Peace News Expert Network

Jessica Berns is President of Jessica Berns Consulting, which she founded in 2011 and has been involved with the Purdue Peace Project since its founding.

Johan Brosché is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University.

John Avery is a theoretical chemist, peace activist and part of a group associated with the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs.

Judith Verweijen is an Assistant Professor at the Department of International Relations at the University of Groningen. Her work is situated at the intersection of conflict studies, political ecology and political geography. She looks at militarization, dynamics of violence and the interplay of armed and social mobilization in natural resource conflicts in areas of protracted violence. She focuses on eastern DRC, where she has conducted intermittent fieldwork since 2010.

Julia Julstrom-Agoyo holds a B.A. in International Studies – Human Rights from the University of Iowa and is completing her Master’s in International Affairs with a specialization in International Conflict Resolution at Columbia University – SIPA in New York. She is an intern at Adapt Peacebuilding, where she contributes to the organization’s efforts to promote adaptive and systemic approaches to peacebuilding in areas affected by violent conflict. Julia’s areas of focus include conflict transformation, transitional justice, forced migration, and criminal justice and immigration policy reform.

Kathryn Nash is a Chancellor’s Fellow at the University of Edinburgh Law School. Her research focuses on the role of regional organisations in peace and security, and she is the author of African Peace: Regional Norms from the Organisation of African Unity to the African Union (MUP February 2021).

Kathy Kelly co-ordinates Voices for Creative Nonviolence. In Kabul, she is the guest of the Afghan Peace Volunteers.

Kjetil Tronvoll carried out anthropological studies in Eritrea, Ethiopia and Zanzibar, and has been involved in human rights, peace processes and research in Eritrea, Ethiopia and other African countries. He was the first non-Eritrean researcher to enter Eritrea in August 1991 after the Eritrean War of Independence in which the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) and the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) overthrew the Derg. He stayed in a highland village studying the relation between the villagers and the EPLF. Tronvoll was an observer in the 1993 Eritrean independence referendum.

In a 2009 report on human rights in Eritrea commissioned by the Oslo Center, Tronvoll stated that while drafts of Eritrean law codes prepared in 1997 were consistent with international principles of law, the new law codes had no real effect. He said that civil society organisations and independent newspapers briefly existed in Eritrea in 2001 following the 1998–2000 Eritrean–Ethiopian War, but were crushed from September to December 2001. He estimated the number of political prisoners in the range 10,000–30,000 and said that there was widespread and systematic torture and extrajudicial killings, with "anyone" for "any or no reason", including children eight years old, people over 80 years old and ill people, being liable to be arrested. Tronvoll summarised the situation stated that in 2009, Eritrea had "developed into one of the world's most totalitarian and human rights-abusing regimes".

Tronvoll has expertise in the law of Ethiopia. Tronvoll was a professor of human rights at the University of Oslo until 2010. As of 2021, Tronvoll held the position of professor of peace and conflict studies at Bjørknes University College. He was also director of a consultancy firm Oslo Analytica.

Kristian Åtland is a Senior Research Fellow at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI) and Adjunct Professor of Political Science at Nord University.

Kristine Höglund is Professor at the Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University, Sweden.