Joyce A. Apsel Joyce Apsel, Ph.D., J.D. is an historian, attorney and Master Teacher in the Liberal Studies Program at New York University, where she teaches courses in Great Books and on Genocide and Human Rights. She has taught courses on genocide from a multi-disciplinary, comparative perspective at a variety of institutions, including a graduate course at Drew University in New Jersey on The Armenian Genocide and the Politics of Denial. She is founder and director of the non-profit Rights Works International, an international educational project, and conducts in-class workshops for students (middle school and up) and teachers on issues of genocide and human rights. Dr. Apsel is currently President of the Institute for the Study of Genocide and a former president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars (2001-2003). For four years she was Director of Education for the Anne Frank Center USA and traveled nationally with their exhibits conducting workshops on tolerance education and the history of genocide and human rights. Dr. Apsel is the co-editor of Peace Museums: Past, Present and Future (Kyoto, Japan, 2008) and editor of Darfur: Genocide before Our Eyes (3rd edition 2007); and Teaching about Human Rights (2005). She is co-editor with Helen Fein of Teaching about Genocide (3rd ed. published in 2002) and has written articles on a range of subjects including education, children's rights, and Darfur. Dr. Apsel is current NGO/DPI representative for the International Network of Museums for Peace at the United Nations as well as a jurist for the biennial Lemkin Award for the outstanding work on genocide. She is the recipient of the New York University 2008-2009 Distinguished Teaching Award.

Brent Beardsley Major Brent Beardsley, born in Ottawa and raised in Montreal, is a 30-year veteran of the Canadian Army. He graduated from a Pre-Arts program at Sir George Williams University (1974), completed a BA in History from Concordia University (1977), a post-graduate diploma in Education from McGill University (1978) and a Masters Degree in Applied Science in Management (1999) from the Royal Military College of Canada. Major Beardsley joined the Canadian Forces as an Infantry Officer in 1978. He has served four tours of regimental duty with operational tours in Norway, Germany and Cyprus. On extra-regimental duty he has been employed as an instructor on the Basic Officer Training Course, as a doctrine author responsible for the first draft of the first Canadian Forces Peacekeeping Manual and as the Chief Instructor of the Canadian Forces Peacekeeping Training Center. He is currently a research officer at the Canadian Forces Leadership Institute. In 1993 and 1994, before and during the genocide in Rwanda, Major Beardsley served as the Personal Staff Officer to then Major-General Romeo Dallaire, the Force Commander of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda. Major Beardsley was an eyewitness to the genocide in Rwanda and testified for the prosecution in the case against Colonel Theoneste Bagasora, the alleged architect of the Rwandan Genocide, at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha Tanzania in 2004. Major Beardsley collaborated with General Dallaire on the best-selling book, Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda, which was released in Canada in the fall of 2003. Major Beardsley has also collaborated in a number of documentaries, a motion picture, papers, chapters, articles and commemorative events about the Rwandan Genocide. Major Beardsley resides in Kingston, Ontario with his wife Margaret and children Jessica, Joshua and Jackson. He is currently completing a second graduate degree at RMC focusing on genocide studies and humanitarian intervention.

Doris L. Bergen Doris L. Bergen is the Chancellor Rose and Ray Wolfe Professor of Holocaust Studies at the University of Toronto. She is the author of War and Genocide: A Concise History of the Holocaust; Twisted Cross: The German Christian Movement in the Third Reich; and numerous articles on issues of religion, gender, and ethnicity in the Holocaust and World War II. Bergen received her PhD from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in 1991, and has taught at the Universities of Notre Dame and Vermont. She is a member of the Academic Advisory Committee of the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.

 

Maureen Hiebert Maureen S. Hiebert is Assistant Professor, Law and Society Program, Faculty of Communications and Culture, at the University of Calgary. She has previously taught courses in international relations and comparative politics in the Department of Political Science, University of Calgary, comparative genocide at the Department of Political Science, University of Toronto (St. George campus) and acted as a guest lecturer on the Cambodian genocide at McMaster University. Prof. Hiebert received her PhD from the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto (March 2007) where she wrote her dissertation, The Origins of Genocide: Political Culture, Crisis, and the Construction of Victims, in which she explored the role played by collective identity construction in the perpetration of the Holocaust and the Cambodian genocide. Prof. Hiebert has presented several papers on comparative genocide theory, social constructivism, and collective identity construction at academic conferences for the International Association of Genocide Scholars, the Canadian Political Science Association, the Canadian Sociological and Anthropological Association, the Midwest Political Science Association, and the Annual MAIR Conference at the Munk Centre for International Studies. Prof. Hiebert was lecture series chair for the Cambodian Genocide Group at the University of Toronto from 2004-2005 (Cambodian genocide) and 2006-2007 (Responsibility to Protect) and is an advisory board member of the CGG. Her research interests include comparative genocide theory and methodology, the Holocaust, the Cambodian genocide, comparative politics, processes of elite decision-making, international relations and international relations theory, international human rights law, humanitarian intervention, and the role of the international community in the genocidal process. Prof. Hiebert is the author of several book reviews including Adam Jones's Gendercide and Genocide and Manus Midlarsky's The Killing Trap. As a research fellow at the CMSS, Prof. Hiebert is preparing a book manuscript based on her dissertation for publication, as well as two articles: "The Three 'Switches' of Genocide: Collective Identity Construction, Elite Decision-Making, and the Genocidal Process" and "Comparative Genocide Theory: The State of the Discipline."

 

Herbert Hirsch Herbert Hirsch is Professor of Government and Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia, where he teaches courses on American politics; political psychology; and the politics of war, violence and genocide. He is the author of several books and numerous articles and book reviews, including Genocide and the Politics of Memory (1995), and Anti-Genocide: Building an American Movement to Prevent Genocide (2002). He has presented papers at The American Political Science Association, International Studies Association, Southwestern Social Science Association, American Historical Association, Southern Political Science Association, Western Political Science Association, Annual Scholar's Conference on The Holocaust, Australian Association of Jewish Studies, Remembering for the Future II, Berlin, Germany, Fourth International Stockholm Forum on Preventing Genocide, and several others. Dr. Hirsch serves on numerous advisory boards and regularly offers a course on The Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights at the Virginia Holocaust Memorial Museum. He gave a seminar for the policy planning staff at the U.S. Department of State about the events in Bosnia in 1992 and has lectured in Australia, Canada, England, Ireland, Germany and Sweden. Dr. Hirsch was selected as one of 30 scholars to participate in the Goldner Symposium on Post-Holocaust Ethics at Wroxton College in Oxfordshire, England. He is also one of twenty-two scholars whose biography is featured in Pioneers in Genocide Studies: Confronting Mass Death in the Century of Genocide. Dr. Hirsch is currently working on a new book, tentatively titled Preventing Genocide in the New Century and is an editor of Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal.

Richard G. Hovannisian Richard G. Hovannisian is Professor of Armenian and Near Eastern History and Holder of the Armenian Educational Foundation Chair in Modern Armenian History at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He was born and reared in Tulare, California, received his B.A. and M.A. in history from the University of California, Berkeley, and Ph.D. in history from UCLA. A member of the UCLA faculty since 1962, he has organized both the undergraduate and graduate programs in Armenian history at the University and has guided a number of students to the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Armenian History and a productive academic career. He served as the Associate Director of UCLA's Center for Near Eastern Studies from 1978 to 1995. He became the first Holder of the AEF Chair in 1986. Professor Hovannisian has authored, edited or contributed to 24 volumes on Armenian history, the Armenian Genocide, and comparative genocide, as well as other subjects. He has received many honors for his scholarship, civic activities, and advancement of academic studies. A Guggenheim Fellow, he is the first recipient of the "iWitness Award," conferred by Jewish World Watch in 2007 for his contribution to genocide studies. A Guggenheim Fellow, Hovannisian has received many honors for his scholarship, civic activities, and advancement of Armenian studies. He is a founder and six-time president of the Society for Armenian Studies and serves on the editorial boards of five journals and on the boards of directors of ten scholarly and civic organizations. He has given hundreds of lectures and participated in numerous international forums and in the media on Armenian issues. He is listed in the Who's Who, Who's Who in the World, Who's Who in America, The Writers Directory, and other biographical volumes. Hovannisian represented the State of California on the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education from 1978 to 1994, and has served as a consultant to the California State Board of Education, authoring the chapter on the Armenian Genocide in the State's Social Studies Model Curriculum on Human Rights and Genocide. Professor Hovannisian is the recipient of the Medal of Mesrop Mashtots from His Holiness Karekin II of the Great House of Cilicia in 1982, Medal of Saints Sahak and Mesrop from Catholicos of All Armenians Garegin II in 2001, and Knight of Cilicia from His Holiness Aram I in 2001. In 1990, Richard Hovannisian became the first social scientist living abroad to be elected to the Armenian National Academy of Sciences. He has received honorary doctorate degrees from Yerevan State University (1994) and Artsakh (Karabagh) State University (1997). In May 1998, on the occasion of the eightieth anniversary of the founding of the first Armenian republic, he was awarded the Movses Khorenatsi medal by the Republic of Armenia, and subsequently was awarded with a similar medal from the Republic of Mountainous Karabagh. He has been honored by the Armenian Educational Foundation, the Armenian National Academy of Sciences, the Facing History and Ourselves Foundation, the Jewish World Watch, the Hamazkayine Educational and Cultural Association, and the Western Diocese of the Armenian Church for his achievements during fifty years of teaching, research, writing, and lecturing worldwide about Armenian history, culture, and current issues.

 

William A. Schabas Professor William A. Schabas is director of the Irish Centre for Human Rights at the National University of Ireland, Galway, where he also holds the chair in human rights law. Professor Schabas holds B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Toronto and LL.B., LL.M. and LL.D. degrees from the University of Montreal, as well as an honorary doctorate from Dalhousie University. Professor Schabas is the author of twenty-one books dealing in whole or in part with international human rights law, including Introduction to the International Criminal Court (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007, 3rd ed.), Genocide in International Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2nd ed., 2009), The Abolition of the Death Penalty in International Law (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003, 3rd ed.), International Human Rights and Canadian Law (Toronto, Carswell, 2007, 3rd ed.), The Death Penalty as Cruel Treatment and Torture (Boston, Northeastern University Press, 1996) and Précis du droit international des droits de la personne (Montréal, Éditions Yvon Blais, 1997). He received the Certificate of Merit of the American Society of International Law at its 2007 Annual Meeting for his book The UN International Criminal Tribunals: Former Yugoslavia, Rwanda and Sierra Leone (Cambridge, Cambridge University press, 2006). He has also published more than 250 articles in academic journals, principally in the field of international human rights law and international criminal law. His writings have been translated into several languages, including Russian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Nepali and Albanian. Professor Schabas is editor-in-chief of Criminal Law Forum, the quarterly journal of the International Society for the Reform of Criminal Law. Professor Schabas has often been invited to participate in international human rights missions on behalf of non-governmental organizations such as Amnesty International (International Secretariat), the International Federation of Human Rights, and the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development to Rwanda, Burundi, South Africa, Kenya, Uganda, Sudan, Cambodia and Guyana. He was a delegate of the International Centre for Criminal Law Reform and Criminal Justice Policy to the United Nations Diplomatic Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court, Rome, June 15-July 17, 1998. He is a member of the board of several international human rights organizations and institutions, including the International Institute for Criminal Investigation, of which he is chair, and the International Institute for Human Rights (Strasbourg). In 2006, he was appointed by the Secretary-General of the United Nations as a member of the five-person board of the United Nations Voluntary Fund for Technical Assistance in the Field of Human Rights. From 1991 to 2000, William Schabas was professor of human rights law and criminal law at the Département des sciences juridiques of the Université du Québec à Montréal, a Department he chaired from 1994-1998; he now holds the honorary position of professeur associé at that institution. He is also an honorary professor at the Law Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing. He has taught as a visiting or adjunct professor at McGill University, Université de Montréal, Université de Montpellier, Université de Paris X-Nanterre, Université de Paris XI, Université de Paris II Pantheon-Assas, Dalhousie University, Université de Genève and National University of Rwanda, and he has lectured at the International Institute for Human Rights (Strasbourg), the Canadian Foreign Service Institute, the United Nations Institute for Training and Research and the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre. He was a member of the Quebec Human Rights Tribunal from 1996 to 2000, and a member of the Quebec Bar from 1985 to 2005. Professor Schabas was a senior fellow at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington during the academic year 1998-99. In 1998, Professor Schabas was awarded the Bora Laskin Research Fellowship in Human Rights by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. In May 2002, the President of Sierra Leone appointed Professor Schabas to the country's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, upon the recommendation of Mary Robinson, the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights. In 2006, the Secretary-General of the United Nations appointed him a member of the Board of Trustees of the United Nations Voluntary Fund for Technical Assistance in the Field of Human Rights. Professor Schabas was named an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2006. He was elected a member of the Royal Irish Academy in 2007.

 

Roger W. Smith Roger W. Smith is Professor Emeritus of Government at the College of William and Mary in Virginia, where he has taught political theory and the comparative study of genocide. Prof. Smith has written extensively on the nature, language, history and denial of genocide. In addition to numerous articles, he is the editor and co-author of Guilt: Man and Society, and editor of Genocide: Essays Toward Understanding, Early-Warning, and Prevention. He is a founding member of the International Association of Genocide Scholars. As a president of the IAGS, he has spoken extensively on the topic of genocide in the United States, Canada, France and Armenia. In 2000, Prof. Smith gave testimony before the U.S. Congress relating to the Armenian Genocide Resolution (H. Res. 596). Dr. Smith has been honoured by the Armenian Students Association with the Arthur Dadian Award for the preservation and presentation of Armenian history. In 2008 he was awarded the Movses Khorenatsi Medal by the president of Armenia "for his considerable contribution to the international recognition of the Armenian Genocide." The Khorenatsi medal is the Republic of Armenia's highest award presented by the president to people who have significantly contributed to the advancement of Armenian culture. Since 2003, he has been the Director of the Genocide and Human Rights University Program, and since 2004, Chair of the International Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (A Division of the Zoryan Institute).

 

Samuel Totten Samuel Totten earned a doctoral degree at Teachers College, Columbia University. He has taught at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, since 1987. In 2009, he served as a Fulbright Scholar at the Centre for Conflict Management at the National University of Rwanda. During the 2009-2010 academic year he is going to hold the Ida King Distinguished Visiting Fellow Chair in the Masters Program of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey. During the summer of 2004, Totten served as one of the 24 investigators with the U.S. State Department's Atrocities Documentation Project (ADP), interviewing refugees from Darfur located in camps along the Chad/Sudan border. On September 9, 2004, following his analysis of the data contained in the 1,000 plus interviews conducted by the ADP, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell informed the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee that he had made the determination that the Government of Sudan and Janjaweed had perpetrated genocide against the black Africans of Darfur. Totten's current research is focused on the current genocide in Darfur, and the status of survivors in post-genocide Rwanda. Over the past four years he has conducted field-based research along the Chad/Darfur border, and throughout Rwanda. For four years (2000-2005), Totten served as the book review editor of the Journal of Genocide Research. Since 2005 he has served as one of the founding co-editors of Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal (University of Toronto Press). Totten is the Series Editor of Books on Genocide for Transaction Publishers. The most recent books in the series, all of which Totten edited, are: Genocide at the Millennium; The Prevention and Intervention of Genocide; and The Plight and Fate of Women during and Following Genocide. The next two volumes in the series - Genocide of Indigenous Peoples, and The Impediments to the Prevention and Intervention of Genocide - are currently under way. Totten is the author of numerous articles and two books on genocide, and the editor and co-editor of many edited volumes on genocide. The most recent book he has written, with Dr. Paul Bartrop, is Dictionary of Genocide (Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishers). He is currently completing a book on the crimes against humanity and genocide in Darfur: Genocide in Darfur. Among his edited and co-edited books are: Century of Genocide: Critical Essays and Eyewitness Testimony, 3rd edition, New York: Routledge, 2009 (with William S. Parsons); Genocide in Darfur: Investigating Atrocities in the Sudan, New York: Routledge, 2006 (with Eric Markusen); The Prevention and Intervention of Genocide: An Annotated Bibliography, New York: Routledge, 2006; Teaching About Genocide, Greenwich, CT: Information Age, 2004; and Pioneers of Genocide Studies, New Brunswick: NJ: Transaction Publishers (with Steven Jacobs). His articles on the prevention and intervention of genocide, and the genocide in Darfur have appeared in the Journal of Genocide Research, Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal, Human Rights Review, and Culture and Civilization.