Accountability for Starvation: Testing the Limits of the Law

Alex de Waal

Executive Director

World Peace Foundation

Alex de Waal is the Executive Director of the World Peace Foundation at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and Professorial Fellow at the London School of Economics. Considered one of the foremost experts on Sudan and the Horn of Africa, his scholarly work and practice has also probed humanitarian crisis and response, human rights, HIV/AIDS and governance in Africa, and conflict and peace-building. His latest book is New Pandemics, Old Politics: Two Hundred Years of War on Disease and its Alternatives. He is also the author of Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine and The Real Politics of the Horn of Africa (Polity Press, 2015).  Full bio here.

Dan Maxwell

Henry J. Leir Professor in Food Security and Research Director, Friedman School of Nutrition, Professor, Fletcher School of International Law and Diplomacy

Feinstein International Center, Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy

Daniel Maxwell is the Henry J. Leir Professor in Food Security at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, with a secondary appointment at the Fletcher School. He is also the program director of the Master of Arts in Humanitarian Assistance (MAHA) at the Friedman and Fletcher Schools; and Research Director at the Feinstein International Center, where he leads the research program on food security and livelihoods in complex emergencies. In 2016-2017, he served as the Acting Director of the Feinstein International Center. His recent research focuses on the re-emergence of famines in the 21st century and the politics of analyzing and declaring famine, as well as food security and resilience programming and measurement, and livelihood systems under stress. He teaches humanitarian action, humanitarian policy, and famine and food insecurity in situations of crisis.

Aditya Sarkar

Independent researcher

Aditya Sarkar is a Ph.D student at the Fletcher School, Tufts University and an independent researcher. He has advised the Governments of Sudan, Somalia and Ethiopia on developing National Employment Policies and similar issues, and has worked with the World Bank, the International Labour Organization, and the Open Society Foundations. Aditya is qualified as a lawyer in India and in England and Wales. He is a graduate of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and the National Law School of India University in Bangalore, India. Aditya’s research focuses on the political economy of transactional political systems and its connections to labour and migration/ displacement.

Tom Dannenbaum

Associate Professor of International Law

The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University

Tom Dannenbaum is Associate Professor of International Law at The Fletcher School, where he is also Co-Director of the Center for International Law and Governance and Co-Director of the LLM Program. Prior to joining Fletcher, he taught at University College London and Yale Law School. Dannenbaum writes on the law of armed conflict, the law governing the use of force, international criminal law, human rights, shared responsibility, and international judging. His articles have appeared in a range of leading journals and have received multiple awards, including the American Society of International Law’s (ASIL) International Legal Theory Scholarship Prize in 2022 for his work on siege starvation and ASIL’s Lieber Prize in 2017 for his work on the crime of aggression. His writing on peacekeeping has been cited by the Hague Court of Appeal and the International Law Commission. Dannenbaum’s book, The Crime of Aggression, Humanity, and the Soldier, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2018. In 2021, Dannenbaum was awarded the James L. Paddock Teaching Award. In 2022, he was awarded the Fletcher Faculty Research Award.

Dyan Mazurana

Research Director, Feinstein International Center

The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University

Dyan Mazurana, Ph.D., is Research Professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy and at the Fletcher School at Tufts University. At Fletcher, she co-directs the Gender Perspectives in International Studies field of study. She is also research director at the Feinstein International Center and a research fellow at the World Peace Foundation. Her areas of focus include women’s and children’s rights during armed conflict and post conflict, serious crimes and violations committed during armed conflict and their effects on victims and civilian populations, armed opposition groups and remedy and reparation. She works with a number of governments, U.N. agencies and NGOs on these areas. 

Bridget Conley

Research Director

World Peace Foundation

Bridget Conley is the Research Director of the World Peace Foundation and Associate Research Professor at The Fletcher School. At WPF, she is the lead researcher on WPF’s program, “Protecting Vulnerable Groups,” and program manager for the Global Arms and Corruption projects. She works closely with the Executive Director on project development, fundraising and strategic vision for WPF. Currently, her research focuses on “Tracking COVID-19 in Detention”. She is lead editor on the Accountability for Starvation volume. Her previous research examined memory following mass atrocities, which culminated in her book, Memory from the Margins: Ethiopia’s Red Terror Martyrs Memorial Museum (Palgrave 2019), and comparative studies of how mass atrocities end. She is the editor of How Mass Atrocities End: Studies from Guatemala, Burundi, Indonesia, the Sudans, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Iraq (Cambridge University Press 2016). She has also published on issues related to starvation crimes, the 1992 – 1995 war in Bosnia, mass atrocities and genocide, and how museums can engage on human rights issues.   Full bio here.

Paul Howe

Director, Feinstein International Center

Feinstein International Center

As director, Paul Howe is responsible for the overall strategy and administration of the Feinstein International Center. Paul’s career has focused on addressing the problems of hunger and famine. He worked with the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) for more than 17 years. In his last WFP assignment, he served as Country Director in Nigeria. Prior to that, he worked with WFP in Afghanistan, Uganda, and Laos and at the headquarters in Italy. Even while serving as a senior leader in WFP, Paul kept up his research and publication activities on these topics.  Full bio here.