Noah Bassil is the deputy director of the Centre for Middle East and North African Studies, Macquarie University and lectures in the area of international relations of the Middle East. His recent publications address issues related to the impact of colonial legacies on racial and ethnic identities in Darfur and the Sudanese state failure. Other research interests include Middle East inter-regional politics and the politics of representing the Middle East and Africa.

Lynda-ann Blanchard is a lecturer at the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Sydney; executive member of the National Committee on Human Rights Education; executive member of the International Institute For Peace Through Tourism; and, consultant to the Conflict Resolution Network. She is co-editor of Managing creatively: human agendas from changing times (1996).

Leah Chan is a postgraduate student at the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies and administrative assistant of the Sydney Peace Foundation at the University of Sydney. She spent five months as a volunteer in Guyana organising and facilitating health and education workshops and teaching literacy.

Richard Hil is a senior lecturer in the School of Arts and Social Sciences at Southern Cross University and an honorary associate of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Sydney. He has published widely in the areas of criminology, peace and conflict studies, juvenile justice and child and family welfare. Recent co-authored books include International criminology (Routledge 2007) and Dead bodies don’t count (Zeus 2008). x

Kenji Isezaki is professor of peace and conflict studies at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies and lecturer at the United Nations University, Tokyo. He served as the Japanese Government Representative for Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) in Afghanistan and as Chief of DDR in the UN Mission in Sierra Leone. He has published widely on UN peacekeeping operations and NGO management.

Mary Lane is a guest lecturer at the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies and an honorary associate in the Faculty of Education and Social Work at the University of Sydney. Formerly a senior lecturer in social work, a major focus of her teaching and research has been community development, peace and conflict, and social work practice.

Jake Lynch is director of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Sydney. He has spent the past decade developing and campaigning for peace journalism and practising it as an experienced international reporter in television and newspapers. He is convenor of the Peace Journalism Commission of the International Peace Research Association; a member of the executive committee of the Sydney Peace Foundation and of the International Advisory Council of the Toda Institute for Global Peace and Policy Research. He has authored numerous books, book chapters and refereed articles on peace and the media.

Michael McKinley is a senior lecturer in global politics at the Department of Political Science and International Relations at the Australian National University. His teaching, research and writing encompasses work on global politics, international terrorism, security issues in Australia’s strategic environment, Australia’s and United States’ foreign policy, and philosophies of war and peace.

Hannah Middleton is a guest lecturer at the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies and executive officer of the Sydney Peace Foundation at the University of Sydney. She is founding member and the national spokesperson of the Australian Anti-Bases Campaign Coalition. She is the Australian representative on the International Network Against Foreign Military Bases and on the Board of the Global Network Against Weapons in Space. xi

Donna Mulhearn is a postgraduate student at the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Sydney. As a peace activist, she volunteered in Iraq as a human shield and later as a humanitarian aid worker. She has also spent four months in the West Bank of Palestine. A book about her experiences in Iraq, ‘Ordinary courage: my journey to Baghdad as a human shield’, will be published in February 2010.

Michael Otterman is a visiting scholar at the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies. He is an award-winning freelance journalist and documentary filmmaker, and author of American torture: from the Cold War to Abu Ghraib and beyond (Melbourne University Press 2007).

Sandra Phelps is a visiting scholar at the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Sydney and head of sociology at the University of Kurdistan Hawler, Northern Iraq. Her current research interests include gender and ethnic intolerance within social groups and critical studies of peace, human rights and UN organisations to gendered violence.

Stuart Rees is former director and professor emeritus at the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies and director of the Sydney Peace Foundation at the University of Sydney. He has worked in community development and social work in Britain, in Canada, in the War on Poverty programs in the USA and with Save the Children in India and Sri Lanka. He has published over one hundred articles and ten books including the poetry anthology, Tell me the truth about war (Ginninderra Press 2004). His other books include: Passion for peace (UNSW Press 2003); Human rights, corporate responsibility (Pluto Press 2000); The human costs of managerialism (Pluto Press 1995).

Tatsuya Yoshioka is co-founder and director of the Japan-based international organisation Peace Boat, which has been organising voyages for peace and sustainability education since 1983. He is a leading advocate within Japanese civil society and commentator in the Japanese media, as well as Regional Initiator of the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (Northeast Asia). xii

Sue Wareham is president of the Medical Association for Prevention of War (Australia), which works for the elimination of nuclear weapons and for the promotion of peace and disarmament. She has spoken and written widely on these issues. In April 1999, she took part in an international delegation to Iraq to raise awareness of the devastating impact of economic sanctions on the Iraqi people and in December 2006 travelled to Lebanon with a delegation to document the effects of cluster bombs on civilian populations.