PON Live! Fisher Speaker Series: United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan: Journeys and Perspectives of a Peacekeeper and Peacemaker

About the talk:

During his tenure as Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan faced several critical global challenges. In this second episode of the Roger Fisher Speaker series, we will explore Annan’s travels in Africa, the Middle East, Central Europe and other areas as he tried to bring about peace in complex conflict situations. Dr. Lamin J. Sise, Annan’s long-time Senior Adviser and confidant, will retrace the steps and revisit the thoughts and actions of one of the United Nations’ most iconic leaders. Dr. Sise will discuss how Annan challenged African leaders and the OAU/AU, helped resolve the Bakassi Peninsula crisis between Nigeria and Cameroon, mediated conflicts in Sierra Leone and Liberia, intervened in the Darfur crisis, and helped resolve the Qatar-Bahrain territorial dispute. Dr. Sise will also examine Annan’s work on the civil war in Syria, the conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the 1999 indictment of Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia, and his visits to refugee camps in Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

About the speakers:

Dr. Lamin J. Sise worked for the United Nations for thirty years. As a lawyer, he served in various legal capacities for the Organization and later on as senior adviser to Mr. Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General of the United Nations. He assisted Annan in diplomatic activities as a close collaborator and confidant, including mediation and negotiation with authorities at the highest levels in nearly one hundred countries. Other positions Dr. Sise held at the UN include Deputy Legal Adviser of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, senior officer in the UN Office of Legal Affairs, and senior officer of the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO). He has participated in lectures and panels at SAIS, Johns Hopkins University, Cornell University Law School, Denver Law School, Harvard Law School, Peking University, United States Army War College, American Society of International Law, and The Hague Academy of International Law.

Dr. Sise served as Chairman of the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC) of The Gambia from October 2018 to November 2021. He currently resides in New York City.

Baba Jallow is the Inaugural Roger D. Fisher Fellow in Negotiation and Conflict Resolution at Harvard Law School. Prior to this appointment, Baba served as Executive Secretary of the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission of The Gambia (2018-2022), and taught African history at La Salle University (2015 – 2017) and Creighton University (2011-2015).

Baba received a Ph. D. in African history from the University of California at Davis (2011) and a Masters in Liberal Studies from Rutgers University, Camden (2005). His research interests include colonial and post-colonial African history, transitional justice, and negotiation and conflict resolution.

His most recent representative works include The Prison Letters of Dr. J. B. Danquah (2020), Defying Dictatorship (2017) and The Catholic Voice in Ghana (2015).

Lisa Dicker is a Clinical Instructor in the Harvard Negotiation & Mediation Clinical Program (HNMCP). Prior to joining HNMCP, Dicker was Counsel at a global pro bono law firm where she advised on peace negotiations, conflict prevention, transitional justice, and post-conflict democratic transitions. Her portfolio included advising delegations to the Sudanese Peace Talks, the Sudanese Constitutional Declaration negotiations, the UN-led Intra-Syrian Peace Process, and the Astana Ceasefire Talks for Syria. She counseled practitioners across the Middle East & North Africa on community-led transitional justice efforts; advised the Tanzanian government and civil society actors on efforts to counter violent extremism; and supported localized peacebuilding efforts in Yemen.

Dicker has also been an Adjunct Professor in Bay Path University’s M.S. Leadership & Negotiation program, and has served on teaching teams for Harvard Law School’s Negotiation Workshop, Harvard University’s Program on Negotiation’s executive education courses, and independent programs. She also volunteers as a crisis counselor for Crisis Text Line.

Dicker holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School where she was Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Negotiation Law Review and a B.A. in Political Science and Asian Studies, from the University of Tennessee.