James S. Etim is Professor of Education and Coordinator of the Middle Grades Education Program at Winston Salem State University, Winston Salem, North Carolina. From 1980-1989, he lectured at the University of Jos, Nigeria and was Head of the Department of Curriculum Studies from 1984-1986. He left as Senior Lecturer in the Department of Curriculum Studies. He has written and published more than 35 articles and book chapters and edited or co-edited five books. His most recent publication is How Reading Literature Helps Students to Integrate Their School Curriculum (2007), Edwin Mellen Press. He is currently coediting a book on education and change in Africa. His contact address is etimj@wssu.edu or 336-750-2382.
Click the following link to go to his webpage [http://myweb.wssu.edu/etimj/]
Dr. Kwaku Nuamah is an Assistant Professor of Conflict Analysis and Dispute Resolution at Salisbury University, Salisbury MD, USA. His research and teaching interests include general theories and practices of conflict management, cross-cultural conflict analysis, contemporary African conflict / conflict resolution systems, civil society and interest articulation in emerging democracies, and institutional capacity building through educational policy reform in Africa. Dr. Nuamah is originally from Ghana, where he did his undergraduate studies (in Political Science and History at the University of Ghana, Legon). He worked for several years in Ghana as a researcher on African conflicts at the Legon Center for International Affairs, and as a program officer at the Institute of Economic Affairs.
He holds an MA in Conflict Management and a PhD in International Relations from the Johns Hopkins University’s Nitze School of Advanced International Studies. He was also a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Watson Institute for International Studies, Brown University.
In addition to Salisbury, Dr. Nuamah has taught at Georgetown University, the Johns Hopkins University, University of Maryland, and Brown University. His work in the public policy advocacy / international development fields include serving as director of research for the Democracy Coalition Project at the Open Society Institute (Washington DC), coordinator of the G8-Africa Partnership Project at the Council of Foreign Relations (Washington DC), and consultant and contributor to the National Intelligence Project’s military intervention project (College Park, MD).
Dr. Nuamah has also provided consultancy services on African conflicts and political development issues to Management Systems International (Washington DC), the Center for Democratic Development (Accra, Ghana), and the Science Applications International Corporation (Arlington, VA). He is the co-author of Getting In: Mediators' Entry into the Settlement of African Conflicts (Washington DC: United States Institute of Peace, 2006), and has published other articles on contemporary conflict resolution efforts, private sector development, and elections in West Africa.
Dr Jeremy Sarkin has undergraduate and postgraduate law degrees from the University of Natal (Durban), an LLM from Harvard Law School and a Doctor of Laws degree from the University of the Western Cape (Cape Town). He is an attorney in South Africa and in the State of New York. He practiced at the New York bar during 1988 and 1989 and worked for the same law firm in Washington DC. He then spent time working at the International Commission of Jurists in Geneva, Switzerland.
He was Senior Professor of Law at the University of the Western Cape from 1990 to 2008 and has been a visiting Professor at Washington and Lee University Law School; the University of Maryland Law School, the University of Cincinnati Law School, the University of Oregon Law School, the University Aix-Marseille in France; and the Fletcher School at Tufts University. He is at present Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York.
He served as the National Chairperson of the NGO Human Rights Committee of South Africa from 1994 to 1998 and was the Director of the organisation's advocacy project. He was nominated for appointment to the South African Truth Commission in 1995. He has worked on constitutional, transitional issues (including truth commissions) in various countries, including Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sierra Leone, Angola, Namibia, Sudan, and Burma. He served as an acting judge in 2002 and 2003 in the Cape High Court in South Africa.
He has published 12 books and over 100 journal articles and book chapters in the areas of human rights and transitional justice. His recent books are Human Rights, The Citizen and the State: South African and Irish Perspectives (2002) Carrots and Sticks: The TRC and the South African Amnesty Process (2004); The Administration of Justice: Comparative Perspectives (2004) Reconciliation in Divided Societies (2007), Human Rights in African Prisons (2008) and (forthcoming) “Colonial Genocide and Reparations Claims in the 21st Century: The Socio-Legal Context of Claims under International Law by the Herero against Germany for Genocide in Namibia, 1904-1908 (2008)
He serves on the editorial board of a number of journals including Human Rights Quarterly; Law, Democracy, and Development; Human Rights and International Legal Discourse; International Review of Criminal Law and is a series editor on transitional justice for Intersentia Press.
In March 2008 he was elected by the Human Rights Council to be a Special Rapporteur and member of the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances.
Dr. Kole Shettima is the Director, Africa Office of John D and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in Abuja, Nigeria and Co-Chair, Higher Education Initiative in Africa. He is responsible for grant making in the Population & Reproductive Health area, Human Rights and International Justice, and the Partnership for Higher Education in Africa.
Prior to joining the Foundation in 1999, Dr. Shettima taught at the University of Maiduguri (Nigeria), the University of Toronto, and at Ohio University. He was State Coordinator, and National Education Coordinator of Women in Nigeria; Coordinator of the Working Group on Nigeria, Toronto; and Co-chair of the Economic Justice Working Group of the Inter-Church Coalition on Africa, Toronto. Dr. Shettima is on the board of several organizations including the Center for Democracy and Development. He has published in several academic journals including Africa Development, Review of African Political Economy, African Studies Review and Journal of Asian and African Studies.
Dr. Shettima has a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto, a Masters Degree from Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria and his undergraduate degree is from the University of Maiduguri where he has also been a faculty member.