Biography

Alfred de Zayas is an American lawyer and historian. He has received his J.D from Harvard University, and Ph.D. from Göttingen. He has worked twenty-two years with the United Nations, was former Secretary of the UN Human Rights Committee, former Chief of the Petitions Division at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. He was visiting Professor of Law, at DePaul University in Chicago; University of British Columbia in Vancouver; University of Alcala de Henares in Madrid; and Institut Universitaire de Hautes Etudes Internationales in Geneva. He is a member of the Conseil scientifique of the Académie Internationale de droit constitutionnel in Tunis. He is the author of five books.

Mr. de Zayas’ presentation is titled Human Rights and International Law and Armenian Genocide. The overarching principle of human rights is the principle of equality. Since all human beings share the same human dignity, there cannot be politically correct victims and those whom one can safely ignore. All victims, including the survivors of the Armenian genocide, are entitled to recognition of the status as victims and deserve our respect and compassion. There are no States above international law and no legal black hole. Genocide is a crime and has always been a crime under domestic law and
under the law of nations. This crime gives rise to State responsibility and to personal criminal liability. No statutes of limitations apply with respect to genocide. The perpetrator State or any successor State is under an obligation to prosecute and punish the officials responsible for this crime, and to grant restitution and make other forms of reparation to the descendants of the victims, to the survivors and to their descendants.
The Genocide Convention of 1948 strengthened the claims of the Armenians. It did not create their rights, since the Convention was declarative, not constitutive of the existing law of nations. Pursuant to the Convention, the International Court of Justice in the Hague should be called upon to deliver an advisory opinion concerning the legal consequences today of the Armenian genocide.

Biography

Juan E. Mendez has taught at the International Human Rights Law at Georgetown Law School and at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He teaches regularly at the Oxford Masters Program in International Human Rights Law in the United Kingdom.
For 15 years, Mr. Mendez worked with Human Rights Watch, concentrating his efforts on human rights issues in the Western Hemisphere. In 1994, he became the General Counsel of Human Rights Watch, with worldwide duties in support of the organization’s mission, including responsibility for the organization’s litigation and standard-setting activities. From 1996 to 1999, Mr. Méndez was the Executive Director of the Inter-American Institute of Human rights in Costa Rica, and between October 1999 and May 2004 he was Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Civil and Human Rights at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana. Between 2000 and 2003, he was a member of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States, and served as its President in 2002. In July 2004, Mr. Méndez was appointed the United Nations Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide, a post that is complementary to his full-time position as the President of the International Center for Transitional Justice.

Mr. Mendez’ presentation is entitled The Gross Violation of Human Rights: The U.N. and Prevention of Genocide. The presentation will discuss the mandate and terms of reference of the newly-created office of the Special Advisor to the Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide. Mr. Mendez will illustrate some of the challenges of devising an early warning/early action procedure, and offer recent examples of actions taken by the SASGPG in specific situations.

Biography

William Schabas is the director of the Irish Centre for Human Rights at the National University of Ireland, Galway, where he holds the professorship in human rights law. An expert on international criminal law, he is the author of several books including the authoritative Genocide in International Law, published in English by Cambridge University Press and in German (Genozid im Völkerrecht). Professor Schabas recently served as a member of the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He is an honorary professor of human rights law at the Law Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing.

Mr. Schabas’ presentation is titled The ‘Odious Scourge’: Evolving Interpretations of the Crime of Genocide. After being virtually stagnant for several decades, from the time the definition of genocide was codified in December 1948 in the Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, in recent years there have been important and even dramatic developments in the interpretation of the norm. In particular, recent judgments of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda have provided important clarifications of such issues as the nature of the groups protected by the Convention, the meaning of ‘in part’, and the distinction between genocide and ethnic cleansing.

Biography

Mr. Bauer was born in 1926 in Prague. Studied at University of Wales at Cardiff. Ph.D. from Hebrew University, Jerusalem. 1982-1995 he was the founding Chair of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism (SICSA) at Hebrew University. 1986-1995 Editor of the Journal of Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Now Mr. Bauer is the academic adviser in Yad Vashem. He obtains visitor professorships in University of Honolulu at Manoa, Yale University, Ida E. King Distinguished Visiting Scholar of Holocaust Studies, Richard Stockton College, New Jersey, Clark University, Worcester, Mass.
His publications (English Books only) include From Diplomacy to Resistance (1970), My Brother's Keeper (1974), Flight and Rescue. Random House (1975), The Holocaust in Historical Perspective (1978), The Jewish Emergence From Powerlessness (1979), American Jewry and the Holocaust (1982), History of the Holocaust (1984), Jewish Reactions to the Holocaust (1988), Out of the Ashes (1989), Jews for Sale? (1995), and Rethinking the Holocaust (2001). He is the editor of The Holocaust as Historical Experience (1981).

Mr. Bauer’s presentation is titled Can Genocide Be Avoided? The definition of genocide in the 1948 Convention is problematic, and what is needed is a strategy to get around the problems of definition. The international political world has so far failed to deal with genocidal threats – in the 20th century from the Herero genocide, through the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, Rwanda, and now Darfur. There are now the tools to foretell outbreaks of mass violence, and the beginnings of an awareness of how to deal with these threats. The major obstacles are, of course, great power interests, denial, which is particularly blatant in the Armenian case, and impunity, though with regard to the latter the establishment of the International Criminal Court may lead to better results. Academics cannot limit themselves to analysis and writing, they must become active participants in efforts directed against the recurrence of genocides and genocidal threats.

Eric Markusen

Biography

Eric Markusen is Senior Research Fellow at the Danish Institute of International Studies, Department for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Copenhagen. He is on leave as Professor of Sociology and Social Work at Southwest Minnesota State University, USA. His publications include The Genocidal Mentality: Nazi Holocaust and Nuclear Threat, with Robert Jay Lifton, and The Holocaust and Strategic Bombing: Genocide and Total War in the Twentieth Century, with David Kopf. Markusen is on the editorial boards of the Journal of Genocide Research and Journal of Human Rights. His current work focuses on the genocides in Bosnia, Rwanda, and Sudan and the work of the International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

Mr. Markusen’s presentation is titled: Genocide in Rwanda and Sudan: A Comparative Assessment of US and UN Responses. In Rwanda, the United States avoided labeling the killing as genocide, and the UN Security Council reduced the number of UN peacekeeping forces. In Darfur, the USA investigated allegations of genocide and then publicly accused the Government of Sudan of genocide, and the UN Security Council sent a Commission of Inquiry to Darfur, and, on 31 March 2005, voted to refer the Darfur case to the International Criminal Court. This presentation will consider possible reasons for, and implications of, these two different responses. It will also address the inadequacy of current policies toward the genocide in Darfur.

Rouben Adalian
Director, Armenian National Institute
USA

Biography

Rouben Adalian is the director of the Armenian National Institute (ANI) in Washington, DC. He is the author of Historical Dictionary of Armenia and From Humanism to Rationalism: Armenian Scholarship in the Nineteenth Century. He is the compiler and editor of The Armenian Genocide in the U.S. Archives, 1915-1918, a 37,000-page collection of American documents. He is also the compiler and editor of the ANI Web site (www.armenian-genocide.org.) He was an associate editor of the Encyclopedia of Genocide, and has contributed to numerous publications, including America and the Armenian Genocide; Century of Genocide; Studies in Comparative Genocide; Pioneers of Genocide Studies; and Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa. Mr. Adalian has taught at The George Washington University, Georgetown University, and Johns Hopkins University.
Mr. Adalian’s presentation is titled Promoting Recognition of the Armenian Genocide via Third-Parties. The 21st century opened with expectations for nations to build new relations unshackled by the burdens of the past. Armenia and Turkey have yet to participate in this emerging world order. The uses and abuses of historical memory define the relations between Armenia and Turkey. The decades-long campaign of denial of the Armenian Genocide by the Republic of Turkey continues to hinder and derail opportunities to consider a different future together as neighbors. In the absence of formal inter-state relations, efforts for international affirmation of the Armenian Genocide and their obstruction have become a substitute for genuine political dialogue.

Taner Akcam
Professor
University of Minnesota
USA

Biography

As editor-in-chief of a political journal, Taner Akcam became interested in Turkish politics at an early age. He was arrested in 1976 in Turkey and sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment. Managing to escape one year later, he fled to Germany as a political refugee, where he focused, among other social issues, on immigrant rights and worked actively in developing dialogues across various ethnic groups in Germany, especially Turks, Greeks, Serbians, Portuguese and Kurds.
Mr. Akcam received his Ph. D. from Hanover University with a dissertation titled, Turkish Nationalism and the Armenian Genocide: On the Background of the Military Tribunals in Istanbul between 1919 and 1922. He has since lectured and published extensively on this topic, with four books, including From Empire to Republic: Turkish Nationalism and the Armenian Genocide (2004), and articles in Turkish and German. Since 1988, he has held the position of Research Scientist in Sociology, Hamburger Institut fur Sozialforschung, and has twice been Visiting Scholar at the Armenian Research Center, University of Michigan at Dearborn.

Mr. Akcam’s presentation is titled Obstacles to Armenian-Turkish Reconciliation. The presentation will discuss three ideas on the subject of obstacles to Armenian-Turkish reconciliation, and remark on the possibility of reconciliation between the Turkish and Armenian communities. The first idea will elaborate on collective categories, or the issue of the balance between individual and group identity. Mr. Akcam’s will also address the relationship between past and present or the problem of defining collective identity over time. Finally, he will discuss the stereotyping and dehumanizing of one group by the other.

Yair Auron
Professor
The Open University
Israel

Biography

Yair Auron is a professor at The Open University of Israel. He is the author of numerous articles and books on genocide and on contemporary Judaism, including Jewish Israeli Identity, We Are All German Jews: Jewish Radicals in France During the Sixties and Seventies, The Banality of Indifference: Zionism and the Armenian Genocide, The Banality of Denial: Israel ad the Armenian Genocide and The Pain knowledge: reflections on Holocaust and Genocide Issues in Education.
Mr. Auron’s presentation is titled The Pain of Knowledge; Reflections o Holocaust and Genocide Issues in Education. This paper will briefly analyze the difficulties to introduce Genocide Studies to high schools and universities in the world, though it is understood that education is necessary for preventing genocides, or, at least, limit their occurrences. The paper will then focus on the situation in Israel, were the Holocaust is taught, but the educational system and the universities usually avoid dealing with other genocides.

Elazar Barkan
Professor
Claremont Graduate University
USA

Biography

Elazar Barkan is professor of history and cultural studies at Claremont Graduate University in Los Angeles, California, and the director of the Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation. Mr. Barkan's research interests focus on the role of history in contemporary society and politics, with particular emphasis on the response to gross historical crimes and injustices. Among his works, he is the author of The Guilt of Nations: Restitution and Negotiating Historical Injustices (2000); Claiming the Stones/Naming the Bones: Cultural Property and the Negotiation of National and Ethnic Identity, (an edited volume with Ronald Bush, Getty, 2003); Taking Wrongs Seriously: Apologies and Reconciliation.

Mr. Barkan’s presentation is titled Can memory of genocide lead to reconciliation? The paper investigates the role of historical narratives in bridging national animosity by referring to various examples where countries acknowledged their own responsibility for historical crimes, and of the importance of such recognition as a tool of reconciliation. Although the recounting of history has been exploited to provoke conflict, incite war, and inflame genocides, Mr. Barkan asks whether it can also be drawn upon to facilitate reconciliation. Although national conflicts are based upon extensive real animosity, the history of nations is never one of undifferentiated hostility. The recognition of the multiple layers of the historical injustices and wrongs may provide for new processes and perspectives that could contribute to acknowledgments, recognition and a potential resolution of conflict.

Murat Belge
Professor
Bilgi University, Istanbul
Turkey

Biography

Murat Belge is a professor at the Bilgi University in Istanbul, Turkey. He received his B.A. in English Language and Literature from Istanbul University in 1966, and his Ph.D. in English Language and Literature, from Istanbul University in 1969.

Mr. Belge’s presentation is titled Memory, Forgetting, and Silence: How Collectivities Remember Their Past and Implications for Current Relations.

Israel Charny
Executive director,
Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide
Israel

Biography

Israel Charny is Executive Director of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem, a position he has held since 1980. He is Editor-in-Chief of the first Encyclopedia of Genocide (1999) and its e-book on the Internet, 2003. He is the creator and editor of an international newsletter, Internet on the Holocaust and Genocide, from 1985-1995 (56 issues published); founder of the series, Genocide: A Critical Bibliographic Review, and editor of its first 3 volumes: Volume 1,1988, Volume 2, 1991, Volume 3, 1994; and author of several books, including How Can We Commit the Unthinkable? Genocide: The Human Cancer (1982).

Mr. Charny’s presentation is titled The effects of Genocide denial on the deniers - individuals and nations: Progress and Continuing Challenges in the Battle against Denial. Mr. Charny writes that there is tremendous and even decisive progress against Turkish denials of the Armenian Genocide including some acknowledgements of the Armenian Genocide even by some Turkish people and writers. However, this progress now faces resolute and desperate counterattacks by a Turkish side, which knows it is losing the battle but still won’t yield, even though denials are basically corrosive and injurious to its own development and society. On the part of the Armenian people, in a pattern entirely similar to the Jewish people, the time is coming to grow from a strictly victim-focused experience to an ability to acknowledge other victims of the Armenian Genocide; the development of an ability to acknowledge any instances of victimization of others; and most of all the development of a new strength to contribute to the acknowledgments of past genocides of other peoples in the world, and to contribute to the battle against new cases of genocide and genocidal terrorism in our contemporary world.

Vahakn N. Dadrian
Retired Professor of Sociology
Zoryan Institute
USA

Biography

Vahakn Dadrian received his undergraduate and graduate education in Europe at the University of Berlin in mathematics, the University of Vienna in history and the University of Zürich in international law. His training in the United States was in the social sciences, culminating with a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago.
In the last fifteen years he has lectured extensively in French, English and German in European universities, among them the Free University of Berlin, the Universities of Munich, Parma, Torino, Zürich and Uppsala. In 1991, he was a guest lecturer at the Universities of Frankfurt am Main, Cologne, Bochum and Münster. He has given a series of lectures at the Universities of Amsterdam and Utrecht in the Netherlands (1993-1994), the Universities of Geneva and Brussels (1996 and 1998) and UNESCO’s Paris centre (1999).
He currently is Director of Genocide Research with the Zoryan Institute. He has authored many books, monographs and articles including The History of the Armenian Genocide. Ethnic Conflict from the Balkans to Anatolia to the Caucasus (1995), German Responsibility in the Armenian Genocide: A Review of the Historical Evidence of German Complicity (1996), and Warrant for Genocide: Key Elements of Turko-Armenian Conflict (1999).

Mr. Dadrian’s presentation is titled Impunity as a Factor in the Armenian Genocide and its Sequela. Mr. Dadrian argues that the Armenian Genocide was not a sui generis act of criminality but rather the culmination of a series of episodic massacres ante-dating it in the decades preceding World War I. The unpunished character of these massacres was a major factor in emboldening the Ottoman-Turkish decision-makers to conceive, plan, organize and implement that Genocide. Hence, impunity emerges not only as a basic, common denominator in all these instances of mass murder affording their sustained incidence, but also as a basic challenge to the domain of retributive justice in international criminal law.

Nikolay Hovhannisyan
Professor, Director, Institute of Oriental Studies, NAS
Armenia

Biography

Nikolay Hovhannisyan is the director of the Institute of Oriental Studies at the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia, as well as founder and director of the Conflict Resolution Center of Armenia. He is a specialist on the history of Arab countries, international and regional relations in the Middle East, ethno-political conflicts and genocide studies. He is the author of more than thirty books published in Armenian, Russian, English, Arabic, German, Italian, and French, among them History of the Arab countries, vol. 1,2, The Armenian Genocide in Elucidation of Arabic historical Science, The Armenian Genocide. Armenocide (in English), Armenian Genocide (in English, French, German, Russian), and The Karabakh Problem (in English). He is a member of the New York Academy of Sciences; the International Academy of Sciences on National Security Problems, in Moscow; the Ararat International Academy of Sciences, in Paris; the International Academy of Sciences of Nature and Society; and the Syrian Society of Sciences.

Mr. Hovhannisyan’s paper is titled Third Party Involvement in Prevention and Perpetration: The Armenian Case. Genocide is a process passes through three stages: preparatory, genocidal and post-genocidal. Besides the two main parties – executioner and its victim -- there is often a third party at the local, interstate or international level. Its role can be preventive, perpetrative or neutral. In the Armenian case Kurds, Circassians, Germany and Austro-Hungary were involved in the Armenian Genocide as perpetrative parties, while the Arabs formed a preventive party. England, France and Russia were potentially preventive party during the Armenian Genocide.

Donald E. Miller
Professor
University of Southern California
USA

Biography

Donald E. Miller is the Executive Director of the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at University of Southern California as well as a professor of religion and sociology. He is the author/editor of seven books, including Armenia: Portraits of Survival and Hope (2003), Survivors: An Oral History of the Armenian Genocide (1993), GenX Religion (2000), Reinventing American Protestantism (1997), Homeless Families: The Struggle for Dignity (1993), Writing and Research in Religious Studies (1992), and The Case for Liberal Christianity (1981). With his wife, Lorna, he has partnered with an association of orphans in Rwanda on an oral history project documenting the 1994 genocide.

Mr. Miller’s presentation is titled Responses to Genocide: A Comparison of Armenian and Rwandan Survivors. This paper is based on oral history interviews with survivors of two genocides, the Armenian genocide of 1915 and the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. One hundred interviews were done with elderly Armenians who reflected on their experience as children and 160 interviews were conducted with survivors of the Rwanda genocide. The Armenian survivors exhibited 6 different characteristic responses to their experience of the genocide: 1) avoidance and repression, 2) outrage and anger, 3) revenge and restitution, 4) reconciliation and forgiveness, 5) resignation and despair, and 6) explanation and rationalization. This typology of responses among Armenians is compared to the sample of Rwandan survivors for whom the experience is still very fresh and raw.

Richard Hovhannisian
Professor
UCLA
USA

Biography

Richard G. Hovannisian is Professor of Armenian and Near Eastern History at the University of California, Los Angeles. A member of the UCLA faculty since 1962, he has organized the undergraduate and graduate programs in Armenian and Caucasian history. In 1987, Professor Hovannisian was appointed the first holder of the Armenian Educational Foundation Endowed Chair in Modern Armenian History at the University of California, Los Angeles. From 1978 to 1995, he also served as the Associate Director of the G.E. von Grunebaum Center for Near Eastern Studies.
Mr. Hovannisian received his B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of California, Berkeley, and his Ph.D. from UCLA. He is the author of Armenia on the Road to Independence (1967); The Republic of Armenia, 4 volumes (1971-96); The Armenian Holocaust (1980); has edited and contributed to The Armenian Image in History and Literature (1981), The Armenian Genocide in Perspective (1986), The Armenian Genocide: History, Politics, Ethics (1992); The Armenian People
from Ancient to Modern Times, 2 volumes (1997); Remembrance and Denial: The Case of the Armenian Genocide (1998), Enlightenment and Diaspora: The Armenian and Jewish Cases (1999), Armenian Van/Vaspurakan (2000), Armenian Baghesh/Bitlis and Taron/Mush (2001), Armenian Tsopk/Kharpert (2002), Armenian Karin/Erzerum (2003); Looking Backward, Moving Forward: Confronting the Armenian Genocide (2003) and six other books on Near Eastern society and culture, and has published more than sixty scholarly articles.
Mr. Hovannisian is a Guggenheim Fellow and has received many honors for his scholarship, civic activities, and advancement of Armenian Studies, including election to membership in the Armenian National Academy of Science, honorary doctoral degrees from Yerevan State University and Artsakh State University. Mr. Hovannisian is a founder and three-time president of the Society for Armenian Studies.

Mr. Hovannisian’s presentation is titled Looking Backward, Moving Forward

Ruben Safrastian
Professor
National Academy of Sciences
Armenia

Biography

Ruben Safrastyan is Director of Department of Turkish Studies at Institute of Oriental Studies at the Armenian National Academy of Sciences, and is as a professor at the Acharyan University. Ruben Safrastyan’s current research interests focus on the problems of thegenesis of genocide, Armenian-Turkish interstate relations, and problems of Turkish politics and ideology.
His most recent publications include the following books: It Is Impossible To Set Up Barriers Between Neighbors in the XXI Century…: Armenia and Turkey in Regional Developments (2003); Proto-genocide: Problems of Theory and History (2005, forthcoming) and articles: “Turkey and Eurasia in the Aftermath of the September 11 Tragedy: Some Observations on Geopolitics and Foreign Policy”, Caucasus and Central Asia Newsletter: The Caucasus and Central Asia Program at the University of California, Berkeley, 2001; “Armenian-Turkish Relations: An Attempt at a Theoretical Interpretation from the Standpoints of the Realist School”, Directions of the Armenian Foreign Policy: Collection of Articles, 2002; “On the Ideological Substantiation of Turkey’s Regional Policy: Concept of Eurasia”, The South Caucasus: Regional Security and Stability, 2004; “The Return of ‘Grey Wolves’: Conservative Party in Turkish Politics (1983-1985)”, The Countries and Peoples of the Near and Middle East. Vol. XXIII, 2004; Mr. Safrastyan is the editor of Turkish and Ottoman Studies, in Yerevan.

Mr. Safrastyan’s presentation is titled Test of Maturity: The Genocide Factor in Armenia’s Foreign Policy. The Genocide as a factor in foreign policy is analyzed not only from the point of view of bilateral relations with Turkey, but also in the context of several world political processes. Mr.Safrastyan argues that the inclusion of the issue of recognition and condemnation of the Genocide into the agenda of Armenia’s foreign policy testifies to its maturity. At the same time, the presentation emphasizes that a further adherence to this course will require Armenian diplomacy to more clearly define its objectives.

Yossi Sarid
Member of Knesset
Israel

Biography

Yossi Sarid is a journalist, writing a regular column for the Ha'aretz daily newspaper, as well as numerous articles for the local and international press. He received his M.A. in Political Science from the New School for Social Research in New York.
Since 1974, Mr. Sarid has been a Member of the Knesset, and served on the following committees: Education and Culture (1974-77), House (1974-92), and Foreign Affairs and Defence (1977-92). He has also served as the chairman of the Meretz Knesset faction (1992). He served as Minister of the Environment from January 1993, until June 1996; and in 2000, as Minister of Education. Mr. Sarid, who today heads the Meretz party, is currently a member of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee and the Immigration and Absorption Committee.

Mr. Sarid’s presentation is titled Israel's position regarding the Armenian Genocide. Mr. Sarid offers a critical view of the Israeli official position with respect to the Armenian Genocide. Mr. Sarid is the first and only Israeli official to openly participate in the commemoration of the Armenian Genocide and call for its recognition.

Roger W. Smith
Professor
College of William and Mary
USA
Biography

Roger W. Smith is professor emeritus of government at the College of William and Mary in Virginia. He has written widely on the nature, history, and prevention of genocide. He is co-founder and past president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars. Professor Smith is director of the Zoryan Institute's Genocide and Human Rights University Program and chair of Zoryan's Academic Advisory Board.

Mr. Smith’s presentation is titled The Significance of the Armenian Genocide after Ninety Years. The Armenian Genocide continues to have major implications nearly a century after it was enacted: knowledge of how and why genocides are committed, how they may be prevented, the culture of impunity, continuing denial and its consequences, and possible steps toward conciliation between Turkey and Armenia at the state level.

Gregory Stanton
Professor
Mary Washington College
USA

Biography

Gregory Stanton is the James Farmer Professor of Human Rights at Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg, Virginia, and is the President of Genocide Watch and Director of the Cambodian Genocide Project.
Mr. Stanton has worked on human rights issues since 1960. He served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Ivory Coast, Africa and as the Church World Service/CARE Field Director in Cambodia in 1980. He has received his degrees from Oberlin College, Harvard Divinity School, and Yale Law School, and a Doctorate in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Chicago.
Mr. Stanton has been a Law Professor at Washington and Lee and American Universities and the University of Swaziland. He was a legal advisor to the Ukrainian independence movement. He served in the State Department from 1992 to 1999, where he wrote the United Nations resolutions that created the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Mr. Stanton was a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars from 2001 to 2002.

Mr. Stanton’s presentation is titled Factors Facilitating and Impeding Genocide

Biography

John Torpey received his B.A in Political Science from Amherst College, and his M.A. (1987) and Ph.D. (1992) in Sociology from the University of California, at Berkeley. He is Associate Professor of Sociology and European Studies at the University of British Columbia.

Mr. Torpey’s presentation is titled Dynamics of Denial: Coming to Terms with the Past in Turkey and Japan. The presentation will explore the reticence about coming to terms with past atrocities that is widely held to characterize contemporary Turkey and Japan, with an eye toward understanding the extent to which they maintain their stances vis-à-vis past wrongdoing and why they do so. The discussion considers the particularities of the misdeeds in each case; the problematic application of the terms “genocide” and “holocaust”; and the extent and nature of domestic and external pressures for “coming to terms with the past” in each country. Finally, Mr. Torpey will seek to draw lessons for the future from these two cases.