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    Gambian named inaugural Fellow in Negotiation and Conflict Resolution at Harvard University

    October 21, 2022

    Baba Jallow: his work at the TRRC is now globally considered as a model for successful truth commissions

    THE former Executive Secretary of the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC) in The Gambia, Dr Baba Galleh Jallow, has been invited to serve as the inaugural Roger D. Fisher Fellow in Negotiation and Conflict Resolution at Harvard University Law School.

    Jallow, a former journalist, human rights advocate and an academic who taught at two US. universities, was invited to Harvard most especially for his work in transitional justice at the TRRC, now globally considered as a model for successful truth commissions. 

    He is expected to start the one-year fellowship in mid-2023.

    Roger D. Fisher, a distinguished Harvard Law School professor for more than 40 years who died in 2012, was co-founder and Director Emeritus of Harvard’s Programme on Negotiation.

    His family “endowed the fellowship to honour Professor Fisher, who devoted his career to studying and advancing the art and science of conflict resolution and negotiation,” Harvard said.

    He was involved in the negotiations leading to the end of apartheid in South Africa.

    “Roger Fisher was a pioneering visionary who helped to create the academic field of negotiation and conflict resolution and who put his own ideas into practice resolving conflicts large and small around the world,” said Dean John Manning of Harvard Law School.

    “With intellectual rigour and creativity, he approached the fundamental problem of how human beings can get past seemingly intractable disputes that threaten peace and stability.”

    The fellowship seeks to continue Professor Fisher’s life’s work by bringing to Harvard Law School “individuals of national and international stature who have demonstrated a commitment to making progress through the processes of negotiation and leadership”.

    Dean Manning said of the invitation to Dr Jallow: “It would mean so much to our community to learn from your wide-ranging experience with different forms of negotiation, influence, coalition-building, societal reconciliation and influencing long-term social change.

    “Your presence as our inaugural Fisher Fellow would enable our students to enrich their understanding of these processes and enrich conversations across the Harvard Law School and wider University.”

    Dr Jallow said: “I feel deeply humbled and honoured to be named the inaugural Fisher Fellow and entrusted with the responsibility to continue Professor Fisher’s life’s work at Harvard.

    “He was a great man and a brilliant scholar whose work on negotiation and conflict resolution is internationally acclaimed.

    “I was particularly pleased to learn about Professor Fisher’s contribution to negotiating an end to apartheid in South Africa.”

    Dr Jallow holds a PhD in African History from the University of California at Davis, a Masters in Liberal Studies from Rutgers University, Camden, New Jersey and a Bachelor of Arts in History and Political Science from Fourah Bay College, the University of Sierra Leone.

    In late 2017, he was invited by the former Gambian Justice Minister, Abubacar Tambadou, to return home from exile in the US to help set up the TRRC and serve as its Executive Secretary.

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