Leslie Vinjamuri

Convenor, General Diplomatic Studies and Practice

Profile

Dr. Leslie Vinjamuri is Convenor of General Diplomatic Studies and Practice at the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy and a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in the Department of Politics and International Studies. She Co-Chairs the London Transitional Justice Network (together with Chandra Sriram, at the Centre on Human Rights in Conflict, UEL, and Iavor Rangelov, at the Centre for the Study of Global Governance, London School of Economics). She is an Associate Fellow of the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute at the University of Manchester and is also on the Editorial Board of the International Journal for Transitional Justice and the Advisory Board of SSRN-Transitional Justice.

Dr. Vinjamuri's research includes projects on the role of Justice and Accountability in War and Peace Negotiations, Faith-Based Humanitarianism, Secularism and Religion in Transitional Justice, and the effects of Counterterrorism in Democracies. She has published several articles and book chapters on these topics in journals such as International Security, Survival, and the Annual Review of Political Science. Dr. Vinjamuri has served as a consultant to the Ford Foundation, the Open Society Institute, the International Law Institute, and the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue.  Currently, she holds a research grant from the Smith Richardson Foundation for a project that looks at strategies for addressing the problem of accountability during war and postconflict reconstruction. As part of this research, she is completing a manuscript, Justice, Accountability, and War Since 1945.

Until 2007, Leslie Vinjamuri was an assistant professor in the School of Foreign Service and Department of Government at Georgetown University. She has also held visiting fellowships at Harvard University's John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies, and at the Centre for the Study of Human Rights, and the Centre for International Studies of the London School of Economics. In addition to this, her research has been supported by the Smith Richardson Foundation, the Institute for the Study of World Politics, the Eisenhower Institute, the Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University, and Georgetown University.

Leslie Vinjamuri has also worked in the Foreign Affairs and National Security Division at Congressional Research Service and in the Asia Bureau of the United States Agency for International Development. She is a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies and the Royal Institute for International Affairs. She received her Ph.D. from Columbia University and her MSc in International Relations (Distinction) from the London School of Economics.

Academic Interests and Selected Publications 

Journal Articles

"Advocacy and Scholarship in the study of Transitional Justice and International War Crimes Tribunals" (with Jack Snyder), Annual Review of Political Science, 2004.

"Trials and Errors:  Principles and Pragmatism in Strategies of International Justice" (with Jack Snyder), International Security, Winter 2003/2004.

"Order and Justice in Postwar Iraq", Survival, Winter 2003.

"Prosecuting War Criminals: An Argument for Decentralization" (with Michelle Sieff), Conflict, Security and Development, Fall 2002.

"Reconciling Order and Justice? New Institutional Solutions in Post-Conflict States" (with Michelle Sieff). Journal of International Affairs, Special Edition on International Institutions and Justice, spring 1999, 52, no.2.

Book Chapters

Leslie Vinjamuri and Aaron Boesenecker. 'Religious Actors in Transitional Justice', The New Religious Pluralism, Thomas Banchoff (ed) (Oxford University Press, 2008).

Jack Snyder and Leslie Vinjamuri, 'Preconditions of International Normative Change: Implications for Order and Violence', Order, Conflict, and Violence, Kalyvas, Masoud, and Shapiro (eds) (Cambridge University Press, 2008).

Jack Snyder and Leslie Vinjamuri, 'Unipolar empire and principled multilateralism as strategies for international change', in Multilateralism and Security Institutions in an Era of Globalization (Routledge Press, 2008).

Op Eds

Jack Snyder and Leslie Vinjamuri, 'A midwife for peace', International Herald Tribune 27 Sep. 2006: .

Reports

Leslie Vinjamuri and Aaron Boesenecker, "Peace Agreements and Accountability Since 1980", Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, Geneva, Switzerland, 2007.

Book Reviews

Book Review of Howard Ball, Prosecuting War Crimes and Genocide:  The Twentieth Century Experience (University Press of Kansas, 1999) in Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 115, Number 2, Summer 2000.

Radio Interview

Judging the International Criminal Court: Bringing War Criminals to Justice, April 2009

Professional Memberships and Service

Academic Advisory Board, America Abroad Media, International Institute for Strategic Studies, Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), Women in International Security (WIIS), American Political Science Association (APSA), International Studies Association (ISA), British International Studies Association (BISA)

Editorial Board, International Journal of Transitional Justice, 2006 to present.

Referee for: International Security, International Studies Quarterly, World Politics, Political Science Quarterly, International Studies Review, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, Review of International Political Economy, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Peace Research, Polity Press, European Journal of International Relations

Selected Papers (by Invitation)

"Civil Liberties, Counter-terrorism, and Britain's Role in the World", Conference on 'Britan's Role in the World', Exeter University, England, September 2007.

"Accountability in Peace Agreements"   Paper given at the Nuremberg Conference, Nuremberg, Germany, June 2007.

"Is Globalisation Legalisation?   Stratification in the Politics of Transitional Justice", Workshop on Transitional Justice and International Law: Cooperation or Competition, Centre for the Study of Social Justice in the Department of Politics and International Relations at Oxford, June 2007

"Do War Crimes Trials Work?"  Panel with Richard Goldstone.  London School of Economics, Old Theatre, May 3, 2007. (full transcript here)

"Methodological Issues in Atrocities Research", Workshop on Responses to Atrocities, University of Minnesota, April 2007.

"Civil Liberties in a Time of Terror" Panel on Civil Liberties and National Security, Chatham House, London, November 2006.

"Transitional Justice and Peacebuilding", Conference on Strategic Peacebuilding, Kroc Institute, Notre Dame University, November 2006.

"International Law, Human Rights, and the War on Terror", Conference on Transatlantic Relations, Sponsored by German Marshall Fund US and Bertelsmann Foundation, Tremezzo, Italy, June 2006

"Religion, Faith-Based Actors and Transitional Justice,"  Paper presented at Conference on The New Religious Pluralism, Berkley Center for Religion, Politics, and Peace, Georgetown University, March 2006.

"Strategies of Justice and Postwar Peacebuilding, 1945-2004", Paper delivered at the University of Washington, Seattle, May 2005.

"Post-Conflict Justice in Comparative Perspective", Conference on Post-Conflict Cooperation:  Common Goals, Differing Perspectives, Sponsored by Allied Command Transformation, Old Dominion University and National Defense University, April 2005.

"Strategies of Justice and Postwar Peace Settlements, 1945-2004" presented to the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 2005.

"Trials and Errors:  Principle and Pragmatism in Strategies of International Justice", Center for International Security Studies (CISSM), University of Maryland, College Park, April 2004.

"Unipolarity and its Implications for International Criminal Law", Workshop on the Future of International Criminal Law, Meridian International Center, Washington, D.C., February 2004.

"Trials and Errors:  Principle and Pragmatism in Strategies of International Justice" Presentation at Center for Peace and Security Studies (CPASS), Georgetown University, with Jack Snyder, March 2004.

"The Future of International Organizations", Address to German Marshall Fund Conference for

Emerging Leaders, "The Transatlantic Trainwreck", Tremezzo, Italy, June 2003.

"Transitional Justice Theory and Practice", presented at the Social Science Research Council's

Conference on Peacebuilding in Africa in Cape Town, South Africa, June 2000.

Telephone: +44 (0) 20 7898 4758