December 8, 2004

Speaker Biographies

George A. Lopez is a professor of political science and senior fellow at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Working with David Cortright since 1992, he has written more than twenty articles and book chapters, as well as five books, on economic sanctions, with special reference to UN sanctions on Iraq. The Lopez-Cortright volume, The Sanctions Decade: Assessing UN Strategies in the 1990s, has drawn critical acclaim for Mr. Lopez, including the bestowing of a Choice Outstanding Academic Title in 2000. Towards Smart Sanctions: Targeting Economic Statecraft, coedited with Mr. Cortright, and Sanctions and the Search for Security, coauthored with Mr. Cortright, both appeared in the spring of 2002. Mr. Lopez’s investigation of UN sanctions on Iraq began in 1993 when he was asked to help the Department of Humanitarian Affairs develop methodologies for assessing sanctions impact. He also observed closely the development of SCR 986 (April 1995), which established the Oil-for-Food Program and played a significant role in the development of what became SCR 1409 (May 2002), the smart sanctions package that further liberalized the Oil-for-Food program.

Edward Mortimer is the director of communications in the Executive Office of the Secretary-General of the United Nations. From 1998 to 2001, he was the head of the speechwriting unit. He worked for the Times of London as an assistant Paris correspondent from 1967 to 1973 and then as foreign specialist and lead-writer on the Middle East and Mediterranean affairs from 1973 to 1985. In 1987 he joined the Financial Times, where he was the main foreign affairs commentator. Mr. Mortimer is the author of several books and pamphlets, including France and the Africans (1969); Faith and Power: The Politics of Islam (1982); The World That FDR Built (1989); European Security after the Cold War (1992); and A Few Words on Intervention (1995), and coeditor of People, Nation, and State: The Meaning of Ethnicity and Nationalism (1999).

Joshua Muravchik is a resident scholar at AEI and a specialist in U.S. foreign policy and international relations.  He has written extensively about democracy, human rights, the role of ideas and ideologies in international politics, and America’s role in the post–Cold War world.  His articles appear frequently in Commentary, The New Republic, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the Wall Street Journal.  His newest book, Covering the Intifada: How the Media Reported the Palestinian Uprising, was published in July 2003. He is also the author of Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism (2002); The Imperative of American Leadership (1996); Exporting Democracy: Fulfilling America’s Destiny (1991); News Coverage of the Sandinista Revolution (1988); and The Uncertain Crusade: Jimmy Carter and the Dilemmas of Human Rights Policy (1986). He serves as an adjunct scholar at the Washington Institute on Near East Policy and is an adjunct professor at the Institute of World Politics.

Danielle Pletka is the vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at AEI. Her research areas include the Middle East (including Iran, Iraq, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict), South Asia (India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan), terrorism, and weapons proliferation. While at AEI, Ms. Pletka has developed a conference series on rebuilding post-Saddam Iraq, a project on democracy for the Arab world, a roundtable of experts to discuss global energy security, and a project to develop bilateral relations between India and the United States. Before coming to AEI, she served for  ten years as a senior professional staff member for the Near East and South Asia on the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Ms. Pletka has also been a journalist based in Washington and the Middle East.

Claudia Rosett writes on international affairs, drawing on twenty-two years of experience as a journalist and editor, reporting from Asia, the former Soviet Union, Latin America, and the Middle East. Currently based in New York, she writes a column, “The Real World,” on issues of tyranny and human rights, especially as these relate to the war on terror, for the Wall Street Journal’s www.Opinionjournal.com and the Wall Street Journal Europe. She has also contributed to publications such as the New York Times, Commentary, The American Spectator, and The Weekly Standard and makes frequent guest appearances on TV and radio. Ms. Rosett has served as a member of the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board in New York (1997–2002) and as a reporter and then-bureau chief in the Wall Street Journal’s Moscow Bureau, covering the former Soviet Union (1993–1996). More recently she has reported from Lebanon and written on issues involving the United Nations, foreign dissidents, and tyrants who in various ways threaten the democratic world.