A workshop on designing and delivering effective oral presentations.

The UN and the Cambodian government have finally established a “hybrid-style” tribunal in Phnom Penh to begin prosecuting senior leaders from the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime that caused the deaths of 1.7 million Cambodians more than thirty years ago. This tribunal is widely viewed as one of the most important experiments in transitional justice in a post-conflict society. Prof. Hall will show, however, that the hybrid structure mixing international and local lawyers, judges, and staff is deeply flawed. Cambodia’s legal system is notoriously corrupt, inefficient, and politically controlled. Predictably, the UN-sponsored tribunal has been plagued by accusations of corruption, opacity, distrust, and woeful human resource management. Against this backdrop, the international lawyers and judges at the tribunal continue their up-hill battle to forge a venue that meets minimum international legal standards.

John A. Hall specializes in international law and human rights. His controversial 21 September 2007 op ed in the Wall Street Journal (“Yet Another U.N. Scandal”) helped focus international attention on corruption and mismanagement at the Khmer Rouge tribunal. In addition to writing widely on Cambodia, he has worked for Legal Aid of Cambodia in Phnom Penh and the Public Interest Law Center in the Philippines. He holds a doctorate in Modern History from Oxford University, graduated from Stanford Law School in 2000, and before going to law school was a tenured professor of history.

John Ciorciari is Senior Legal Advisor to the Documentation Center of Cambodia, a leading NGO dedicated to accountability for the abuses of the Khmer Rouge regime. He holds a JD from Harvard Law School and a PhD from Oxford University.

During the Cold War, China was regarded in many corners of Southeast Asia as a sponsor of subversion and communist insurgency. Until the “four modernizations,” its anemic economy and limited ability to project power offered little incentive for Southeast Asian governments to cozy up to Beijing. Relations were often frosty or worse. Clearly, times have changed. Essentially all of the states in Southeast Asia have robust diplomatic and economic engagements with the PRC. Yet security concerns have not evaporated. Most Southeast Asian governments now embrace China, but “hedge” by setting up fall-back security options with the United States and other partners in case the PRC becomes more menacing.

This seminar will explore some of the nuances in Southeast Asian “hedging” strategies. How do various governments view China’s intentions and capabilities? How have they variously sought to engage the United States and others to gain and retain security without antagonizing Beijing? How do these strategies relate to multilateral diplomacy in ASEAN and related forums, and how do they affect the overall “balance of power” in the Asia-Pacific region? Lastly, what pitfalls might hedging entail? These questions are critical, because the reaction of Southeast Asian states to China’s rise will have a major effect on the shape and stability of regional security for years to come.

John D. Ciorciari is a 2007-08 Shorenstein Fellow and is currently completing a manuscript entitled Hedging: Southeast Asian Alignments with the Great Powers since the Fall of Saigon.  He has extensive work experience in Southeast Asia, both as an academic and as a U.S. government official.  He also served as a Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies in Singapore in 2003-04.  He holds a JD from Harvard Law School and DPhil from the University of Oxford.

Lant Pritchett is Professor of the Practice of Economic Development at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University (as of July 1, 2007).

In addition he works as a consultant to Google.org, is a non-resident fellow of the Center for Global Development, and is a senior fellow of BREAD. He is also co-editor of the Journal of Development Economics.

He graduated from Brigham Young University in 1983 with a B.S. in Economics and in 1988 from MIT with a PhD in Economics.

After finishing at MIT Lant joined the World Bank, where he held a number of positions in the Bank's research complex between 1988 and 1998, including as an adviser to Lawrence Summers when he was Vice President 1991-1993. From 1998 to 2000 he worked in Indonesia. From 2000 to 2004 Lant was on leave from the World Bank as a Lecturer in Public Policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. In 2004 he returned to the World Bank and moved to India where he worked until May 2007.

He has been part of the team producing many World Bank reports, including: World Development Report 1994: Infrastructure for Development, Assessing Aid: What Works, What Doesn't and Why (1998), Better Health Systems for Indias Poor: Findings, Analysis, and Options (2003), World Development Report 2004: Making Services Work for the Poor, Economic Growth in the 1990s: Learning from a Decade of Reforms (2005).

In addition he has authored (alone or with one of his 22 co-authors) over 50 papers published in refereed journals, chapters in books, or as articles, as least some of which are sometimes cited. In addition to economics journals his work has appeared in specialized journals in demography, education, and health. In 2006 he published his first solo authored book Let Their People Come.

Lant, an American national, was born in Utah in 1959 and raised in Boise Idaho. Perhaps because of this, he has worked in, or traveled to, over forty countries and has lived in three other countries: Argentina (1978-80), Indonesia (1998-2000), and India (2004-2007).

The European Union has been described as "an economic giant but a political pygmy". Will its new Reform Treaty, currently being ratified by the member states, enable it to play a more powerful role in world affairs? 

Dick Leonard wrote the best-selling book, The Economist Guide to the European Union  (9 editions, translated into nine languages), widely recognised as the most authoritative guide to the EU.  A former British Member of Parliament, he has been covering the European Union as a Brussels-based journalist for over 25 years.

A former Assistant Editor of The Economist, he has also worked for the BBC and The Observer and has contributed to leading newspapers in the United States, Canada, Australia, India, Japan and New Zealand, as well as the Brussels-based publications, European Voice and The Bulletin. He was for many years a contributing editor of the Washington-based magazine, Europe.

Apart from his work as a journalist, he has been a Professor at Brussels University (ULB), a senior consultant to the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), the well-known think tank, and European Advisor to the British publishing industry.

A long-term campaigner for British membership of the European Union, he was one of the minority of Labour MPs who voted in favour of British entry in 1971, despite the opposition of his party. During his time as an MP, he served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Anthony Crosland, who was later Foreign Secretary.

Dick Leonard is the author or part-author of some 20 books, including Eminent Europeans, How to Win the Euro Referendum, Elections in Britain (five editions) and The Pro-European Reader, which he co-edited with his son, Mark Leonard. The ninth edition of his book, The Economist Guide to the European Union, published in 2005, has been widely and enthusiastically reviewed. Since then he has published the highly praised A Century of Premiers: Salisbury to Blair, to be followed by 19^th British Century Premiers: Pitt to Rosebery, which will appear in May 2008.

A highly experienced broadcaster and public speaker, he has made five successful lecture tours in the United States and Canada, as well as lecturing regularly in London, Brussels and other European cities.

Teh-wei Hu is a Professor Emeritus of health economics at the University of California, Berkeley.  At Berkeley, he served as associate dean (1999-2002) and department chair (1990-1993) in the School of Public Health.  He received his PhD in Economics from the University of Wisconsin.  

During the past 40 years, Professor Hu has been teaching and conducting research in health economics, particularly in healthcare financing and the economics of tobacco control.  Hu was a Fulbright scholar in China. He has served as consultant or advisor to the World Bank, the World Health Organization, the National Institutes of Health, the Institute of Medicine, the Rand Corporation, the Ministry of Health in the People's Republic of China, Department of Health and Welfare in Hong Kong, Department of Health in the Republic of China (Taiwan), and many private research institutions and foundations. 

Professor Hu will speak to us immediately after an April trip to China, sharing his research and perspectives on the economics of tobacco control and the debate about healthcare system reforms in China (including a possible link between the two through financing expansions in coverage through increased tobacco taxation).

Joan Manuel Tresserras i Gaju was born in Rubí in 1955.

He holds a PhD in Information Sciences. He is a professor at the Department of Journalism and Communication Sciences of the UAB, specialising in the history of communication, analysis of the information society, the study of cultural industries and mass culture. He has also taught about cultural management, political communication, communication policies and media analysis.

He received a summa cum laude Doctorate in Information Sciences (1988-89), the award for research into Mass Communication of the Generalitat de Catalunya (1989), and the Joan Fuster essay award (1994). Among others publications, he has written 'El Regne del Subjecte' (1987) and 'Cultura de masses i postmodernitat' (1994) which he co-wrote with Enric Marín, 'D'Ací i D'Allà, aparador de la modernitat' (1993) and 'La gènesi de la societat de masses a Catalunya' 1888-1939 (1999) which he co-wrote with Francesc Espinet. He has written some fifty academic articles and texts on social communication and has co-written the reports on 'Seguiment de L'impacte social de les noves tecnologies de la informació i la comunicació', sponsored by the Fundació Bofill, and has written 'Un segle de recerca sobre comunicació a Catalunya'. He coordinated the "Cultura" blog of the Informe per a la Catalunya del 2000 (1999).

He was the director of the Department of Journalism and Communication Sciences of the UAB (1991-1993) and coordinator of the degree in Journalism at the UAB (1997-1999). He was a member of the Institutional Advertising Advisory Committee of the Generalitat (1998-1999), a director of the Catalan Radio and Television Corporation (2000), director of the Catalan Audiovisual Council in charge of research, studies and publications (2000-2006), chairman of the Board for Diversity in the Audiovisual Media (2005-2006) and member of the Mixed Commission for State-Generalitat Transfers (2004-2006). He is vice-president of the Catalan Communication Society, a subsidiary of the Catalan Studies Institute.

Phillip Rothwell is associate professor of Spanish and Portuguese at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. He received a BA (Honors) in Math/Spanish and Portuguese/Phonetics, a MA (2000) and a PhD (2000), all from the University of Cambridge, UK. His areas of specialization are literatures and cultures of Lusophone Africa and Portugal.

Dr. Rothwell is the author and editor of numerous books, reviews, translations, and articles, including “A Postmodern Nationalist: Truth, Orality, and Gender in the Work of Mia Couto”. Bucknell & U.P. (2004); “Fuzzy Frontiers - Mozambique: False Borders, Mia Cuoto: False Margins” Portuguese Literary and Cultural Studies. Fall (1998); “A Tale of Two Tensions: Synthesis and Separation in Portuguese National Identity” Forum for Modern Language Studies. April (2000); “Shit, Shrimps, and Shifting Soubriquets: Iracema and the Lesson in Lost Authority” Portuguese Literary and Cultural Studies. May (2001); “The Phylomorphic Linguistic Tradition: Or, The Siege of (the) Portuguese in Mozambique” Hispanic Research Journal. June (2001). His most recent book is A Canon of Empty Fathers: Paternity in Portuguese Narrative (Bucknell University Press, 2007).