Event Description
Join PILPG on September 7 for a conversation with President and Founder Professor Paul Williams and experienced negotiators and diplomats as they discuss Professor Williams’ book, Lawyering Peace. Dr. Williams has served as a legal advisor and member of the Bosnian delegation during the Dayton Peace Negotiations; as a legal advisor and member of the Kosovo delegation during the Rambouillet Peace Conference; advised political parties, pro democracy leaders, and civil society groups in Tunisia and Egypt during the Arab Spring; and advised the President and Foreign Minister of Armenia on the Minsk Peace Process. As a leading voice in the field of public international law, Professor Williams has built on his decades of experience in post-conflict constitution drafting, peace negotiations, and transitional justice, in the writing of this valuable work.
In all but the rarest circumstances, the world's deadly conflicts are ended not through outright victory, but through a series of negotiations. Not all of these negotiations, however, yield a durable peace, and the parties in a conflict must address - and seek to resolve - a number of puzzles and conundrums when attempting to mitigate conflict drivers.
Lawyering Peace aims to help future negotiators in navigating these puzzles and conundrums, and ultimately build better and more durable peace agreements. In this event, Professor Williams and panelists will reflect upon their experiences from across the globe of navigating the many puzzles that drive conflict, and will explore the tools that can support parties as they work towards a durable peace.
PILPG is honored to be joined by esteemed panelists and friends of PILPG who bring a wealth of experience in peace negotiations to this discussion: Alush Gashi, a Signatory to the Declaration of Independence of the Republic of Kosova; Vartan Oskanian, former Armenian Minister of Foreign Affairs and negotiator of the Key West Agreement; and Ambassador Carey Cavanaugh, Special Negotiator responsible for conflicts in Eurasia, including the Nagorno-Karabakh Key West negotiations.
This is part of the PILPG Thought Leadership Initiative. The Initiative focuses on prominent international law and international affairs topics and organizes monthly expert roundtables to share expertise and reflections from our work on peace negotiations, post-conflict constitution drafting, and war crimes prosecution.
Speakers
Ambassador Carey Cavanaugh
Cavanaugh had a Foreign Service career centered on peace efforts and humanitarian issues. This included diplomatic postings in Berlin, Moscow, Tbilisi, Rome and Bern, and domestic assignments in the State Department, the Pentagon, and on Capitol Hill. In 1992, he led the team that established the American Embassy to the new Republic of Georgia. Under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, Cavanaugh spearheaded or helped advance peace initiatives involving Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece, Moldova, Tajikistan and Turkey. The US Senate confirmed him in 2000 as Ambassador/ Special Negotiator responsible for Eurasian conflicts and US Co-Chair of OSCE’s Minsk Group (tasked with assisting peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict). In 2006, Cavanaugh became full professor at the University of Kentucky and director of its Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce. He led this 60- year old masters degree program for a decade before taking sabbatical in Europe as visiting fellow at Cambridge University (Clare College) and as an executive-in-residence at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy. His teaching ranges from conflict mediation and ethics to US-Russian relations and the diplomacy surrounding nuclear weapons. His research and policy writing focus primarily on diplomacy and peace efforts in the South Caucasus. Cavanaugh remains active in conflict resolution, consulting with governments — as well as the EU, OSCE and UN — and assisting peacebuilding NGOs with track-two diplomatic efforts and civil society initiatives. From 2014-2018, he served as a trustee of Conciliation Resources (London). In 2018, he became chairman of International Alert (London). Alert maintains offices in 19 countries, partnering with local organizations to support people and institutions to better anticipate and manage conflict without violence. Ambassador Cavanaugh is a graduate of the University of Florida and the University of Notre Dame, and studied at the US Army Russian Institute in GarmischPartenkirchen. He speaks German and Russian.
Dr. Alush Gashi (MD., PhD.)
Dr. Alush Gashi is a professor of Anatomy and a Specialist in General Surgery. Dr. Gashi was a professor of Anatomy at the University of Prishtina (Kosova) from 1974 - 2017, served as the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at University of Prishtina from 1988 - 1992, and was a visiting scientist at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) School of Medicine from 1981 - 1984.A signatory to the Declaration of Independence of Kosova (2008), Dr. Gashi served as the Secretary of Foreign Affairs of the Democratic League of Kosova, Senior Advisor to President Ibrahim Rugova, Majority Leader of the Parliament of Kosova, Foreign Policy Advisor to the Prime Minister, and the first Minister of Health of the Republic of Kosova. Dr. Gashi later served as a Political and Foreign Policy Advisor to the Prime Minister from 2020 - 2021.As a well-known human rights activist, Dr. Gashi has documented and published inhumane actions of the Serbian regime. When the Serbian regime closed schools and organized the systematic firing of Albanians in all sectors, Dr. Gashi was highly active in the organization of the so-called “parallel system”, which enabled the continuation of education and services in private homes. For decades, Dr. Gashi was the face of Kosova in Washington D.C., establishing a strong connection between the United States and Kosova, and testifying about the crimes of the Serbian regime in Congressional Hearings. After Kosova gained independence, he continued his support for people seeking freedom and justice.He is the founder of the Institute on Foreign Relations (IFR) in Kosova and serves as the Chairman.
Mohammed H. al-Ta’ishi
Mohammed Hassan Osman al-Ta’ishi is a former member of the Sovereignty Council of Sudan - an eleven-member transitional council which acted as the collective Head of State in the aftermath of Sudan’s 2019 popular revolution. In that role, he made substantial contributions to the transitional government’s endeavors to restructure, reform, and democratize the Sudanese state. He was ex officio a member of the government’s Security and Defense Counsel and the Higher Council for Peace.
Among his many roles as a Member of the Sovereignty Council, Mohammed was the Chief Negotiator and main architect of the Juba Agreement for Peace in Sudan, signed by the transitional government and the Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF) in October 2020. He thereafter took on the role of Chair of the High Committee for Monitoring and Evaluating the Implementation of the Juba Peace Agreement (Darfur Track), as well as Chair of the Conference on Governance High Committee.
Prior to this, Mohammed worked at the Darfur Compensation Commission and the Darfur Reconstruction and Development Fund - two organizations established in accordance with the Abuja Peace Agreement (2006)’s aims of ending the conflict in Darfur.
He has authored a book chapter on the role of students in the political struggle in Sudan, and published numerous articles on various topics including immigration, demographic changes, peace and democratization in Sudan.
Vartan Oskanian
Vartan Oskanian served as minister of foreign affairs of the Republic of Armenia from 1998 to 2008. Prior to his ministerial appointment, he held several high level positions in the ministry, and has been Armenia’s chief negotiator for the Nagorno Karabakh conflict with Azerbaijan from 1995 till the end of his ministerial tenure.
After leaving his ministerial position in April 2008, Mr Oskanian established the Civilitas Foundation, a think tank and center for public advocacy in Yerevan, which remains one of the most reputable institutions in Armenia. Mr Oskanian was elected to the Armenian Parliament in 2012, where he served for five years.
In the Spring semester of 2018, Mr Oskanian has taught a course “Politics of Self-Determination and Secession,” at the Center of Armenian Studies at the University of Southern California and in the Fall semester of the same year at Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts.
Since 2019, Mr Oskanian is serving as advisor to the CEO of RECOM, a renewable energy company with solar projects globally.
Mr Oskanian has an MS in Government Studies from Harvard’s extension program and an MA in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Tufts University.
Mr Oskanian is born in Aleppo, Syria in 1955. He is married and has two sons.
MODERATOR
Dr. Paul R. Williams
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.
Dr. Williams has served as a Senior Associate with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, as well as an Attorney-Adviser for European and Canadian affairs at the U.S. Department of State, Office of the Legal Adviser. He received his J.D. from Stanford Law School and his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge. Dr. Williams is a sought-after international law and policy expert. He is frequently interviewed by major print and broadcast media and regularly contributes op-eds to major newspapers. Dr. Williams has authored six books on various topics concerning international law, and has published over three dozen scholarly articles on topics of international law and policy. He has testified before the U.S. Congress on a number of occasions relating to specific peace processes, transitional justice, and self-determination. Dr. Williams is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations, and has served as a Counsellor on the Executive Council of the American Society of International Law. In 2019, Paul was awarded the Cox International Law Center's Humanitarian Award for Advancing Global Justice. More information about Dr. Williams can be found at www.drpaulrwilliams.com.