Building Sustainable Peace After Genocide: Lessons from Rwanda and Bosnia and Herzegovina

Flags of the nations of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Rwanuda

This virtual Zoom conference will bring together internationally renowned academics and activists to discuss their knowledge and experience of peacebuilding in the Bosnian and Rwandan contexts, religion and peacebuilding, and international law and transitional justice. The conference will provide an opportunity to learn how members of faith communities have courageously and creatively engaged in peacemaking activities in areas characterized by ethnic and religious tensions.

Register to sign-up and receive the Zoom link.

 

Schedule

DAY 1 - Thursday, April 11, 2024

Session I: 9:00-10:30am EST
Panel on Peacebuilding in Rwanda after the Genocide

Honorable Euthalie Nyirabega, Member of the Parliament of Rwanda, Senior Lecturer University of Rwanda

Eric Ns. Ndushabandi, PhD, Professor of Political Science and International relations, Associate Researcher at UCLouvain, Centre de Recherche en science politique

Marcel Uwineza, SJ, Principal (President) and Senior Lecturer of Systematic Theology, Hekima University College, Nairobi, Kenya

Session II: 10:45am-12:15pm EST
Keynote address: The Role of Religion and Religious Communities in Peacebuilding: Rwanda and the African Context 
Elisee Rutagambwa, SJ, Ph.D., Dean of Hekima Institute of Peace Studies and International Relations, Hekima University College, a Constituent College of the Catholic University of East Africa, Nairobi, Kenya

DAY 2 - Friday, April 12, 2024

Session I: 9:00-10:30am EST 
Panel on Women and Religious Peacebuilders in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Elma Bešlić, President of the General Assembly/Educator, Youth for Peace Bosnia and Herzegovina, Community Engagement Specialist at IOM - UN Migration

Dr. Zorica Maros, Professor of Moral Theology, Catholic Theological Faculty of The University of Sarajevo

Dr. Zilka Spahić Šiljak, Associate Professor, University Gender Resource Center, University of Sarajevo; Director, TPO Foundation Sarajevo

Session II: 10:45am-12:15pm EST
Keynote Address: International Law and Transitional Justice as Elements of Peacebuilding
Andrea Matačić Cayley, J.D., Ph.D., Exec. Dir., Washington, D.C. Programs, Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, Arizona State University, and former prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY)

Hosted by Gerald J. Beyer, Ph.D., Dept. of Theology and Religious Studies.

 

Recordings

Recordings of all sessions are now available for:

Department of Theology and Religious Studies
800 E. Lancaster Ave.
St. Augustine Center Room 203
Villanova, PA 19085

  

Recordings of Theology and Religious Studies sponsored lectures, making them accessible to the wider community, can be viewed on the TRS YouTube playlist.