AGS Visits the Nyerere Center for Peace Research in Tanzania, Discusses Joint Projects

On April 11-17, Alexis Delabre, Chairman of the Board of AGS, Eileen Servidio, President of the School of International Relations and Diplomacy at AGS, and Douglas Yates, African Studies specialist at AGS, were invited to the Nyerere Center for Peace Studies in Arusha, Tanzania, to discuss joint African Studies teaching and research projects with Arcadia University.

The Nyerere Center for Peace Research is a joint initiative of Arcadia University and the East African Community. It serves as an academic resource to the member states of the EAC through policy research/analysis and training, and provides study abroad, exchange programs, and field research opportunities in Tanzania to students and faculty from Arcadia University and its partner institutions. All of these activities converge towards one scope and mission: peace.

Chairman Delabre, President Servidio, and Professor Yates met with Dr. Roland Adjovi, director of the Nyerere Center, Dr. Warren Haffar, Dean of Internationalization and Director of the International Peace and Conflict Resolution program at Arcadia University, and Dr. Nikki Christensen, President of Arcadia's College of Global Studies. Together they explored the various ways in which the American Graduate School in Paris could take part in this initiative and make its students benefit from the unique opportunities that it provides. Discussions covered possible joint courses at the graduate level as part of the African Concentration in the International Relations M.A. program at AGS, as well as joint study abroad courses at the undergraduate level.

During the visit, Professor Yates gave a presentation about the crisis in Ivory Coast to the students in the conflict resolution class at the Nyerere Center. The AGS delegation was taken to visit the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, which is located just a few blocks away from the Nyerere Center. The ICTR was created by the UN to try cases of crimes against humanity and genocide which would have been impossible to try in the collapsed judicial system of post-conflict Rwanda. Delabre, Servidio and Yates also visited the African Court for Human and People's Rights, which not only serves to defend human rights, but as its name indicates, also hears cases concerning "people's rights", which includes such issues as self-determination and group-based rights.  This court represents an advancement on the original African Commission on Human and People's Rights in that it has jurisdiction to hear cases from individual citizens and not only state (an innovation in international law).