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Biography
Roddy Brett is a Lecturer with the School of International Relations at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. He has lived in Latin America, principally in Guatemala and Colombia, for over a decade. His fields of research and practitioner expertise include conflict and peace studies, political violence and genocide studies, indigenous rights and democratisation. He has published a total of eight books, including monographs and co-edited volumes, as well as numerous articles on these themes. He has acted as Advisor to the United Nations Development Programme in both Colombia and Guatemala, and to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Guatemala. Dr. Brett also served as Advisor on Indigenous Affairs to the Norwegian Embassy in Guatemala. Dr. Brett worked with the Centre for Human Rights Legal Action in Guatemala, initially as Field Investigator, and subsequently as Coordinator of the Department for Justice and Reconciliation (DEJURE). In this capacity, he was a member of the original team that prepared the evidence for and political strategy of the legal case filed against three former presidents of Guatemala and their military high commands of the 1980s for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. This led to the conviction by a Guatemalan court of former dictator General Efraín Ríos Montt in May 2013 for eighty years for genocide and crimes against humanity. Dr. Brett continues to advise the United Nations System in Latin America, at this moment in Colombia, in particular in themes of peacebuilding and conflict transformation. He holds a position of Visiting Professor at the Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain and is a member of the Academic Advisory Board for the International Centre on Non-Violent Conflict, in Washington D.C., and of the Advisory Council of the Institute of Humanitarian Studies of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, in Bogota, Colombia.
