Transitions from conflict raise hard questions about accountability for past violations.  Criminal prosecutions and other sanctions are increasingly prevalent, but amnesties remain common.  Some argue the latter are essential concessions to secure and sustain peace, given the threat of violent backlash from those potentially subject to repercussions, who typically seek to insulate themselves from liability.  Meanwhile, a conventional wisdom is that those who suffered harms want punitive justice and will tend to reject amnesty.  Backer and Kulkarni evaluate these claims using original data collected since 2002 via surveys of over 2,800 victims of war and repression in the diverse contexts of Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and South Africa.  Our initial finding is unexpected: similar majorities of the respondents in each country actually approve of amnesty.  Yet the backing is practical, ambivalent and qualified.  Most view amnesty as necessary to avoid further conflict, albeit unfair to victims.  This concern can be mitigated if perpetrators are subject to various forms of restorative and reparatory justice.  The willingness of many respondents to acquiesce to amnesty also coexists with a strong desire for accountability.  In addition, unparalleled panel survey data shows that such acceptance can decline dramatically over time, due to policy actions and inactions.  The analysis suggests the appeal of conditional amnesties of limited scope, backed by follow through on means of redress, including prosecutions.

Mohammed Amin Adam is an energy economist by profession and currently serves as the National Oil Coordinator of Publish What You Pay - Ghana, a civil society coalition focused on promoting the transparent and accountable management of oil and mineral wealth. He holds a B. A. (Hons) Degree in Economics and a Master of Philosophy (Economics) from the University of Cape Coast, Ghana. He is also a PhD candidate in Petroleum Economics and Policy at the University of Dundee (UK).   Mr. Adam was an Energy Policy Analyst at the Ministry of Energy of Ghana and a former Commissioner of the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) and also has considerable experience in public service having served his country as a Deputy Minister of State and a Mayor of Ghana's third city, Tamale.

Ian Gary is Senior Policy Manager for Extractive Industries with Oxfam America, and directs the organization's policy and advocacy work on oil/gas and transparency related issues. Prior to joining Oxfam in 2005, Ian was Strategic Issues Advisor - Extractive Industries at Catholic Relief Services (CRS) from 1999 to 2005. He has held positions with the Ford Foundation as well as international development organizations in the U.S. and Africa.  Ian is the author of the Oxfam America report Ghana's Big Test: Oil's Challenge to Democratic Development (2009); co-author, with Terry Lynn Karl of Stanford University, of the CRS report Bottom of the Barrel: Africa's Oil Boom and the Poor (2003); and co-author of Chad's Oil: Miracle or Mirage? (2005), co-authored with Nikki Reisch and issued by CRS and Bank Information Center.

Climate change will have direct and indirect impacts on agricultural production and food security throughout the world. The direct effects include the role of temperature and precipitation on photosynthesis and other properties of crop growth and physiology. The indirect effects encompass a range of biotic interactions, such as climate influences on crop pest and pathogen dynamics. The latter are widely discussed but poorly understood for most agricultural systems. The broad purpose of this workshop is to design a structured framework for assessing how climate change is likely to affect agriculture and food security through various pathways that include pest/pathogen dynamics. We will use maize production systems in Kenya as a focus to build this framework, with the expectation that the framework can be applied subsequently to other crops and regions. The main goal of this meeting is to develop an interdisciplinary research proposal to be submitted later this year to NSF or USDA.

Nuhu Ribadu is a visiting fellow at the Center for Global Development. His work at the Center, which began in April 2009, is to draw lessons from his experience for combating corruption worldwide and to provide fresh thinking on the role of international institutions in this fight. Before joining CGD, Nuhu was head of Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) from 2003 to 2007. He served on several economic and anti-corruption commissions and was a key member of Nigeria's economic management team that drove wide-ranging public sector reforms. Nuhu was awarded with the World Bank's Jit Gill Memorial Award for Outstanding Public Service in recognition of his efforts. Prior to leading the EFCC, Nuhu spent 18 years in the Nigerian police force. A lawyer by training, he received his Bachelors and Masters in Law from Ahmadu Bello University in Nigeria. Nuhu is also a Senior Fellow at St. Anthony's College at Oxford University in the UK.

Kate Marvel is a CISAC postdoctoral fellow working on energy security and nuclear nonproliferation.  She received a PhD in theoretical physics at the University of Cambridge, where she was a Gates Scholar and a member of Trinity College. She chaired Cambridge University Student Pugwash and is a member of the Executive Board of International Student/Young Pugwash. Kate holds a BA in physics and astronomy from the University of California at Berkeley and has worked at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, California, and the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences in South Africa.   She is active in outreach work and has lectured in settings as diverse as a community center in Lesotho, a physics institute in Tehran, and the Secret Garden Party Festival in the UK.

Tom Isaacs serves as the Director for the Office of Planning and Special Studies at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.  During his sabbatical leave he will be in residence at CISAC, focusing his research on several interconnected sets of challenges to the effective management of the worldwide expansion of nuclear energy.  He will also play an important role in a collaborative project with CISAC and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Global Nuclear Future Initiative.

Tom's career spans more than two decades with the Department of Energy including managing policies and programs on the advancement of nuclear power and issues associate with security, waste management, and public trust.  He has degrees in Engineering, Applied Physics, and Chemical Engineering from Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania.

Michael May is Professor Emeritus (Research) in the Stanford University School of Engineering and a senior fellow with the Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He is the former co-director of Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation, having served seven years in that capacity through January 2000. May is a director emeritus of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where he worked from 1952 to 1988, with some brief periods away from the Laboratory. While there, he held a variety of research and development positions, serving as director of the Laboratory from 1965 to 1971. May was a technical adviser to the Threshold Test Ban Treaty negotiating team; a member of the U.S. delegation to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks; and at various times has been a member of the Defense Science Board, the General Advisory Committee to the AEC, the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, the RAND Corporation Board of Trustees, and the Committee on International Security and Arms Control of the National Academy of Sciences. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Pacific Council on International Policy, and a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. May received the Distinguished Public Service and Distinguished Civilian Service Medals from the Department of Defense, and the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award from the Atomic Energy Commission, as well as other awards. His current research interests are in the area of nuclear and terrorism, energy, security and environment, and the relation of nuclear weapons and foreign policy.