COURSE DESCRIPTION

Despite historical cases of strategic nonviolent resistance (also known as civil resistance, strategic nonviolent conflict, or people power) and notwithstanding a number of recent nonviolent insurrections, including popular revolts in Tunisia and Egypt and other Arab countries, there is little understanding of this phenomenon among academics, policy makers and mainstream media alike.

This seminar studies the emergence, sustenance and dynamics of popular civic movements. It addresses the questions of what civil resistance is and how it works while looking at various strategic developments that propel nonviolent resistance. It analyzes how seemingly powerless unarmed but organized movements can challenge the mighty and powerful and what role it can play in democratization and successful democratic transitions. The seminar also shows how the power of popular nonviolent resistance is often ignored or misunderstood because of mainstream media’s framing and prevailing misconceptions. Various cases of pro-democracy and rights-based struggles that are historically, culturally and geographically diverse will be presented and discussed.

The moniker ‘Democratic’ has been adopted by movements, organisations and states of drastically different ideological persuasion, social and political vision. Whether genuinely or rhetorically, the pursuit of democracy and democratisation has been a permanent fixture in international and domestic politics since the end of the Second World War. Either through violent or non-violent means, political transition and regime change is always dramatic and never simple. The course explores what this process means and how democratic transitions happen through an overview of theories of change and the analysis of case studies. 

This course seeks to provide GLP scholars and fellows with a basic introduction to the principles, conceptual underpinnings and creative design of curricula relevant to the teaching of peace and conflict studies programs in universities in their countries and regions.

Participants will initially review a range of paradigms in curriculum theorizing and their implications for the design of curricula. In accord with the values and cultural analyses on which peace studies and peace education are based, emphasis is placed on curriculum development approaches that promote conflict transformation, transformative learning, critical pedagogy, and education for a holistic culture of peace.

The course then clarifies key pedagogical principles and strategies which will complement a critical transformative paradigm of curriculum development and design. Scholars will be assisted in integrating these pedagogical approaches in the design of their curricula for teaching peace and conflict studies at the tertiary level.

Drawing on a number of exemplars of curriculum design in various fields and dimensions of peace and conflict studies and peace education, including disarmament, nonviolence, gender, local/global justice, human rights, intercultural understanding and sustainable futures, participants will have an opportunity to gain insights and practical ideas for effective and creative teaching of peace and conflict studies curricula in their university programs.

The course intends to, after having initially discussed the Lisbon Treaty of 2009, give students an in depth understanding of the political, economic and social reasons behind what today constitutes the European Union. A fair amount of European history, contemporary and older will in this respect be subject for discussion. Furthermore, the course will extensively deal with how and why the European economic and, subsequently, political, social and judicial co-operation has taken place and arrived to where it is today. In the latter context students will have the possibility to look into the national diversities and similarities of the national political reasons that have taken the co-operation of originally six countries to the EEC/EC/Union today of twenty-seven in a span of less than half a century. The institutions of the Union, their interdependence, different roles and over time varying importance will be looked at before the driving political and economic forces behind any future expansion of the Union is turned to as the next focus of the course. The latter implies also a necessary study and discussion of any possible political and other ramifications of an expanding union. By completion these parts of the course, students will have acquired a profound knowledge of the political, economic, social and judicial significance of the European Union, for its citizens, its neighbors and globally.

In recent decades, there has been an increased international and  national concern over the impact of wars and other emergencies on the right to education of affected peoples and communities. Within the context of humanitarian responses and interventions, it is now recognized that during wars and emergencies such as natural disasters and health crises (e.g. pandemics), as well as in the post-conflict or recovery phase, appropriate educational provisions and strategies are necessary. Considerable attention is also being given to the preventive role that education can and needs to play in enhancing the preparedness of individuals and groups to meet the challenges of  wars, crises and emergencies.

This course seeks to clarify the range of purposes that education can and should fulfill in wars and other emergency situations as part of a holistic humanitarian response and the broader challenge of building a culture of peace. The learning experiences will be relevant to peace educators and peacebuilders planning to contribute to educational initiatives and programs designed to meet the needs and  enhance the well-being of peoples affected by situations of wars and other emergencies, whether “natural” and/or human–made.

Exemplars from various situations of wars and other emergencies worldwide will be examined  to suggest alternative educational strategies for helping refugees, internally displaced peoples, ex-combatants and other vulnerable groups such as women and children to overcome physical and psychosocial trauma and suffering caused by displacement, family destabilization, insecurity, pandemics (e.g., HIV/AIDs) and loss of regular educational provision. Students will also consider the role of education in improving survival and health prospects during or prior to emergencies and in forming new values, attitudes and skills for transforming conflicts nonviolently. Both formal and non-formal educational approaches and contexts, as well as curriculum, pedagogical methods, and educational training processes will be considered.

Throughout the course, there will also be opportunities for students to learn conceptual insights and "best practices" or guidelines drawn from the essential and dedicated work of international and local humanitarian agencies and grassroots civil society organizations in alleviating the impact of wars and other emergencies. In this regard, the emergent vision and practical proposals embodied in UNEPS (United Nations Emergency Peace Service) and R2P (Responsibility to Protect) will also be examined.

·      Training in a methodology (the Environmental Security Assessment Framework, or ESAF) that can be adapted to a variety of specific contexts (national, regional, subnational, sectoral, ecosystem).

·      Comparative understanding of approaches to environmental security assessment used by such organizations as UNEP, OSCE, and the Institute for Environmental Security.

·       Increased empirical knowledge and familiarity with a diverse range of case studies on specific environmental security challenges in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

·       Negotiating skills developed in simulations that require students to navigate the conflicting interests of diverse governmental and nongovernmental stakeholders.

·       Risk assessment and cost-benefit analysis in varying country contexts.

·       Strategies for putting forward effective recommendations to policymakers.

·       Experience working as a team member in conducting an environmental assessment.

This course focuses on the principles, practices, and skills that underlie environmental security assessments. Environmental security assessments combine field research and analysis of secondary data in order to identify environmental risks and vulnerabilities that have the potential for adversely affecting human security or promoting instability and conflict. They provide tools that produce analyses to enable policymakers to develop more effective strategies for crisis prevention and mitigation. Environmental security assessments are by their nature interdisciplinary, calling for skills and insights ranging from economics, anthropology, and political science to hydrology, agronomy, and a variety of specializations in the environmental sciences. 

The skills that students will have the opportunity to develop include: 

The objective of this course is to first explore the nature of our food systems and the paradox of why, despite the apparent scientific and technological developments in agriculture enabling production of a worldwide food surplus, food insecurity is increasing globally. Secondly, students will explore what needs to change in our food systems in order to reach a goal of sustainable food security.

To achieve these two objectives, students will be encouraged to explore food security from a household and community perspective in order to understand the environmental factors that contribute to food insecurity. This knowledge-building process will be done through group tasks in the classroom and in the field. Students will be expected to undertake practical work to assess the situation of households vulnerable to food insecurity, hopefully in two locations, one urban and one rural. The course emphasizes “learning by doing” and so there will be field trips to two locations to meet vulnerable households and to assess successful local research initiatives which are increasing household and community food security.

Group work in the class will address defining food security and what constitutes a healthy sustainable food system. In addition, there will be group work, for example, in exploring the causes of famines, the issue of food justice and a right to food, the problems of food aid, and the implications of commoditization of our food systems. To bring out opposing viewpoints on food issues, part of the group work will be organized as debates. The intention of the course is to emphasise experiential learning rather than focus on formal lectures although there will be an initial presentation by the instructor on a food security topic prior to each workshop session. Hopefully, students will have gained both practical skills and theoretical knowledge about hunger, famine and food security and will feel confident and empowered to address these issues directly or indirectly in their future work.

It is commonly stated that we live in an era of accelerating globalization, a process of increasing interdependence and interconnectedness on a global scale. This process is intricately connected, indeed made possible in the first place, by developments of modern information and communication technologies (ICTs).

From the beginning of the United Nations system, there have been various initiatives to set normative standards that pertain to these developments, guided by the traumatic experiences of the thorough abuse of modern mass media for purposes of propaganda and incitement, predominantly based on the nascent human rights regime. The Cold War, de-colonization, liberalization, the ‘war against terrorism’ as well as the advent of satellite television, digitalization and the internet have since each brought about new impulses and necessities that have impacted on the nature of global communication.

This course will provide students with an introduction of the historical debates concerning international communication and its normative framework starting from the immediate post-colonial period when concerns about cultural imperialism dominated debates on the necessity of a New Information and Communication Order and the idea of a right to communicate as a means of empowerment and democratization. These debates have developed further and resurfaced during the more recent World Summit on the Information Society in 2003/05. Technological as well as political changes have brought with them new concerns such as the digital divide, the scope and limitations of freedom of expression, an increasing awareness for the need for access to information as well as privacy concerns.

This course explores whether global governance in the field of global communication meets the standards of the international human rights regime. The notion of communication rights, defined as human rights standards that pertain to communication processes, will serve as guiding principles for the analysis of the global communication system and governance.

Through the prism of existing human rights norms, such as for example provisions concerning gender representation and the inclusion of persons with disabilities, we will analyze these debates and examine current practices of global governance of media and ICT and seek to identify aspects of continuity and change.

As a practical exercise the course introduces participants to "the art of the long view" (Schwartz) and the writing of scenarios for future governance of global communication.

The course starts analyzing the declaration of the MDG of UN, looks at different approaches to understanding poverty, the relation of poverty and inequality, the relation of poverty, health and education, the institutional constraints for poverty reduction, international cooperation and aid and ends looking at some case studies of success and failure in developing countries. The course will attempt to provide students with a systemic and integrated view of the problem of poverty in the context of globalization and a critical analysis of  policy options.

El  propósito general del curso es describir, analizar y criticar temas sobre América Latina en relación a la construcción del desarrollo humano y la seguridad humana en el marco de la consolidación de la democracia. A partir de una visión general sobre la historia política reciente de la región,  el curso permitirá examinar etapas del desarrollo, la evolución de los derechos humanos, los enfoques de seguridad, las amenazas contra la democracia y la dimensión internacional de América Latina, como región, en el mundo actual. Las violencias, el rol de los partidos políticos, las elecciones, la política, la equidad social, las transformaciones sociales y los liderazgos políticos serán los temas a debatir.

The United Nations Protocol on Trafficking in Persons, adopted in November 2000, defines trafficking as: “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, or deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.” This protocol has 105 signatories. In our globalizing world, trafficking in human beings, especially women and children, hasincreased in both magnitude and in reach, becoming a major human rights concern. Trafficking grew enormously. The human trafficking affects vulnerable individuals, particularly women and children, in every region of the world, the criminal nature of human trafficking makes it difficult to know the real extent of the phenomenon.
 
This course will address the gender and power influences at play within the broader phenomena of international human trafficking:

- The emotional and physical stress
- The trafficking techniques
- Concept of gender and power relations
- Cases of trafficking
- Challenging in combating human trafficking 

The course aims at strengthening the capacity of scientists, administrators and students to respond to specific donor demands to achieve complementary funding for projects (Project Funding) and institutions (Core Funding).The course is an instrumental one and systematically develops a logical framework based project matrix, a concept paper and gives an overview about potential funding agencies and options. The course is oriented towards the needs of the participants. They start the course with their own project idea in which external funding is required and finalize with concrete results such as a project planning matrix, project profile and potential donors identified to launch the project.

This one week course intends to explore the study of happiness or subjective well-being as part of a more general move in economics that challenges the traditional global economic models and analyzes the conventional path of growth that the developed economies have followed and the developing ones intend to emulate. Happiness economics – which represents one new direction – relies on more expansive notions of utility and wellbeing, looking at interdependency and interconnectedness not claiming to replace income-based measures of welfare but instead to complement them with broader measures of well-being that eventually could lead us towards more sustainable livelihoods.

Ameena Alrasheed Ph.D candidate at Leeds University the UK, worked as Teaching Assistant at the Department of Political Science, Khartoum university, Sudan, TA at Leeds University, Middle Eastern Studies, Trainer and consultant with the UN and international organizations in Kosovo, Iran, Indonesia. Researcher on women’s refugees and immigrants in the Netherland and women and domestic violence in the UK at the National probation centers, West Yorkshire.

Dr. Abdalla is Professor and Vice Rector at the United Nations-mandated University for Peace (UPEACE).  Before arriving at UPEACE, he was a Senior Fellow with the Peace Operations Policy Program, School of Public Policy, at George Mason University, in Virginian, USA.   He was also a Professor of Conflict Analysis and Resolution at the Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences in Leesburg, Virginia.
 
Both his academic and professional careers are multi-disciplinary.  He obtained a law degree in Egypt in 1977 where He practiced law as a prosecuting attorney from 1978 to 1987.  He then emigrated to the U.S. where He obtained a Master's degree in Sociology and a Ph.D. in Conflict Analysis and Resolution from George Mason University.
 
He has been teaching graduate classes in conflict analysis and resolution, and has conducted training, research and evaluation of conflict resolution and peacebuilding programs in several countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Europe and the Americas.  He also authored, and co-authored, several research and evaluation teaching manuals including: Doing What You Want With Your Data, A Step-by-Step Guide to Planning and Implementing Evaluation Strategies, and Qualitative Evaluation: The What and Why.

He has been an active figure in promoting effective cross-cultural messages within the Islamic and Arabic-speaking communities in America through workshops, T.V. and radio presentations.  He has also been actively involved in inter-faith dialogues in the United States.  He pioneered the development of the first conflict resolution training manual for the Muslim communities in the United States titled (“…Say Peace”).  He also founded Project LIGHT (Learning Islamic Guidance for Human Tolerance), a community peer-based anti-discrimination project funded by the National Conference for Community and Justice (NCCJ).
 

Instructor, Department of Peace and Conflict Studies

JD, Eötvös Loránd University of Sciences, Faculty of Law and Political Science, Hungary, M.A. in International Peace Studies, University for Peace.

After graduating from the University of Lund, Sweden, Law School (with honors) he worked as a District Judges Assessor at a civil and criminal regional court in Sweden before joining the Swedish Foreign Ministry. With the Ministry he has held various positions at the home-office and abroad, among those as Director for American Affairs, as Director for Asian Affairs, and for Eastern European Affairs. Postings abroad include several in Central America, North and South America, including as Head of Mission in Montevideo, Uruguay and in Managua, Nicaragua. Furthermore Christer has served as Deputy Chief of Mission at the Swedish Embassies in Rome, Italy and Vienna, Austria. During 4,5 years Christer served as Senior Advisor at the European Union Council Secretariat, Directorate General for International Relations. More recently Christer served as Ambassador for multilateral co-operation in the Baltic Sea Area, holding in 2006-2007 the presidency of the Council of the Baltic Sea States, Committee of Senior Officials, and thereafter served as the Representative of the local EU-presidency in Nicaragua.
Since April 2009 Christer holds the position of Head of the Department of International Law and Human Rights  at the UN-mandated University for Peace, in San José, Costa Rica. He speaks, in addition to his native Swedish, English and Spanish. 

Prof. Ansorena holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Massachusetts, USA. He has a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics from the National University of Costa Rica. The University of Massachusetts also granted a Master in Economics.

Since August 2011 will be Associate Professor at the University for Peace and have the responsibility of conducting the Master of Arts Programmes in Responsible Management and Sustainable Economic Development.

Before joining UPeace, Dr. Ansorena has been an economist practitioner with over 20 years of professional experience as project manager and advisor to different organizations such as Government of Costa Rica as General Manager for the Program of “Regulation of Cadastre and Registry and Municipal Strengthening” the Central American Integration Secretariat (2005-2008), the government of Nicaragua, (2003-2004), UNDP, UNICEF, World Bank, CATIE (1999-2002). He has been also an IADB economist and program officer (1991-1998) and advisor to the Ministry of Trade of the government of Costa Rica (1997-1998). He has a broad set of skills in economic and policy analysis, planning and trade.

His long professional experience has been combined with teaching, mainly in the University of Massachusetts and the National University of Costa Rica.

Assistant Professor in the Department of Environment, Peace and Security, University for Peace. MSc. Environmental Sciences, Wageningen University and Research Center, The Netherlands. BSc. Tropical Forestry, Technological Institute of Costa Rica, Cartago, Costa Rica. He teaches Forestry, Agriculture, the San Jose Environmental Seminar and the Natural Resource Management Field Trip. Prior to this, he worked as a Student Research Assistant in Wageningen University and Research Center, WUR, at the Sociology Department, inside the Environmental Policy Group. Research interests: Payments for Environmental Services, Forest Conservation, Sustainable Rural Development, Community Forest Concessions.

Director of Research and Studies at the Foundation for Environmental Security and Sustainability (FESS). From 1996 to 2003, he was the Director of Research and Studies at the North-South Center of the University of Miami, where he also was editor of the North-South Agenda Papers. At FESS, he has led environmental security assessments in Uganda (2005), the Dominican Republic (2006), the Philippines (2007), and Ethiopia (2009), as well as project activities in Sierra Leone (2006-09). He is co-editor of Fault Lines of Democracy in Post-Transition Latin America (North- South Center Press, 1998), winner of the Choice Outstanding Academic Book award, and editor of The Challenge of Change in Latin America and the Caribbean (North-South Center Press, 2001). Recently, he has written on problems of environmental security in the developing world, including “Climate Change, Adaptation, and Conflict” (USAID, October 2009) and “Energy Security and Conflict” (USAID, February 2010).

Assistant Professor, Vice Rector Office

Ph.D., University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2009. LL.M. in International Public Law at Amsterdam Law School, 2007, and M.Sc. in International Relations and Communication Science, University of Amsterdam, 2005.

Before obtaining her first Master’s Degree, Julia Hoffmann studied Media Management at the Institute for Journalism and Communication Science in Hanover, Germany, and Political Philosophy at Hong Kong University.

She has been working as an academic lecturer since 2006 and as a free lance consultant, speaker and trainer for a number of NGOs in the field of media, human rights, peace and conflict.
 

Ph.D Graduate International Rural Development. Assistant Professor, Humboldt University of Berlin. Project Manager, GTZ in Latin America. Government advisor, Ministry of Agriculture, Lisbon/Portugal. Preparations with respect to the entrance of Portugal into the Common Market. Freelance consultant, FAO, GTZ, EU, BMZ, World Bank, Governments, IICA, IADB, NGO's.

Dr. Maciej Bartkowski speaks regularly about civil resistance at different academic and policy forums, conducts research and writes on nonviolent movements and strategic nonviolent conflict. His recently co-authored articles include A Human Right to Resist and Egypt: How to Negotiate the Transition. Lessons from Poland and China. Currently, he is completing an edited book project on Rediscovering Nonviolent History. Civil Resistance in Liberation Struggles and Nation-Making.

Dr. Bartkowski currently works at the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict and as an adjunct faculty at George Mason University (Fall 2011). Earlier, he has worked as a lecturer, a visiting faculty and a director of academic programs at a number of academic institutions in the United States, Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia. He taught at the Bard College Globalization and International Affairs Program in New York, the Open Society Institute Undergraduate Exchange Program, Adelphi University and at the Academy of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

He has also done research at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, a traineeship at the European Parliament, was an European Union observer of the Lebanese parliamentary elections in 2005 and the OSCE election supervisor in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1997. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science and M.A. in International Relations and European Studies from Central European University in Budapest, completed his undergraduate work at the American University of Central Asia in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, and speaks fluent English, Polish and Russian.

Director of the UPEACE Centre for Executive and Professional Education and a faculty member at UPEACE. Prior to this position, he served as Education Programme Manager of the Earth Charter Initiative, an international nonprofit organization. Before his 4-years in the non-profit sector, he worked both in the private sector and also as a high school teacher in Ecuador. He has a Bachelor's degree from Stanford University and his Master's from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Former Coordinator of the RMSED Programme at the University for Peace, Costa Rica from 2009 to July 2011. She Owns a Msc in Post-war reconstruction, graduated with distinction in 1999, University of York (UK). Bsc in Economics, graduated Cum Laude, 1992, University La Sapienza of Rome (Italy). Technical Diploma in accounting and foreign Languages, gruaduated in 1986, (Italy).

She has been working since 18 years in developing countries and war-torn societies in Africa (Uganda and Egypt), Asia (Indonesia), Middle East (Jordan, WBG, Lebanon, Yemen), Central America (Guatemala, Costa RIca) and the Balkans (BiH, Kosovo, Serbia, Macedonia) heading and managing emergency, rehabilitation and development projects for the European Commission (several years), SNV-Dutch Cooperation (1999-2001), CARE Nederland (2001-2008), MOVIMONDO (Consortium of Italian NGOs- 1995-1998).  She was also research fellow of the Institute of Nutrition for Central America and Panama (INCAP); University of York (UK) for research projects in Indonesia/Aceh and Lebanon/Beiruth; and of the University of Rome.  

University instructor in food security and community development and natural resource management consultant working on community development and food security issues for international development organizations such FAO, DANIDA, DFID, GTZ, OXFAM, UNESCO, UNDP etc.

In 1997, he became a founding member of a nonprofit association of development professionals, the International Support Group (ISG) and was on the board of the association from 1999 to 2005 working as treasurer and member of ISG's strategic planning team. In addition to membership of ISG, Reg Noble is also a research associate for the Centre for Studies in Food Security at Ryerson University (Toronto) and Academic Coordinator for the postgraduate program in food security at Ryerson where he teaches three of the program courses: Food Security Concepts and Principles; Research Methods and Evaluation in Food Security; and Community Development and Food Security. His skills include: Workshop facilitation with community members and their service providers (from government, non-government and private sectors) to assist them forming multi-stakeholder learning groups for community development planning; Design of collaborative processes for policy development with regard to natural resource management (NRM) and food security; Stakeholder analysis; Design of client-led research approaches for community development; among many other fields of experience. Reg Noble has undertaken his work mostly in Africa (where he lived for 17 years in Malawi) dealing with development issues such as decentralization of agricultural planning in Uganda; impact of integrated rural development on rural livelihoods in Ethiopia and ecologically-based smallholder farming development in Malawi. Reg Noble holds a Ph.D. in Ecology, awarded in 1981 from the Chelsea College of Science, University of London, UK.

Rita Marie Johnson came to Costa Rica in 1993 to help strengthen its national model of peace. As a result, a new “peace package” is now being created: a Ministry for Peace that collaborates with a national Academy for Peace, which trains peace teachers in the schools to teach the practice of BePeace in each community. This new government infrastructure, coupled with grassroots peace skills, is inspiring hope around the world as people realize that similar models could be replicated in their countries.

In 2002, Johnson discovered a powerful synergy between coherence for “feeling peace” and connection to universal needs through empathy and honesty for “speaking peace.” Inspired by this combination, she developed the practice of BePeace. She founded the Academy for Peace of Costa Rica as a project of the Rasur Foundation, with the vision of developing masterful peace teachers, called “Rasurs,” to provide BePeace training in every community. In 2009, Rasur Foundation International began supporting other countries to establish their own academies, which include developing “Rasurs” and teaching BePeace.
 

Assistant Professor of Natural Resources and Sustainable Development in the Department of Environment, Peace and Security at UPEACE. He holds a Ph.D. in Sociocultural Anthropology from the University of California at Santa Barbara with an emphasis in Global Studies. Dr. Fletcher has conducted ethnographic research in Chile and Costa Rica concerning the cultural dimensions of ecotourism as a strategy for environmentally-sustainable economic development. In addition, he has worked for many years as a professional ecotourism guide and planner in a variety of locations

 Assistant professor Claremont Lincoln University (2010-).

PhD University of Toronto (2009), MA Duke University (2003), GHL Latin American Rabbinical Seminary (2000), BA University of Buenos Aires (2000).

Numerous articles written in Postcolonialism, Global Ethics, etc.

Visiting professor in diverse universities worldwide (including U. Utrecht in the Netherlands and U. of Granada, Spain).

Toh Swee-Hin is Distinguished Professor and long-term Consultant, Office of the Vice-Rector, University for Peace. He graduated with a Ph.D. in International/Intercultural Education & Sociology of Education, and a Master of Education in Educational Administration from the University of Alberta, Canada after undergraduate studies in Chemistry & Education at La Trobe University in Australia.  Prior to his UPEACE appointment, Prof. Toh was the founding Director of the Multi-Faith Centre, Griffith University, in Australia, which seeks to promote inter-faith dialogue towards a culture of peace. Born in Malaysia, he has taught in universities in Canada and Australia and served as visiting professor in the interrelated fields of education for a culture of peace, human rights, justice, multiculturalism, sustainability and interfaith dialogue in North and South contexts. He has contributed to several international networks and organizations including UNESCO, the International Institute on Peace Education, World Council for Curriculum & Instruction, Asia- Pacific Centre of Education for International Understanding, and the Parliament of the World’s Religions and Religions for Peace. In 2000, he was awarded the UNESCO Prize for Peace Education.

Instructor of the Responsible Management and Sustainable Economic Development (RMSED) program. From 2006-2008 she served in India as Director of the Valencian Government Foreign Trade Office and from 2004-2006 she was International Trade Advisor at the Commercial Office of the Embassy of Spain in New Delhi (India) gaining broad experience in international commerce and cooperation. 
 
She holds an MA in International Peace Studies from the University for Peace, Costa Rica. She is an Expert in Mediation from the Department of Sociology, Psychology, Communication and Didactics from the University of Alicante (Spain) and a BA in Business Administration from the University Cardenal-Herrera CEU in Spain.  

Dr. Victor M. Valle has been at the United Nations mandated University for Peace since 2000, when he became part of the team charged to revitalize the university.  He is currently Professor and Associate Vice Rector. Before arriving UPEACE he had a long career in international cooperation, university education, educational development, security sector reform and political action.

His academic and professional careers have been long and varied and his professional contributions have been provided around the world. He has a Doctor of Education degree, granted by the George Washington University, at USA, in 1983 and a Master of Education degree granted by the University of Pittsburgh, USA, in 1971. He carried undergraduate studies in Civil Engineering in the University of El Salvador from 1959 to 1965.In the 1970s Dr. Valle was involved in management development for public sector in several Latin American countries, as consultant of the Inter-American Development Bank, and in some projects of university planning at the City University of New York (Master Plan Committee of a new Community College in the system) and the University of Costa Rica (Planning of regional university centers).

During the 1980s, Dr. Valle was Senior Educator at the Organization of American States, Washington D.C. where he managed educational development projects in more than 30 countries in fields such as teacher training, curriculum development, higher education and Amazonian development.In his political activity, Dr. Valle was the leader of the Salvadorian political party member of the Socialist International, from 1991 to 1994, and in such capacity traveled around the world meeting top political leaders and heads of state.He was member of the National Commission for the Consolidation of Peace, which was a plural body in charge of overseeing the accomplishment of the UN mediated Peace Accords that settled the political armed conflict in El Salvador in the 1990s. Dr. Valle was founder of the National Academy of Public Security and Inspector-General of the National Civil Police in El Salvador, both organizations conceived as part of the mentioned Peace Accords.

Dr. Valle has published books and articles on educational, social and political issues.

Director for Academic Development, and Head, Department of Peace and Conflict Studies

PhD, MA, Peace and Development Studies, University of Limerick, Ireland; Doctor of Education (candidate), Universidad De La Salle, Costa Rica; BA in Politics, University of Sussex, United Kingdom. Disciplines: post-liberal peace, terrorism and insurgency studies.

Resident Associate Professor, Department of Gender and Peace Education

Virginia Cawagas is a resident Associate Professor in the Dept. of Gender and Peace Education. Previous to this appointment she was Visiting Professor of UPEACE and a Senior Fellow since 2004; Adjunct Associate Professor at the School of Education & Professional Studies, Griffith University (2004-2009), and the Faculty of Education, University of Alberta (1995-2010). From 2003-2005, she was a visiting professor and academic consultant of the Asia-Pacific Centre of Education for International Understanding (APCEIU), a centre established by the Agreement of UNESCO and the Government of the  Republic of Korea, to promote education for international understanding (EIU) towards a culture of peace  in the Asia-Pacific region. She edited the first APCEIU teachers’ resource book for Asian and Pacific countries for integrating EIU toward a culture of peace in social studies. She has been editor of the International Journal of Curriculum and Instruction, since 1998. Prof. Cawagas has an Ed.D. in peace and development education (meritissimus) and has extensive teaching experience in the field of peace education, human rights education, and multicultural education in both formal and nonformal modes. She teaches, lectures, and conducts workshops in these fields for students, teachers, academics, school administrators, community leaders, soldiers, and civil servants in the Philippines, Australia, Canada, China, Jamaica, Japan, South Pacific, South Korea, Thailand, Uganda and the US.