¶ … BIOS of Authors The author of this report will be writing short biography summaries for seventeen different authors and pundits within the transitional justice scholarly sphere. About a third to half a page will be dedicated each. The names involved include William Schabas, Ryn Slyle and Dapo Akande. The background, ethnicity and famous works (if any) will be given for each. While there are varying beliefs and backgrounds with the authors, there is still a general pattern among them that should be taken seriously.

Biographies

Willian Schabas

Schabas is a white male that is in his 60's and lives in the greater Toronto area. He is a professor at Middlesex University in the United Kingdom. His lineage includes a strong Jewish presence. He is a massive proponent if abolishing the death penalty as a form of criminal punishment. He also sought to form and shape the definition of genocide. Regarding the latter point, he is quick to say that not all mass killings are, by their nature and intent, genocide. The only three events he counts as a "genocide" were the Armenian Genocide, the Jew/Gypsy Holocaust and the much more recent actions in Rwanda [footnoteRef:1] [footnoteRef:2]. [1: Middlesex,. (2015). Schabas, William | Middlesex University London. Mdx.ac.uk. Retrieved 18 April 2015, from http://www.mdx.ac.uk/about-us/our-people/staff-directory/schabas-william] [2: Falk, R. (2015). An Interview with Professor William Schabas. Mwcnews.net. Retrieved 18 April 2015, from http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/49789-william-schabas.html]

James Goldston (OSF -- NYC)

James Goldston is also centered out of the United States. He is the Executive Director for the Open Society Justice Initiative. He also served for a year or so as the coordinator of prosecutions and was a senior trial attorney in the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court. Mr. Goldston is white and he graduated from Columbia and Harvard for his undergraduate and law school, respectively. He has worked all over the world and this would Budapest (Hungary), much of the rest of Europe as well as the United States. His main focuses have been international law and criminal law. He focuses his attention on things like torture, counter-terrorism and racial discrimination [footnoteRef:3] [footnoteRef:4]. [3: OSF,. (2015). James Goldston. Open Society Foundations. Retrieved 18 April 2015, from http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/people/james-goldston] [4: Guardian,. (2015). James A Goldston | The Guardian. The Guardian. Retrieved 18 April 2015, from http://www.theguardian.com/profile/james-a-goldston]

Dr. Mahnoush Arsanjani (ex-OLA)

Ms. Arsanjani is, like Mr. Goldston, an international lawyer. Her initial schooling was in Iran but she was later awarded both a graduate degree and a doctorate by Yale University in the United States. She has written a number of books that focus on international law and its associated perspectives. She has served in the United Nations legal office for more than thirty years [footnoteRef:5] [footnoteRef:6]. [5: BICI,. (2015). Dr. Mahnoush H. Arsanjani | BICI. Bici.org.bh. Retrieved 18 April 2015, from http://www.bici.org.bh/index499b.html?commissioner=dr-mahnhoush-h-arsanjani] [6: OAS,. (2015). Mahnoush H. Arsanjani. Oas.org. Retrieved 18 April 2015, from http://www.oas.org/juridico/english/Seminar10.htm]

Priscilla Hayner (NYC)

Ms. Hayner is also a strong academic. She received degrees from Earlham College and from Columbia University. Her main specialties are with truth commissions and transitional justice. She was a cofounder of the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ). Some of the major focal points of that organization have included Sierra Leone, Peru and Ghana. Her most famous treatise on the subject would really have to be Unspeakable Truths in 2001. She has appeared on multiple broadcasts for the BBC and some radio stations in Africa [footnoteRef:7]. [7: Cassese,. (2015). Priscilla Hayner. Cassese-initiative.org. Retrieved 18 April 2015, from http://www.cassese-initiative.org/global-education/summer-schools/faculty/9-global-education/89-hayner-bio.html]

Mark Freeman

Mr. Freeman has written several books about much the same thing that Hayner focused on. Indeed, his books covered topics like truth commissions, procedural fairness, necessary evils (e.g. amnesty, etc.) and international human right laws, both in force and desired ones [footnoteRef:8]. [8: IFIT,. (2015). Mark Freeman -- IFIT - Institute for Integrated Transitions. Ifit-transitions.org. Retrieved 18 April 2015, from http://www.ifit-transitions.org/people/mark-freeman]

Dr. Leslie Vinjamuri

Dr. Vinjamuri is a white woman who also focuses a lot on international politics. Her focus is by no means limited to one city, state or country as she has been involved with actions and plans with the United Nations, in London and in some parts of Africa. Her bachelor's degree was from Wesleyan University while her MSc is from the London School of Economics. Her doctorate came from Columbia University. Ms. Vinjamuri is published in many reputable journals including...

[9: SOAS,. (2015). Dr. Leslie Vinjamuri | Staff | SOAS, University of London. Soas.ac.uk. Retrieved 18 April 2015, from https://www.soas.ac.uk/staff/staff36950.php] [10: LSE,. (2015). Dr. Leslie Vinjamuri - Individual Bios - People - IDEAS - Home. Lse.ac.uk. Retrieved 18 April 2015, from http://www.lse.ac.uk/IDEAS/people/bios/vinjamuriLeslie.aspx]
Marieke Wierda

Wierda hails from Holland and she is currently the Director of the Prosecutions Program at the International Center for Transitional Justice, the same site and organization mentioned for Ms. Hayner. She has been with the ICTJ for nearly a decade and a half. She was an associate legal officer while the International Criminal Tribunals were underway for the mass killings and other malfeasance that happened in the former Yugoslavian area while Slobodan Milosevic was in power. She co-authored a book in 2002 along with Judge Richard May and she has also written articles on the subject of international criminal law [footnoteRef:11].

Ron Slye

Ron Slye is another white man and he is a professor of law at the University of Seattle. He teaches international human rights law but he also has extensive experience in fairly rough areas of the world. His work includes time in Kenya, South Africa and a few others. He was hand-picked by former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan to be part of the Commissioners for the Kenyan Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission. He also led a human rights commission and taught at Yale University at one point. His BA was from Columbia, his master's from University of Cambridge and his law school degree came from Ivy League stalwart Yale [footnoteRef:12]. [11: GHUM,. (2015). Marieke Wierda -- International Prosecutors Project. Ghum.kuleuven.be. Retrieved 18 April 2015, from https://ghum.kuleuven.be/ggs/projects/ipp/people/wierda.html] [12: University of Seattle,. (2015). Ronald C. Slye: Seattle University School of Law: Seattle, Washington. Law.seattleu.edu. Retrieved 18 April 2015, from http://www.law.seattleu.edu/faculty/faculty-profiles/ronald-c-slye]

Louise Mallinder

Louise Mallinder is white and she is a professor of human rights and international law at the University of Ulster in the United Kingdom. Over the course of ten years, she earned an economic/social history/politics degree, an LLM in Human Rights Law and a PhD in Law. All of those degrees came from Queen's University in Belfast. Her major contribution to the discussion of transitional justice is not a book, but rather a database called the Amnesty Law Database. This compendium of data comes from 520 amnesty laws in 138 different countries. All of this data pertains to the times after World War II, which ended in 1945. Per her profile on the University of Ulster website, her main interests are amnesty laws, transitional justice, international criminal law, and a few others [footnoteRef:13] [footnoteRef:14]. [13: Ulster,. (2015). Transitional Justice Institute. Transitionaljustice.ulster.ac.uk. Retrieved 18 April 2015, from http://transitionaljustice.ulster.ac.uk/staff_profiles/l.mallinder/publications.phtml] [14: Ulster,. (2015). Transitional Justice Institute -. Transitionaljustice.ulster.ac.uk. Retrieved 18 April 2015, from http://transitionaljustice.ulster.ac.uk/staff_profiles/louise_mallinder.html]

Barney Afako

Barney Afako is a black man from Uganda. He has worked in the fields of human rights and criminal justice in Uganda, Zimbabwe and the United Kingdom. He has also served as a private consultant for some other organizations. His main current contribution is as a legal analyst for the international criminal court and their investigation of goings-on in the country of Uganda. At times, he serves as a part-time immigration court judge in the United Kingdom [footnoteRef:15]. [15: CR,. (2015). Barney Afako | Conciliation Resources. C-r.org. Retrieved 18 April 2015, from http://www.c-r.org/about-us/people/barney-afako]

Rodrigo Uprimny

Mr. Uprimny is a lawyer from Bogota, Colombia but his reach has and will likely continue to stretch far beyond that. He has written a litany of articles including ones about human rights, constitutional law and human trafficking. He has also done a lot of work specifically on transitional justice. One of major works was a compare and contrast of Colombia and Bolivia [footnoteRef:16]. [16: Dejusticia,. (2015). Dejusticia. Dejusticia.org. Retrieved 18 April 2015, from http://www.dejusticia.org/#!/investigador/6]

Sarah Neuwen

Ms. Neuwen is much like the aforementioned Barney Afako in that a lot of her work has been in the areas of Africa that include Uganda. She is a PhD lecturer and professor of law. Much of her authored work and the actual work she does herself relates to the current and prior challenges in both Uganda and Rwanda. She has also consulted with non-government entities (NGO's). A famous work of hers was a book called Complementarity in the Line of Fire: The Catalyzing Effect of the International Criminal Court in Uganda and Sudan [footnoteRef:17]. [17: Cambridge,. (2015). Dr. Sarah Nouwen - Faculty of Law. Law.cam.ac.uk. Retrieved 18 April 2015, from http://www.law.cam.ac.uk/people/academic/smh-nouwen/40]

Dapo Akande

Mr. Akande is a black man that is associated with the University of Oxford. He is co-director of the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law…