Post-Conflict Governance and
the Rule of Law

Day two of PILPG’s Post-Conflict State Building summer school includes interviews with experts on topics including rebuilding state institutions to establish Rule of Law, economic reconstruction, security sector reform, and post-conflict constitution building. This page includes the schedule for the day, details on the experts who presented, additional resources and a recording of the July 8 zoom session.

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Schedule:

  • Introduction to the Summer School

  • Building Effective Institutions and the Rule of Law (Drew Mann)

  • State Building and Economic Reconstruction: Lessons Learned from Liberia (Axel Addy)

  • Break

  • SSR and the Role of Militant Groups (Robert Perito)

  • Legal Reforms and Constitution Building (Ambassador Amina Mohamed) 

  • Closing

Additional Resources

Experts:

  • Andrew (Drew) Mann, J.D., is a Senior Peace Fellow and Strategic Advisor for the Public International Law and Policy Group (PILPG).  Drew served as the Senior Legal Advisor for the Sri Lanka Project, which developed training modules to enhance the professionalism of human rights documenters.  He has also provided training on documentation and international human rights standards to participants in the South Sudan Human Rights Documentation Initiative.  In 2019, he conducted a security and policy assessment of the PILPG Kenya Office.  Furthermore, Drew served as the Senior Legal Advisor for the 2018 Bangladesh/Rohingya Documentation project investigating atrocities committed against the Rohingya. 

    In over 35 years of government service, primarily with the State Department, Drew worked under eight Presidents with assignments in nine countries and the United States and with the UN, retiring as a Senior Foreign Service Officer in 2017.  As a political officer, he spent much of his career in countries transitioning from conflict, such as Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan (Darfur), and Bosnia. 

    During his Foreign Service career, Drew used his legal experience while on detail to the Office of European Affairs, Legal Adviser’s Office at the U.S. State Department.  He was subsequently seconded as an Expert-on-Mission to the Office of the Prosecutor, International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in 1994.  While in Afghanistan in 2007, he served as the Deputy Coordinator in the Rule of Law Office at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.     

    As a Pearson Fellow in 1996, Drew taught courses in human rights and international law at the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington.  He later attended The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, as a State Department Fellow.  In 2013, Drew was honored to teach diplomacy and the interagency at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College as the Commandant’s Distinguished Chair of Diplomacy.  Finally, he served as the State Department’s Diplomat in Residence for the North Central region at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan.

    In 1994, the American Foreign Service Association presented the William R. Rivkin Award for constructive dissent to Drew and his colleagues working on Yugoslav issues for protesting U.S. policy towards Bosnia in 1992-93.

    A cum laude graduate of Wake Forest University and the University of Idaho College of Law, where he was editor-in-chief of the law review, Drew clerked for the Hon. Paul H. Roney, US Court of Appeals for the Fifth/Eleventh Circuit.  He practiced law at the Tennessee Valley Authority and with Lane Powell Moss & Miller in Seattle before joining the Foreign Service in 1985.  He has been a member of the Tennessee, Florida, Washington, and Alaska State Bars.   

  • Axel M. Addy is best known for his remarkable accomplishment as the Minister of Commerce and Industry of Liberia and Chief Negotiator of Liberia’s historic accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) concluding several bilateral and multilateral trade negotiations. The Liberia’s Accession is recognized as one of the fastest accessions for an LDC in the history of the WTO.

    As a strong advocate for the multilateral trading system, in 2017, in Buenos Aires, at the WTO’s MC11, he successfully rallied members’ sponsorship of the Declaration on Investment Facilitation and ITC led Declaration on Women and Trade. He also co-sponsored the Declaration on the g7 Plus WTO Accession Group to support and promote currently acceding governments including supporting the development of the WTO Trade for Peace Program, advocating for trade for peace in fragile and conflict-affected states (FCS). He currently serves as the host of the WTO’s first podcast, Trade for Peace, showcasing the work of policymakers and entrepreneurs operating on the frontline of the trade and peace nexus in FCS. He is also a member of the Friends of Multilateralism Group (FMG), a Geneva based “think tank of independent experts firmly committed to promoting multilateralism and shared growth in the multilateral trading system (MTS).”

    He is the Founder/CEO of Ecocap Investment Group (EIG) where he provides advisory services for acceding governments, companies exploring investment opportunities in Africa and multilateral institutions supporting trade for development and peace initiatives. He also serves as mentor for young entrepreneurs innovating solutions in response to the SDGs. He has co-authored several articles and a chapter in a book, “WTO, Trade Multilateralism in the 21st Century.”

  • Amb. Amina Mohamed has had a distinguished career in the Kenyan Public Service spanning over thirty-five years. She served in three Government Ministerial portfolios. She was Cabinet Secretary in the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and International Trade; Education, Science and Technology; and Sports, Culture and Heritage. She was also Permanent Secretary for Justice, National Cohesion and Constitutional Affairs and ASG/Deputy Executive Director of UNEP. Prior, she was Ambassador/Permanent Representative of Kenya to the UN, WTO, and the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, Switzerland.

    Amb. Amina has received awards at both the national and international level, including most recently the Tropics Magazine 2024 Women of the Year Award.

  • Robert Perito is the Director of the Perito Group, which advises the U.S. and foreign governments on security sector reform. Mr. Perito brings expertise gained at the State, Justice and Commerce Departments, the White House, Congress and the United Nations to his work on security sector transformation, counter terrorism. community security and combating radicalization. In April 2016, Perito addressed the NATO Parliamentary Assembly meeting in Rabat on security challenges in North Africa. Previously, he served on the State Department’s Security Governance Initiative team for Niger, addressed a World Bank conference on urbanization in North Africa and conducted SSR seminars in Tunisia, Morocco and Malta and for the Syrian Free Army on the Turkish border. He lectured at the Center of Excellence for Countering Violent Extremism in Abu Dhabi. He worked with police forces in Mexico, Pakistan and Morocco and the Tunisian National Guard. Mr. Perito is a senior adviser on doctrine development for the UN Police, speaking to UN conferences in Amman Jordan and Pretoria South Africa and conducting seminars on UN peacekeeping for congressional staff. Mr. Perito is uniquely qualified to provide the expert guidance required for security assessments, strategic planning and training programs for countries in conflict.

    Mr. Perito is the author of Where is the Lone Ranger? America’s Search for a Stability Force (Second Edition, 2013) and The American Experience with Police in Peace Operations; co-author of Police at War: Fighting Insurgency, Terrorism and Violent Crime; editor of a Guide for Participants in Peace, Stability and Relief Operations.

  • Dr. Paul R. Williams holds the Rebecca I. Grazier Professorship in Law and International Relations at American University where he teaches in the School of International Service and at the Washington College of Law. Dr. Williams is also the co-founder of the Public International Law & Policy Group (PILPG), a pro bono law firm providing legal assistance to states and governments involved in peace negotiations, post-conflict constitution drafting, and the prosecution of war criminals. As a world renowned peace negotiation lawyer, Dr. Williams has assisted over two dozen parties in major international peace negotiations and has advised numerous parties on the drafting and implementation of post-conflict constitutions. Several of Dr. Williams' pro bono government clients throughout the world joined together to nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize.