David Harland (born 28 September 1962 in

Wellington Wellington is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the third-largest city in New Zealand (second largest in the North Island ...

) is a

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

diplomat who has been the executive director of the

Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue The Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (HD), otherwise known as the Henry Dunant Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, works to prevent and resolve armed conflicts around the world through mediation and discreet diplomacy. A non-profit organisation base ...

(HD), a

Geneva Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...

-based foundation that specialises in the mediation of armed conflict, since 2011. Harland served as a witness for the prosecution in a number of cases at the

International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was a body of the United Nations that was established to prosecute the war crimes in the Yugoslav Wars, war crimes that had been committed during the Yugoslav Wars and to tr ...

Early life and education

Harland is the son of late New Zealand ambassador Bryce Harland. Harland holds a PhD from the

Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy is the graduate school of international affairs of Tufts University, in Medford, Massachusetts. Fletcher is one of America's oldest graduate schools of international relations. As of 2017, the student bo ...

(1994), a

Master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional prac ...

from Harvard University (East Asian studies, 1991), a graduate diploma (进修证) from

Beijing University Peking University (PKU) is a public university in Haidian, Beijing, China. It is affiliated with and funded by the Ministry of Education of China. The university is part of Project 211, Project 985, and the Double First-Class Construction. It i ...

(1988) and a

Bachelor of Arts A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...

from

Victoria University of Wellington Victoria University of Wellington (), also known by its shorter names "VUW" or "Vic", is a public university, public research university in Wellington, New Zealand. It was established in 1897 by Act of New Zealand Parliament, Parliament, and w ...

, New Zealand (1983).

Career

Harland was appointed HD's Executive Director in 2011. In 2018, he publicly announced that the Basque armed group ETA had dissolved itself as the final step in a long-running process to bring an end to violence in the Basque country. In 2022, Harland and HD were cited as an initiator of the UN-brokered deals to ease the global food crisis by facilitating agricultural exports from Russia and Ukraine. HD was awarded the Carnegie Wateler Peace Prize for 2022 "for its more than 20-year track record in ending armed conflict and for its patient, creative and discreet approach”. Harland also sits on the UN Secretary-General's High-Level Advisory Board on Mediation and on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Robert Koch Institute Centre for International Health Protection (ZIG). Prior to that, Harland was

adjunct professor An adjunct professor is a type of academic appointment in higher education who does not work at the establishment full-time. The terms of this appointment and the job security of the tenure vary in different parts of the world, but the term is gen ...

at the

Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies The School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) is a graduate school of Johns Hopkins University based in Washington, D.C. The school also maintains campuses in Bologna, Italy and Nanjing, China. The school is devoted to the study of int ...

(SAIS) and Chair of the

World Economic Forum The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international non-governmental organization, international advocacy non-governmental organization and think tank, based in Cologny, Canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded on 24 January 1971 by German ...

Global Agenda Council on Conflict Prevention. Before joining HD, Harland was director of the Europe and Latin America Division of the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations (2006–2011), where he managed the end of the UN transitional administration in Kosovo. He served in UN peacekeeping missions in

Haiti Haiti, officially the Republic of Haiti, is a country on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and south of the Bahamas. It occupies the western three-eighths of the island, which it shares with the Dominican ...

(2010), in

Kosovo Kosovo, officially the Republic of Kosovo, is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe with International recognition of Kosovo, partial diplomatic recognition. It is bordered by Albania to the southwest, Montenegro to the west, Serbia to the ...

(2008), in

Timor Leste Timor-Leste, also known as East Timor, officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, is a country in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the coastal exclave of Oecusse in the island's northwest, and ...

(1999–2000), where he set up and oversaw what would be the first government departments, and in

Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina, sometimes known as Bosnia-Herzegovina and informally as Bosnia, is a country in Southeast Europe. Situated on the Balkans, Balkan Peninsula, it borders Serbia to the east, Montenegro to the southeast, and Croatia to th ...

(1993–1998), where he co-led (with the Office of the High Representative) the post-war effort to increase freedom of movement through the introduction of a new national license plate, which he designed. During 1999, he was released from his regular duties, together with Salman Ahmed, to research and draft the UN report on the

Srebrenica massacre The Srebrenica massacre, also known as the Srebrenica genocide, was the July 1995 genocidal killing of more than 8,000 Bosniak Muslim men and boys in and around the town of Srebrenica during the Bosnian War. It was mainly perpetrated by unit ...

– "The Fall of Srebrenica". He was a teaching fellow at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

in 1989–1991. Harland served as a witness for the prosecution at the

in the cases of The Prosecutor versus Ratko Mladic (2012), The Prosecutor versus Radovan Karadžic (2010), The Prosecutor versus Dragomir Miloševic (2007) and the Prosecutor versus Slobodan Miloševic (2004). He was a script advisor for the Oscar-nominated film

Quo Vadis, Aida? ''Quo Vadis, Aida?'' ( ''Where are you going, Aida?'') is a 2020 internationally co-produced war drama film written, produced and directed by Jasmila Žbanić. An international co-production of twelve production companies, the film was shown in ...

(2019–2020)‘Not just a film’: Bosnia brings Srebrenica to the Oscars
Al Jazeera

Publications

* "Killing Game", Praeger Press, 1994.
"Legitimacy and effectiveness in international administration"
Global Governance, 15, 18, 2004.
"Post-Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina"
With Elizabeth Cousens, In William J. Durch, ed., Twenty-First-Century Peace Operations. Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace Press (2006): 49–140.
"Kosovo and the UN"
'Survival: Global Politics and Strategy', volume 52, number 5, October–November 2010, pp 75–98.
"War is Back – The International Response to Armed Conflict"
Horizons, Issue No. 7, Spring 2016, pp. 224–234.
"Afghanistan: A lesson in how not to negotiate"
Geneva Solutions, 23 August 2021.
"Reversing the decline of diplomacy"
Geneva Policy Outlook, 5 Feb 2024

References

External links

Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue – Senior Management Team
{{DEFAULTSORT:Harland, David 21st-century New Zealand diplomats 1962 births Living people Harvard University alumni The Fletcher School at Tufts University alumni Victoria University of Wellington alumni