The Potentials and Limits to Humanitarian Intervention: Lessons from Bosnia and Kosovo for the Current Syria Crisis

Event Date: Monday October 28, 2013
Time: 4:00 - 6:00 PM
Location: Bowie Vernon Room (K-262) Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, 1737 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA

The Herbert C. Kelman Seminar on International Conflict Analysis and Resolution is pleased to present:

“The Potentials and Limits to Humanitarian Intervention:  Lessons from Bosnia and Kosovo for the Current Syria Crisis”

with

Sadiq al-Azm

Sadik al-Azm

Professor Emeritus of Modern European Philosophy, University of Damascus, Syria
Scholar at Risk, Harvard University

and

Wolfgang Petritsch

Wolfgang Petritsch

Austrian Diplomat
Weatherhead Center for International Affairs Fellow, Harvard University

 

Monday, October 28, 2013
4:00 – 6:00 p.m.

Bowie Vernon Room (K-262)
Weatherhead Center for International Affairs
1737 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA

About the Speakers:

Sadik al-Azm is Professor Emeritus of Modern European Philosophy at the University of Damascus in Syria,  and was, until 2007, a visiting professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University.  For much of his academic career, he was a scholar of the German philosopher, Immanuel Kant.  He now focuses mainly on the Islamic world and its relationship to the West.  He is a human rights advocate and a champion of intellectual freedom and free speech. He received his BA from American University in Beirut, and a MA and PhD. from Yale University.  He is the author of numerous books and publications.  He is currently a a fellow at the Scholar at Risk Program at Harvard University.

Wolfgang Petritsch, diplomat, comes to Harvard from Paris, where he has served since 2008 as ambassador and permanent representative of Austria to the OECD.  Prior to that assignment, Mr. Petritsch was ambassador and permanent representative of Austria to the specialized UN agencies in Geneva; to the WTO; and to the Conference on Disarmament. Ambassador Petritsch began his career in the 1970s. From 1977 to 1983, he was the press secretary and subsequently the chief of cabinet of the Federal Chancellor of Austria. He then served as minister-counsellor at the Austrian delegation to the OECD. In 1984, he was appointed director of the Austrian Press and Information Service in the United States and minister plenipotentiary at the Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York. Then, in 1992, he returned to Vienna as head of the Department for Multilateral Economic Co-operation at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 1994, Mr. Petritsch became head of the Department for Information on European Affairs at the Federal Chancellery and a member of the Federal Government’s EU-accession Task Force. From 1995 to 1997, he was head of the Department for International Relations of the city of Vienna. From 1997 to 1999, Mr. Petritsch served as ambassador to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. During his tenure as ambassador, he was appointed special envoy of the European Union for Kosovo and EU chief negotiator at the Kosovo Peace Agreement talks at Rambouillet and Paris. From 1999 to 2001, he was chair of the “Succession Commission for the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia,” in charge of distributing the public assets and liabilities among the successor states, resulting in the Vienna Agreement of 2001. In 1999, Mr. Petritsch was named high representative of the international community for Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1972, he received a doctorate in Southeast European history and politics from the University of Vienna.

About the Herbert C. Kelman Seminar Series: The 2013-2014 Herbert C. Kelman Seminar on International Conflict Analysis and Resolution series is sponsored by the Program on Negotiation, the Nieman Foundation for Journalism, the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy, The Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, and Boston area members of the Alliance for Peacebuilding. The theme for this year’s Kelman Seminar is “Negotiation, Conflict and the News Media”.

For more information, contact Donna Hicks at dhicks@wcfia.harvard.edu.

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