A public lecture titled "Prosecuting Genocide" will inaugurate The Genocide Studies Program, a new seminar being offered at the Yale Center for International and Area Studies.
The seminar, which is open to faculty and graduate students, will take a multidisciplinary approach to exploring the causes and effects of genocide. Sessions will focus on such topics as war crimes, race and ideology, truth commissions, humanitarian intervention, the impact of international politics and more. Ben Kiernan, professor of history and director of the Cambodian Genocide Program, will serve as seminar director for The Genocide Studies Program.
The seminar -- designated as History 980, "Genocide" -- will open with "Prosecuting Genocide" by David Scheffer, U.S. ambassador at large for war crimes issues. The talk, which is free and open to the public, will be presented 1:30-3:30 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 15, in Rm. 203 of Luce Hall, 34 Hillhouse Ave. Subsequent sessions of the seminar will meet on Thursdays at the same time and location, but are open only to enrolled participants.
As ambassador at large, Scheffer addresses serious violations of international humanitarian law anywhere in the world. He coordinated support for the Yugoslav and Rwandan War Crimes Tribunals, and led the U.S. participation in the United Nations negotiations to establish a permanent International Criminal Court. Scheffer has served in the Clinton administration since 1993, when he was appointed senior adviser and counsel to then-ambassador Madeleine Albright. In addition to teaching at the Georgetown University Law Center and Columbia University, he has served as senior associate in international and national security law at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, senior consultant on the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Foreign Affairs, international affairs fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations and research associate at Harvard University's Center for International Affairs.
The Genocide Studies Program is funded by a grant from the Mellon Foundation as part of its Sawyer Seminar program, which supports university-based explorations of the historical and cultural origins of contemporary developments. At Yale, the Mellon funding will support a postdoctoral fellow -- Edward Kissi, a Ghanian graduate of Concordia University -- and three graduate students. It will also enable visiting scholars from abroad to participate in selected sessions.