Discussion Papers Series
Adama Dieng
Adama Dieng is the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide. Previously, Mr. Dieng served as Registrar of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. He began his career as Registrar of the Regional and Labour Courts in Senegal, and served as Registrar of the Supreme Court of Senegal for six years. From 1982 to 2001, Mr. Dieng worked for the International Commission of Jurists, for the last ten years as the organisation’s Secretary-General. During this period he was appointed as Envoy of the United Nations Secretary General to Malawi in 1993, and as the United Nations Independent Expert for Haiti from 1995 to 2000.
A legal and human rights expert, Mr. Dieng has throughout his career contributed to strengthening of the rule of law, fighting impunity and promoting capacity building of judicial and democratic institutions. He has also contributed to the establishment of several non-governmental organizations in Africa and to strengthening African institutions. Mr. Dieng was the driving force behind the establishment of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights as well as the draft African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption. Mr. Dieng has lectured on international law and human rights at academic institutions around the world and acted as consultant for many organizations, including the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Ford Foundation and the African Union.
Jennifer Welsh
Jennifer Welsh is the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on the Responsibility to Protect. Ms. Welsh works under the overall guidance of Adama Dieng, the Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, to further the conceptual, political, institutional and operational development of the responsibility to protect concept, as set out by the General Assembly in paragraphs 138 and 139 of the 2005 World Summit Outcome document.
Currently, a Professor and Chair in International Relations at the European University Institute in Florence, Ms. Welsh’s research projects include the evolution of the “responsibility to protect” in international society, the ethics of post-conflict reconstruction, the authority of the United Nations Security Council and the notion of sovereignty. Ms. Welsh was previously Professor of International Relations and Co-Director of the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict at the University of Oxford, Associate Director of the Peace and Conflict Studies Programme at the University of Toronto, Cadieux Research Fellow on the policy planning staff of Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Jean Monnet Fellow of the European University Institute. She has also taught international relations at McGill University and at the Central European University, in addition to having published widely on the responsibility to protect and atrocity prevention. She has worked as a consultant to the Government of Canada on international policy and has been a frequent commentator in the Canadian media on foreign policy and international relations.
Holding a master’s degree and a doctorate from the University of Oxford, where she studied as a Rhodes Scholar, Ms. Welsh also has a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) degree from the University of Saskatchewan in Canada. Born in Regina, Saskatchewan, she is married and has two children.