UN Dispatch
9 For '09
Popular Tags
Meet the Judges
In the meantime, meet our judges below!
Peacekeeping
Erin Weir
Ms. Weir is a Peacebuilding Advocate at Refugees International (RI), where she is responsible for undertaking field assessments of peacekeeping missions on the ground, and for conducting ongoing advocacy on issues of civilian protection, peacekeeping reform, and US engagement in multilateral stabilization efforts. Erin has assessed peacekeeping deployments in Sudan, DR Congo, Somalia, and Chad while at RI. Prior to joining RI Erin was a Research Associate with the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Center in Ghana, where she published pieces on the effects of UN ‘integrated’ peacekeeping missions on the humanitarian imperative, as well as strategic forced migration.
David Bosco
David Bosco is professor of International Politics at American University’s in School of International Service (SIS). Prior to teaching at SIS, he was a senior editor at Foreign Policy (FP) magazine between 2004 and 2006. Previously, he was an attorney at the law firm of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, and between 1996 and 1998, served as a political analyst and journalist in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and as deputy director of a joint United Nations-NATO project on refugee repatriation in Sarajevo. He is currently writing a book on the U.N. Security Council, to be published by Oxford University Press.
US Image in the World
David Shorr
David Shorr is a program officer at the Iowa-based Stanley Foundation, currently focusing on national security strategy and the US role in the world. One of his recent projects resulted in a bipartisan collection of essays, Bridging the Foreign Policy Divide (Routledge). From 1986-2000, Shorr worked in Washington as an advocate with Human Rights First, Refugees International, Search for Common Ground, British American Security Information Council, Arms Control Association, and Physicians for Social Responsibility. Shorr is a contributor to the foreign policy blog Democracy Arsenal. In his private capacity, he is principal foreign policy advisor in a high-profile US Senate campaign.
Matt Armstrong
Matthew C. Armstrong is principal and co-founder of Armstrong Strategic Insights Group, consultant, and publisher of MountainRunner. Mr. Armstrong writes on Public Diplomacy and Strategic Communication in the context of irregular warfare and counterinsurgency. Mr. Armstrong has been published in books, journals, as well as presented at conferences and workshops on public diplomacy, strategic communication, the privatization of force, and unmanned warfare.
Nuclear Non-proliferation
Blake Hounshell
Blake Hounshell is Web editor at Foreign Policy. He arrived in Washington in 2006 after more than a year in Cairo, where he studied Arabic, missed his Steelers finally win one for the thumb, and worked for the Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies. Blake edits Passport, FP's blog, and commissions Web exclusives for ForeignPolicy.com. A graduate of Yale University with a degree in political science, his interests include Middle East politics, the impact of energy use on the environment, international trade, and the digital economy.
Peter Scoblic
J. Peter Scoblic is the executive editor of The New Republic and the author of U.S. vs. Them: How a Half Century of Conservatism Has Undermined America's Security. Before joining TNR, Scoblic was the editor of Arms Control Today, a professional journal covering efforts to prevent the spread and use of weapons of mass destruction. A former fellow at the New America Foundation and a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, he has published widely on security issues.
Energy/Climate
Tim Hurst
Tim Hurst is a writer and editor at Green Options Media where he heads up the team at Red, Green, and Blue, the network's environmental blog. He has spent the last six years researching and writing about the changing politics of energy and the environment, with a particular focus on renewable energy policy and the cleantech sector. He also explores these issues in his own blog, ecopolitology. Tim has presented his energy and environmental research at academic conferences in Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico, has been an invited guest on XM Radio, and also written about politics in the Encyclopedia of U.S. Campaigns, Elections and Electoral Behavior (Sage, 2008).
Kate Sheppard
Kate Sheppard is the political reporter for Grist. When she's not braving the wilds of the Hill, she's out searching in vain for bike lanes and defending the honor of the Garden State. Her work has also been featured in The American Prospect, Washingtonpost.com, In These Times, The Guardian, Bitch, Yes! and MSN.
Global Women’s Issues
Vanessa Valenti
Vanessa Valenti is a 28-year old freelance writer, consultant and blogger living in New York City. She is a co-founder and editor of Feministing.com, one of the highest-rated blogs in the country. She has worked with the Mount Sinai Sexual Assault and Violence Intervention Program, NARAL Pro-Choice America, Girls for Gender Equity, NARAL Pro-Choice New York and the National Institute for Reproductive Health, working in feminist grassroots and online activism for the last 8 years. Vanessa is also a co-founder of The Real Hot 100, a grassroots media project that challenges unrealistic images of women in the media.
Beth Fredrick
Beth Fredrick, Executive Vice President of the International Women's Health Coalition (IWHC), has worked for over two decades to advance sexual and reproductive health and rights. In partnership with women's organizations, world leaders, health professionals, the media and advocates, Beth has helped focus attention on the programs and policies that have the greatest potential for improving the lives of women and girls worldwide. A Wisconsin native and intrepid traveler, Beth resides in Brooklyn, New York.
Democracy and Human Rights
Ted Richane
Ted is a director at Cause & Affect, an innovative agency in Los Angeles working with influencers to create social change movements, where he oversees the execution of a series of campaigns in issue areas ranging from foreign policy to mental health. Before moving to Los Angeles, he spent eight years in Washington, D.C., working for The Fratelli Group, where he performed communications services for a wide range of governmental, corporate and non-profit clients. His time in Washington also included nine months at the Democratic National Committee during the 2004 election cycle. He has an undergraduate degree in public relations from Syracuse University and a Masters in Public Diplomacy from the University of Southern California.
Bill Schulz
During his twelve years at Amnesty International, Dr. Schulz led missions to Liberia, Tunisia, Northern Ireland, and Sudan. He also traveled tens of thousands miles in the United States promoting human rights causes and was frequently quoted in the media. He is the author of two books on human rights, In Our Own Best Interest: How Defending Human Rights Benefits Us All (2001, Beacon Press) and Tainted Legacy: 9/11 and the Ruin of Human Rights (2003, Nation Books); and the contributing editor of The Phenomenon of Torture: Readings and Commentary (2007, University of Pennsylvania Press) and The Future of Human Rights: US Policy for a New Era (2008, University of Pennsylvania Press). All of this prompted the New York Review of Books to say in 2002, "William Schulz…has done more than anyone in the American human rights movement to make human rights issues known in the United States."
Iraq
Spencer Ackerman
Spencer Ackerman is a national security reporter for the Washington Independent and blogs at Attackerman. Ackerman was previously a senior correspondent with The American Prospect and a reporter for Talking Points Memo. In 2002, he moved to Washington D.C. to become an intern and later an associate editor at The New Republic magazine. He initially supported the Iraq War, but became disillusioned and in 2004 started a blog on The New Republic website called Iraq'd which chronicled the dilemma of pro-war liberals. He also wrote, with John B. Judis, an article that started the chain of events that led to the Plame affair. Ackerman is a fan of comic books and hardcore punk music and has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News and BloggingHeads.tv.
Global Poverty
Anita Sharma
Anita Sharma is the North American coordinator for the United Nations Millennium Campaign. Previously, she was the executive director of ENOUGH, an initiative of the Center for American Progress and the International Crisis Group to abolish genocide and mass atrocities. She served as governance advisor in Indonesia with the Office of the United Nations Recovery Coordinator and has held international posts in Indonesia, Iraq, Jordan, and Kosovo. She directed the Conflict Prevention Project at the Woodrow Wilson Center and has also worked for the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict. Anita is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and holds degrees from Syracuse University and the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University.
Terrorism
Eric Rosand
Eric Rosand is a senior fellow at the Center on Global Counterterrorism Cooperation in New York and a nonresident fellow at New York University's Center on International Cooperation. Previously, he served in the U.S. Department of State for nine years, working on counterterrorism issues both in the Office of the Counterterrorism Coordinator and at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations. He is the author or coauthor of numerous articles, book chapters, and reports on strengthening international and regional counterterrorism cooperation, with a particular focus on global and regional bodies, and has lectured around the world on these topics. He is the co-author (with Alistair Millar) of Allied against Terrorism: What's Needed to Strengthen Worldwide Commitment (Century Foundation; 2006). He has He has a LLM from Cambridge University, a JD from Columbia University Law School, and a BA from Haverford College.