policy and
Advocacy for Oxfam International in Afghanistan, where he has worked for the past two
and half years, and is the author of a number of reports on the country, including
on peace-building, protection of civilians, civil-military affairs, development and
aid effectiveness.
From 2004-2006 he was the Liberal Democrats Foreign Affairs and Defence Adviser based
in the UK Parliament, with responsibility for formulating party policy on
international affairs, including Iraq, Afghanistan, and human rights issues.
Matt has also worked as a foreign affairs adviser in the European Parliament, and
was deputy director of overseas operations for a UK children's charity, which included
work in post-conflict countries in Eastern Europe and Africa.
Prior to this he trained and practised as a lawyer with the London-based, international
law firm, Norton Rose, which involved work in Europe and Russia. He holds a Masters
Degree in Human Rights from London School of Economics. His current research focuses on
the conflict in Afghanistan, in particular, the implications of reconciliation and
negotiations with insurgents.
email:
matt_waldman@hks.harvard.edu
phone:
617.495.8096
office:
R-117
2009 Associate Fellows
Sarah Bouchat is an Associate Fellow with the Carr Center Human Rights and
Social Movements Program, where she assists with various research projects, especially in the area
of LGBT human rights issues. Bouchat earned an AB in International Studies with a focus
in Human Rights from the University of Chicago in 2008, and is currently an MPP student
at the Harvard Kennedy School. Bouchat's professional and research interests include
the intersection of human rights, queer, and gendered experience, Asian Pacific Islander
American histories, and transnational migration.
email:
sarah_bouchat@hks11.harvard.edu
phone:
617.496.4548
office:
R-201a
Abdulrazzaq al-Saiedi is an Associate Fellow. Mr. al-Saiedi is
Middle East Policy analyst and human rights
consultant. He spent four years covering the war and the political transition in Iraq for the New York
Times. He covered the Saddam Hussein trial as a reporter and international observer for the
international human rights organizations. As a consultant, al-Saiedi has helped formulate transitional
justice policies in the Iraqi legal and political system. He has also helped to draw up policies for the
Iraqi government and the civil society on issues such as reparations, accountability and verification
standards, and truth-seeking processes. Originally trained as engineer, Al-Saiedi holds an MPA from
the Harvard Kennedy School, where he was a Mason Fellow. He was a Nieman Foundation for
Journalism Fellow in 2008.
email:
al-saiedi_razzaq@hks.harvard.edu
Jasteena Dhillon is an Associate Fellow with the State Building
and Human Rights in Afghanistan & Pakistan program. Dhillon is an international lawyer who has
worked in international development and conflict environments since 1994. Over her years working in places
like South Africa in the mid 90s, through the Balkans, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Iraq and Sudan, she has been
confronted with the reality of how justice is done on the ground and who the local actors in this system
really are, many times contrary to what the international community develops it’s policy around. As a
result of her work in Afghanistan as a legal advisor and advocate, she has a deep contextual understanding
of the complex and pluralistic justice landscape, the capacity needs and limitations as well as the
personalities, institutional rivalries and political agendas of the various stakeholders in the Afghan
justice sector. Her work in Afghanistan, as it has been in Sudan and Somalia, is aimed at cultivating local
systems of customary justice and building a state system that gives due regard to local values and conceptions
of justice. Her nuanced and pragmatic perspective is rare to find in a field dominated by those more
comfortable working with formal systems in the image of western institutions. In her most recent position
with NATO, she worked as an advisor on justice and reconciliation in Afghanistan and Sudan as a way to
facilitate civil-military interaction. More on this link:
www.zolazen.org.
Jasteena Dhillon discusses her experiences managing legal aid programs for returnees and people who
have experienced human rights violations in Afghanistan. Three short videos.
Elliott Prasse-Freeman is currently an Associate
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.
Courtney Hillebrecht, an Associate Reasearch Fellow with the Carr Center's Measurement and
Human Rights Project, is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of
Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research interests include international
relations, human rights, international law, Latin American politics and quantitative and qualitative
research methods. As an Associate Research Fellow in the Measurement and Human Rights Program, her
work focuses on developing a new rubric for measuring states' compliance with the rulings of
international human rights tribunals. This project is related to her dissertation, “From Paper
Tigers to Engines of Change: The Effect of Regional Human Rights Courts on Domestic Practice and
Politics,” which examines patterns of compliance with international human rights tribunals.
Jianli Yang, is an Associate Fellow at with the Carr Center's Human Rights and Social Movements
Program. After completing his Doctorate in
Political Economy at Harvard, Dr. Yang returned to study the growing labor unrest in northern China. He was
arrested and sentenced to five years imprisonment for spying. Following an international outcry for his
release, including a UN Resolution and a unanimous vote of both houses of the United States Congress, Dr.
Yang was freed in April of 2007. Immediately following his return to the U.S. Dr. Yang formed Initiatives
for China, a pro democracy movement committed to a peaceful transition to democracy in China. He firmly
believes that continued U.S. leadership in holding China accountable for respecting the human and
political rights of its citizens is a critical component for world stability and for the peaceful transition
to a democratic society in China.
A recipient of numerous awards, Dr. Yang is widely recognized as a leading architect for democracy
in China. He established the Foundation for China in the 21st Century and is the co-author of a
constitution for a democratic China. Dr. Yang created the Interethnic/Interfaith Leadership
Conferences, last series of which was held at Harvard in November, 2008. He is also the founder of
China E-Weekly magazine.
