Understanding and Launching a Peace Process

PILPG’s Peace Negotiation Summer School commences on Monday, July 15, 2024. Day one of the summer school includes lectures and an expert roundtable case study on the current Sudanese peace process, to provide an overview of key components of peace processes. This page includes the schedule for the day, details on the experts who presented, additional resources and a recording of the July 15 zoom session.

Click on the video above to watch a recording of this session.

Expert Insight Videos

Schedule:

Additional Resources

Experts:

  • Rick Lorenz is a PILPG Senior Peace Fellow and a Senior Lecturer at the Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington and Adjunct Senior Lecturer at the Law School.  He previously served as a judge advocate for the US Marine Corps, including a tour as an infantry company commander. He was the senior legal advisor for the US military intervention in Somalia in 1992, and returned there as senior legal advisor for the UN evacuation in 1995. In 1996 he served in Bosnia as a senior legal advisor for the NATO implementation force, and went on to teach Political Science at the National Defense University (NDU). He developed and taught the first course in Environmental Security at NDU in 1997. After his retirement from the Marine Corps as a colonel in 1998 he spent a year as a Fulbright Senior Scholar in St Petersburg, Russia, teaching courses in international law, environmental law and US foreign policy. In 2000 he served as a United Nations legal affairs officer in Kosovo, working in the UN Civil Administration.

  • Judge Professor Margaret deGuzman is a Senior Peace Fellow with PILPG, James E. Beasley Professor of Law at Temple University’s Beasley School of Law, and Co-Director of Temple’s Institute for International Law and Public Policy. Her scholarship focuses on the role of international criminal law in the global legal order, with a particular emphasis on the work of the International Criminal Court. In 2022, Judge Professor deGuzman was appointed by the United Nations Secretary General to the roster of Judges of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals. She has worked as an international expert in a group studying the proposed addition of criminal jurisdiction to the mandate of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and is currently working on a project researching the impact of the Extraordinary African Chambers in the Courts of Senegal on national, regional, and global justice norms. Prior to joining Temple’s faculty, Judge Professor deGuzman clerked on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and practiced law in San Francisco for six years, specializing in criminal defense. Judge Professor deGuzman also served as a legal advisor to the Senegal delegation at the Rome Conference where the International Criminal Court was created and as a law clerk in the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia. She was a Fulbright Scholar in Darou N’diar, Senegal.

  • 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.

  • Mr. Nega has over thirty-five years of professional experience in international affairs and multilateral diplomacy, mediation, peacekeeping and peacebuilding. From 2015 to 2020, Mr. Nega served as the Head of Office and Director of Political Affairs at the United Nations in Sudan, where he worked to support the Juba and Doha peace processes and to facilitate the national dialogue and reconciliation processes. Prior to that role he served as the Chief of Staff for the United Nations Peacebuilding Mission in Guinea Bissau. Mr. Nega also served as the Chief of Staff, Deputy Head of Mission, and Acting Executive Representative of the United Nations Secretary General in Sierra Leone.

    Prior to these deployments, Mr. Nega served as a Diplomat in the Ethiopian Foreign Service, including as the representative to the United Nations and other international forums. Mr. Nega has extensive experience in the negotiations of international instruments, including the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

  • Yoonie is currently a Senior Political Affairs Officer/Team Leader for the Gulf at the United Nations’ Departments of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs and Peace Operations in New York. Prior to serving as a Political Affairs Officer, Yoonie worked at the UN as a Human Rights Officer at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and before that as a Rule of Law Officer. 

    Notably, Yoonie served as the Special Assistant to the UN Special Envoy to Yemen, from 2011 - 2015.

  • Heba Bawaieh is a Program Manager and Middle East and Northern Africa (MENA) regional expert at the Public International Law & Policy Group, focusing on peace negotiations and empowering civil society in Sudan. Her professional journey includes roles within the United Nations, where she contributed to international legal frameworks on counterterrorism efforts in the MENA region at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, and developed strategies for civilian protection at the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations. Heba has also worked with refugees in Moria Camp and Zaatari Camp, addressing various issues including the information and representation of migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees throughout the asylum procedure, as well as family reunification in EU Member States.

  • Christopher Goebel is a Senior Peace Fellow with PILPG. As one of PILPG’s original members, he has consulted during peace processes and other transitions on transitional justice, constitutions, security, and humanitarian issues, focusing recently on Syria and Sudan, with additional experience concerning Kenya, Libya, Yemen, Chad, Senegal, the Balkans and elsewhere. His most recent experience includes advisor to judges and lawyers from a wide range of areas in Libya on their strategies for engaging Libyan civil society on potential transitional justice and accountability efforts at a grassroots level.

    As a long-time member of PILPG’s negotiation support team for the Geneva peace process, he has regularly contributed expertise to the Syrian opposition leaders on accountability issues, including options for prosecuting atrocity crimes. Most recently, he advised a committee of Syrian opposition and civil society leaders formulating strategies for transitional justice and accountability during a constitutional drafting process.

  • 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.

  • Kate Gibson is Senior Legal Advisor at the Public International Law & Policy Group and currently the co-counsel of Mr. Bosco Ntaganda before the International Criminal Court. She was the Co-Counsel of the former President of the Republika Srpska, Radovan Karadzic, before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, and the Co-Counsel of Liberian President Charles Taylor before the Special Court for Sierra Leone.  Kate was the youngest person to be appointed as Lead Counsel in a genocide case before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. She spent 10 years representing  the former Vice President of the Congo, Jean-Pierre Bemba, before the International Criminal Court, and also represented victims in the first case before the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. She currently is part of the legal team of former Kosovan President Hashim Thaci before the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague. 

    • Dr. Patrick Maluki holds a PhD in Peace and Conflict Studies, a Masters degree in International Studies, a PGD in Mass Communication and a Bachelors Degree in Education. He is an experienced trainer and researcher in Diplomacy and International conflict Management, International Negotiation, Mediation, human rights and governance and peace building issues. Dr. Maluki is a Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Diplomacy and International Studies, University of Nairobi and at the National Defence College (Karen). He also trains at the Kenya School of government and the Defence Staff College-Karen. He is the chairman of the Diplomacy Scholars Association of Kenya and editor of the Africa Journal of International Studies. Dr. Maluki is also the Associate Editor of the IDIS Journal of Diplomacy and International Studies.

  • Mohamed Elnu’man is a PILPG Senior Legal and Technical Advisor and a Former Senior Legal Advisor to the Minister at Sudan’s Ministry of Justice.