Jennifer Welsh, professor of international relations at the University of Oxford, will present a Trudeau Lecture titled, The Individualization of War: Protection, Liability and Accountability, at 5 p.m. March 25 in Conron Hall, University College 224.
Welsh, a Fellow of Somerville College and a special adviser to the secretary-general of the United Nations, will examine the dramatic ways in which war has changed since the beginning of the First World War in 1914. In particular, she will argue individuals – rather than states – have become central to armed conflict today. The lecture will focus on three themes: increased urgency to protect people caught up in conflict; enhanced capacity to target particular individuals in war time; and growing efforts to hold individuals accountable for war crimes.
A 2006 Trudeau Fellow, Welsh is the author and editor of a series of works on international relations. She is currently working on an edited work entitled The Responsibility to Prevent: Systemic and Targeted Approaches to Mass Atrocity Prevention.
In July 2013, Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon appointed Professor Welsh his special advisor on the conceptual, political, institutional and operational development of the concept of the responsibility to protect. Her perspectives are regularly sought by publications, conferences and organizations focused on international relations, post-conflict reconstruction and state-building.