William G. O’Neill is currently the United Nations Independent Expert on the Human Rights Situation in Haiti. He will speak to us about the laws of war and human rights, and what journalists covering conflict need to know.
O’Neill is a lawyer specializing in humanitarian, human rights, and refugee law, with a special focus on the establishment and maintenance of the rule of law in post-conflict situations. In this capacity, he was senior advisor on human rights in the United Nations Mission in Kosovo, chief of the UN Human Rights Field Operation in Rwanda, and led the Legal Department of the UN/OAS Mission in Haiti. He helped establish the Haitian National Police in 1995, advising on recruitment, testing and training the then new police force and worked closely with Haitian human rights organizations to help train their human rights monitors. He has also worked on judicial, police, and prison reform in Burundi, Liberia, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Timor Leste, Nepal, and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
O’Neill’s undergraduate degree is from Haverford College, where he was a Thomas Watson Fellow; he has Masters degrees from Stanford University and the London School of Economics and a J.D. degree from New York University.
Tuesday, October 15, at 6:00 pm in the Lecture Hall.