Directors 

John Torpey Director, Ralph Bunche Institute Presidential Professor, Sociology jtorpey@gc.cuny.edu @JohnCTorpey

John Torpey is Presidential Professor of Sociology and History at the Graduate Center, City University of New York, and (from January 2014) Director of the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies at the Graduate Center. He is the author or editor of eight books: Intellectuals, Socialism, and Dissent: The East German Opposition and its Legacy (1995); The Invention of the Passport: Surveillance, Citizenship, and the State (2000); Documenting Individual Identity: The Development of State Practices in the Modern World (edited with Jane Caplan; Princeton: Princeton UP, 2001); Politics and the Past: On Repairing Historical Injustices (2004); Old Europe, New Europe, Core Europe: Transatlantic Relations after the Iraq War (2005), Making Whole What Has Been Smashed: On Reparations Politics (2006); The Post-Secular in Question (2012); and, with Christian Joppke, Legal Integration of Islam: A Transatlantic Comparison (2013). He is on the editorial board of Theory and Society and the Journal of Human Rights, and edits a series for Temple University Press titled “Politics, History, and Social Change.”

Thomas G. Weiss Director Emeritus, Ralph Bunche Institute Presidential Professor, Political Science tweiss@gc.cuny.edu / CV

Thomas G. Weiss is Presidential Professor Emeritus of Political Science at The CUNY Graduate Center and Director Emeritus of its Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies. He is Distinguished Fellow, Global Governance, The Chicago Council on Global Affairs; and Global Eminence Scholar, Kyung Hee University, Korea. Previously, he was Andrew Carnegie Fellow (2016-18),  past president of the International Studies Association (2009-10) and recipient of its “IO Distinguished Scholar Award 2016”; he also directed research projects on Cultural Heritage at Risk, the Future of the UN Development System, the Wartime UN, and the UN Intellectual History Project and was Research Professor at SOAS, University of London (2012-2015), Chair of the Academic Council on the UN System (2006-9), Editor of Global Governance, Research Director of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, Research Professor at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies, Executive Director of the Academic Council on the UN System and of the International Peace Academy, a member of the UN Secretariat, and a consultant to public and private agencies. He has written extensively about multilateral approaches to international peace and security, humanitarian action, and sustainable development. Recent single- or co-authored books include: The “Third” United Nations: How a Knowledge Ecology Helps the UN Think (2021); Rethinking Global Governance (2019); The United Nations and Changing World Politics (2019); Would the World Be Better without the UN? (2018); Humanitarianism,War, and Politics: Solferino to Syria and Beyond (2018); Humanitarianism Intervention: Ideas in Action (2016); What’s Wrong with the United Nations and How to Fix It (2016); Governing the World? Addressing “Problems without Passports” (2014); Global Governance: Why? What? Whither? (2013); Humanitarian Business (2013); Thinking about Global Governance, Why People and Ideas Matter (2011); Humanitarianism Contested: Where Angels Fear to Tread (2011); Global Governance and the UN: An Unfinished Journey (2010); and UN Ideas That Changed the World (2009). Among his many recent edited volumes are International Organization and Global Governance (2023), Cultural Heritage and Mass Atrocities (2022), and Global Governance Futures (2022).

Eli Karetny, PhD Deputy Director, Ralph Bunche Institute Lecturer, Baruch College-CUNY ekaretny@gc.cuny.edu @ekaretny

Eli Karetny is the RBI’s deputy director and serves as the head of programs and operations. Eli is the Principal Investigator on the Institute’s core research projects, he oversees relations with sponsors,  liaises with university administration, and serves as the Institute’s grants manager and financial officer. Eli works closely with the RBI’s Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect (GCR2P) and played a central role establishing the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes Against Humanity (CSHGCAH).

After receiving a JD/MBA from Temple University, Eli served in the Peace Corps in Ukraine, then received a Masters Degree in International Relations from New York University. Eli completed his PhD in Political Science at the CUNY Graduate Center under Corey Robin. His dissertation explored monarchic themes in the work of Leo Strauss, focusing especially on Strauss’s view that teachers and advisors possess almost superhuman powers. Eli teaches political theory and international relations at Baruch College-CUNY and advises the RBI’s Project Directors on strategic and operational issues.

Project Directors

Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect Savita Pawnday Executive Director Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect spawnday@globalr2p.org @Savita_Pawnday Savita Pawnday became Executive Director of the Global Centre in October 2021 after serving as Deputy Director for 10 years. Prior to joining the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, she was a research associate at the Program on States and Security at the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies. Savita has worked in Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi with Catholic Relief Services, in New York with Trickle Up, a microfinance NGO, and in India at Akanksha. She holds a M.A. from Fordham University in political economy and development, with a specialization in political economy of civil wars and a B.A. in Economics from St. Xavier’s College, University of Mumbai. Center for Global Ethics and Politics Carol Gould Director, Center for Global Ethics and Politics Professor, Political Science and Philosophy, Hunter College and The Graduate Center cgould@gc.cuny.edu Carol Gould is Director of the Center for Global Ethics & Politics at the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies and Distinguished Professor in the Philosophy Department at Hunter College. Additionally, she serves on the faculty of the doctoral programs in Philosophy and Political Science at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. She is Editor of the Journal of Social Philosophy. Carol’s books include Marx’s Social Ontology:  Individuality and Community in Marx’s Theory of Social Reality (1978); Rethinking Democracy: Freedom and Social Cooperation in Politics, Economy, and Society (1988); and Globalizing Democracy and Human Rights (2004), which won the 2009 David Easton Best Book Award from the American Political Science Association.  She is currently completing a new book entitled Interactive Democracy: The Social Roots of Global Justice, to be published by Cambridge University Press.  She is currently co-directing the Mellon Sawyer Seminar Series, at the Graduate Center entitled “Democratic Citizenship and the Recognition of Cultural Differences.”

European Union Studies Center

Merrill Sovner Assistant Director, European Union Studies Center msovner@gradcenter.cuny.edu Merrill Sovner is the Assistant Director of the European Union Studies Center, organizing EUSC events, collaborating with scholars as well as other institutions, and coordinating the Society and Protest Workshop. Merrill is a current PhD candidate in political science at the Graduate Center, CUNY, and a co-author of research on the long-term impact of philanthropic funding for civil society in Central and Eastern Europe. Merrill previously worked at the Open Society Foundations for over a decade, serving as Deputy Director of the East East Beyond Borders Program and Program Officer in the Office of the President, and on evaluations for the Atlantic Philanthropies. Merrill holds a BA in political science and communications studies from the University of Michigan and an MSc in comparative politics from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes Against Humanity. Deborah Dwork Founding Director, Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes Against Humanity ddwork@gc.cuny.edu CV Debórah Dwork is the Founding Director of the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes Against Humanity at the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies, Graduate Center — CUNY. Pathbreaking in her early oral recording of Holocaust survivors, Dwork weaves their narratives into the history she writes. Her award-winning books include Children With A Star; Flight from the Reich; Auschwitz; and Holocaust. Renowned for her scholarship on Holocaust history, she is also a leading authority on university education in this field: she changed the academic landscape, envisioning and actualizing the first doctoral program in Holocaust History and Genocide Studies. Recipient of the International Network of Genocide Scholars Lifetime Achievement Award (2020), Debórah Dwork has been a Guggenheim Fellow, a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and an ACLS Fellow. She currently serves on the U.S. delegation to the 34-member state International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.

Visiting Scholars & Research Fellows

Manu Bhagavan Senior Fellow, RBI manu.bhagavan@hunter.cuny.edu Manu Bhagavan is Professor of History and Human Rights at Hunter College and the Graduate Center-The City University of New York, and Senior Fellow at the Ralph Bunche Institute.   He is the author of The Peacemakers (2012, 2013) and Sovereign Spheres (2003), the (co-) editor of 4 books, and is currently writing a biography of Madam Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, the world’s first celebrity diplomat from the Global South.  His edited volume on India and the Cold War is in production with the University of North Carolina Press and is expected in 2019.  Manu’s Quartz essay on global authoritarianism went viral internationally and was translated into German as the lead, cover article of the May 2016 Berliner Republik magazine.   He is the recipient of a 2006 Fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies and is an elected member of the Pacific Council on International Policy.   He regularly appears in the media to comment on global affairs. Follow @ManuBhagavan. Luca Storti, Associate Professor of Economic Sociology at the University of Torino Research Fellow of the Ralph Bunche Institute Email: luca.storti@unito.it Luca Storti is an Associate Professor of Economic Sociology at the University of Torino and Research Fellow of the Ralph Bunche Institute as of 2018. His main research interests involve Mafia’s processes of territorial expansion at both national and international level, the topic of international organized crime groups at boundaries between legal and illegal markets, and the relationships between Institutions and the Economy. Among his recent publications: “The territorial expansion of mafia-type organized crime. The case of the Italian mafia in Germany”, in Crime, Law and Social Change (2014, with R. Sciarrone); “Social class and wealth inequality in Italy over 20 years, 1993-2014”, in Journal of Modern Italian Studies (2018, with J. Dagnes and M. Filandri), “Undisciplined, selfish big Babies? The cultural framing of the Italian financial crisis”, in Modern Italy (2018, with J. Dagnes and J. González-Díez), “Survive or Perish: ‘Traditional’ Organised Crime in the Port of Montreal and the Port of New York/New Jersey”, in International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice (2020, with A. Sergi). Ellen Chesler Senior Fellow, RBI ellen.chesler@gmail.com With over thirty years of experiencein government, philanthropy, and academia, Ellen Chesler is widely respected for the practical and intellectual perspectives she brings to public policy. Ellen is author of the critically celebrated Woman of Valor: Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement in America. A finalist for PEN’s 1993 Martha Albrand award in nonfiction, the book was released in a new paperback edition in 2007. She is co-editor of Women and Girls Rising: Progress and Resistance around the World, a volume in RBI’s Global Institutions Series, and he is co-editor of Where Human Rights Begin: Health, Sexuality and Women in the New Millennium, Rutgers University Press, 2005. She has also written numerous essays and articles for academic anthologies and for prominent newspapers, journals, periodicals, and blogs. For many years she was a Senior Fellow and Program Director in Women’s Rights and Reproductive Health at the Open Society Foundations. Peter J. Hoffman Research Fellow, RBI Assistant Professor and Director, Graduate Programs in International Affairs, The New School HoffmanP@newschool.edu Peter J. Hoffman is Associate Professor and Director of The Graduate Program in International Affairs at The New School, and Research Fellow at the RBIIS. His research and writing focus on the dynamics of war and global responses, concentrating primarily on the international humanitarian system. Other major areas of his work encompass the United Nations; the private military and security sector; conflict analysis; and, U.S. foreign policy. His publications include numerous policy reports for organizations such as the National Committee on American Foreign Policy and Médecins Sans Frontières. Hoffman’s most recent book, co-authored with Thomas G. Weiss, Humanitarianism, War and Politics: From Solferino to Syria and Beyond (co-Rowman & Littlefield, 2018) develops an approach of “critical humanitarian studies” to analyze humanitarianism, its social movement, institutions and organizations. His current project examines changing beliefs of humanitarian agencies regarding the use of private security contractors to protect aid workers and situates this with regard to a global sacrificial order, and will be published as Mercy and Mercenaries: The Politics of Private Security Companies Protecting Humanitarian Agencies (Routledge, forthcoming).

Leah Kimber PhD candidate and teaching assistant at the University of Geneva Email: Leah.Kimber@unige.ch For more information on Leah and her work at the RBI, see here. Leah Kimber is entering the final quarter of her dissertation as a PhD candidate enrolled at the University of Geneva, Switzerland where she holds a contract as a teaching assistant. Drawn by the issues of Global Governance, she applied for a scholarship as visiting scholar which she was awarded by the Swiss National Fund for Scientific Research. From August 2018, she is able to concentrate fully on her research while integrating an institute known for its expertise on the study of global issues. Her doctoral thesis tackles the issues of civil society inclusion in negotiations at the United Nations. More specifically she analyzes the moments of inclusion and those of exclusion while relying on fieldwork she carried out as a participant observer in the lead-up to the UN’s Third World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction headed by the UNISDR in 2015. She sheds light on the individuals who constitute civil society – especially the Women’s Major Group advocating for gender equality and women’s rights – and on organizational practices by combining the perspective of the sociology of organizations as well as theories pertaining to interest groups. She is excited to be able to benefit from a research environment which addresses issues in line with those she raise in her doctoral research.

Sachiko Yoshimura Professor of International Law and Organizations at the School of International Studies, Kwansei Gakuin Email: syoshimura@kwansei.ac.jp For more information on Sachiko and her work at the RBI, see here. Sachiko Yoshimura is currently a professor of International Law and Organizations at the School of International Studies, Kwansei Gakuin University, Hyogo, Japan. Before joining Kwansei Gakuin University, she was a professor of international organizations at Hiroshima Shudo University until 2010. She was a visiting fellow at Corpus Christi College and Faculty of Law, Oxford University from 2002–2003. Her current research spans a broad range of areas of UN economic sanctions, international law, and organizations. She has published numerous books, book chapters, journal papers, and commissioned reports, including The Legal Problems on the United Nations Economic Sanctions (Kokusaishoin Publisher, 2003), Economic Sanctions by the United Nations Security Council (co-chair, a research commissioned by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japan, 2007), International Law (co-authored, Kobundo Publisher, 2017), and Introduction to International Human Rights (co-authored, Houritsu Bunka Publisher, 2013). She is currently editing books on Theory and Practice of International Organizations (Kokusaishoin Publisher) and United Nations Financial Sanctions (Toshindo Publisher).

Danielle Zach Affiliated Scholar E-mail: dzach@gradcenter.cuny.edu Danielle A. Zach is Assistant Professor of Political Science and Human Rights at The City College of New York’s (CCNY) Division of Interdisciplinary Studies at the Center for Worker Education. Her research encompass such themes as armed conflict, forced migration, transnational radicalism, and human rights. She is the host and producer of the podcast Rights Talk at CCNY Downtown; co-organizer of CCNY’s Human Rights Forum and Critical Perspectives on Human Rights Conference; and steering committee member of the CUNY Human Rights Hub and Workshop. For more than a decade, Dr. Zach was a Research Fellow at The CUNY Graduate Center’s Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies, where she worked on issues pertaining to the United Nations, especially concerning international peace and security. She was previously Visiting Assistant Professor at the Political Science Department of Adelphi University, and Visiting Scholar of Irish Studies at NYU.

Anne Gonon Professor at the Graduate School of Global Studies, Doshisha University Email: agonon@mac.com For more information on Anne and her work at the RBI, see here. As a professor at the Graduate School of Global Studies, Doshisha University, based in Kyoto (Japan), Anne is trained in sociology. Since 2004 and more March 11, 2011 and the beginning of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, her research has been taking two directions 1) Protection and Vulnerability: Public Policies and the Variety of Responses to Disasters: what kind of human protection can be conceived and enacted in situations of total vulnerability?  2) Knowledge, Society, and Democracy After Fukushima: this research focuses the place of information and knowledge in a nuclear society, and it aims to bring out the articulation between information/knowledge and human protection. The key words of her current research are: vulnerability; human security; care, empowerment; risk paradigm; nuclear social studies; socio-politics of knowledge and ignorance. During her sabbatical, Anne plans to collect her previous research on forms of life and human security with a strong point on ethics of care and use it to write a book. It will mainly focus on the way Japan deals with human security through the case of the Fukushima nuclear disaster which is the central “empirical experience” she mobilizes.

Martin Petzke Lecturer at University of Lucerne E-mail: martin.petzke@unilu.ch Martin Petzke researches the ways in which social-scientific expertise and quantitative indicators shape, intervene in, and transform fields of professional practice. His current project employs perspectives from the sociology of quantification, science and technology studies, and cultural sociology in analyzing how the measurement of immigrant integration in statistical “integration monitoring reports” is affecting the work of integration offices at the municipal, state, and federal level in Germany. While at the RBI, he will be working on a book that focuses on the functions, unintended consequences, and performative effects of such quantifying practices in the governance of integration. The case of Germany can prove instructive as countries and cities in Europe and beyond increasingly resort to quantitative instruments in reflecting on and governing immigrant inclusion. In advancing his book project, Martin hopes to benefit from the RBI’s unique expertise and scholarly excellence in the field of international studies and international problems, as well as from the comprehensive focus on the topic of immigration among the distinguished faculty at the Graduate Center.

Dr. Cecilia Jacob The Australian National University E-mail: cecilia.jacob@anu.edu.au Dr. Cecilia Jacob is a Fellow in the Department of International Relations at The Australian National University. Her work focuses on civilian protection, mass atrocity prevention and international human protection norms. Cecilia has a geographic focus on armed conflict and political violence in South and Southeast Asia and has conducted extensive overseas field research. Her books include Child Security in Asia: The Impact of Armed Conflict and Cambodia and Myanmar (Routledge, 2014) and (edited with Alistair D. B. Cook) Civilian Protection in the Twenty-First Century: Governance and Responsibility in a Fragmented World (Oxford University Press, 2016). She has published numerous book chapters and articles in journals such as Security Dialogue, Global Governance, and The Global Responsibility to Protect. While at the Ralph Bunche Institute, Cecilia was conducting interviews for a current book project on UN reform and prevention that builds on her interest in the global governance of human protection norms and their implementation in local contexts of violent conflict. Cecilia is currently completing a co-edited volume on Implementing the Responsibility to Protect that examines the implementation of this global norm across levels of governance from the international to local, across thematic areas such as post accountability, human rights and security, and across geographic regions. Prior to her academic career, Cecilia has worked in NGOs in France and Southeast Asia, and worked for the advisory group of the Australian government’s aid agency in the areas of governance, capacity building and justice.

Dr. Ignasi Torrent Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge Email: ignasi.torrent@gmail.com Dr. Ignasi Torrent is an associate lecturer at the Department of International Relations at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge. His previous academic engagements include research and teaching fellowships at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, University of Sierra Leone, the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Relations at the Graduate Center at the City University of New York and University of Westminster in London. His teaching experience includes courses such as International Relations, International Institutions and Policy, International Relations Theory, Global Governance, United Nations: Peace and Security, Post-War Reconstruction, Development and Peacebuilding, International Security and Conflict, among others. His research interests are framed in the area of Critical Peace and Conflict Studies, the Anthropocene and new materialisms.

Dr. Jan Lüdert  Associate Professor at City University of Seattle Email: luedert@me.com Jan Lüdert is an Associate Professor at City University of Seattle where he serves as Director of Curriculum and Instruction. He is a current Research Associate with the German Research Fund ‘Dynamics of Security’ project at Philipps Marburg University.  Jan is an alumnus of the World Affairs Council Fellows and Liu Institute for Global Issues Scholar programs. He is an award-winning educator as recognized by the prestigious Killam Teaching Award as well as Blackboard’s Exemplary Course Program Award. Jan earned his Ph.D. (Political Science) at the University of British Columbia and an M.A. (International Relations) from the Australian National University. He holds a B.A. (Public Policy) from Hamburg University for Economics and Politics. Jan studied at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and worked as a senior development manager in Botswana for Skillshare International. Jan’s research interests include International Relations, Political Theory, International History, Intergovernmental Organizations, Non-State Actors, Global Norms, Human Rights, Security Studies, Public Policy, Teaching, Learning and Technology, Leadership and Ethics. Dr. Miika Tervonen Senior Research Fellow at the Migration Institute of Finland Email: miika.tervonen@migrationinstitute.fi Miika Tervonen is a Senior Research Fellow at the Migration Institute of Finland, and a docent (Associate Professor) of Nordic Studies at the University of Helsinki. His research is centered on migration, borders, nationalism and minorities in the Nordic nation/welfare states. Tervonen received his PhD at the European University Institute (2010) and has worked a visiting scholar at the Columbia University and the London School of Economics. He is currently the chair of the Nordic Migration Research –network, and the country PI in the international research projects Ethnic Stereotypes Over Time – a Nordic Comparison (2022-2026) and Displacement, placemaking and wellbeing in the city (2019-2022), as well as member of the project Histories of Refugeedom in the Nordic Countries (2020-2022). During his visit at the RBI, Tervonen develops a project dealing with the history of deportations, and works on a monograph Writing the past white: Nation, Race and Coloniality in Finnish National Histories, examining the constructing of national narrative through inclusions, exclusions and silences. Jonas Fritzler PhD candidate at Bielefeld University Email: jonas.fritzler@uni-bielefeld.de Jonas Fritzler is a PhD candidate at Bielefeld University, Germany. Before starting his doctoral research project he taught courses in political science at the University of Amsterdam and Leiden University respectively (both in The Netherlands). His current research asks ‘Who Defends Human Security Norms in Times of Crisis?’ and studies the role of small state and middle power norm entrepreneurship in the current political context of global reordering. Jonas focuses on states which have often been described as norm forerunners, namely Canada, Denmark, and Sweden, and assesses their diplomatic practices related to establishing and defending human security norms such as the Responsibility to Protect. In times of ‘liberal world order crisis’, international norms are renegotiated and it is unclear how they will develop and to what extent norm entrepreneurs can defend them at the United Nations. The research connects to work on ‘small states’ and ‘middle powers’ to understand states’ motivations, and constructivism, which allows to (re-)assess the role of norm entrepreneurs in the norm life cycle, especially when norms are stagnant. During his time as a visiting researcher at the Ralph Bunche Institute, Jonas conducts interviews with practitioners working in the realm of the UN human security agenda. i