Convenors

INTERNATIONAL HISTORY AND POLITICS

Gopalan Balachandran holds a Ph.D in economic history. His current teaching, research, and supervision interests include cross-national economic, social, and cultural history with an accent on critical Southern and post-colonial perspectives, and modern and contemporary South Asia.

POLITICAL SOCIOLOGY

Professor Bocco's main research interest is on the role of international aid organisations and the impact of their humanitarian and development programs. He has been the director of CERMOC (Centre d’études et de recherches sur le Moyen-Orient contemporain), the French Social Sciences Research Institute based in Amman (Jordan) and then Research Director of the Graduate Institute of Development Studies (IUED, Geneva). He taught at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris) and at the University of Bologna (Italy). From 2000, Riccardo Bocco has been heading a team (funded by several UN agencies) that has monitored the evolution of the socio-economic conditions of the civilian population in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. From 2004 to 2007 he was heading a joint research project with UNRWA on the Palestinian refugees in the Near East. In 2008, Riccardo Bocco co-founded the Centre on Conflict, Development and Peace at the Graduate Institute. His research currently focuses on peace-building and reconciliation policies in the Middle East. Riccardo Bocco received his PhD from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques of Paris.

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, INTERNATIONAL LAW
PICTET CHAIR IN INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL LAW

Faculty member since 2009, Professor Viñuales holds the Pictet Chair in International Environmental Law. He is also a Member of the Committee of Foreign Lawyers of the Geneva Bar as well as the Executive Director of the Latin American Society of International Law. Professor Viñuales is currently active as both an academic and a practitioner in the fields of international environmental law and international investment law and arbitration. Before joining the Institute, he was a full-time practitioner specialising first in mergers and acquisitions and then in international arbitration. He has worked on many cases under ICSID, UNCITRAL, PCA, ICC or LCIA rules, including several high profile inter-State, investor-State, and commercial disputes. He has also served as consultant or provided advice on different matters of international law to governments, companies, international organisations or major NGOs. His research currently focuses on the interface between environment and investment, and he is completing the first monograph on this topic, which will be published by Cambridge University Press in 2012. Professor Viñuales was educated in France (Sciences Po Paris), the United States (Harvard), Switzerland (The Graduate Institute, the University of Geneva, and the University of Fribourg) and Argentina (UNICEN). Professor Viñuales' is a native Spanish speaker, and he is fluent in French, English and Italian.

PROGRAMME OFFICER

For several years, Eliane worked in the tourism industry before opening a playgroup and centre for parents and children. She sold the business after two years following an offer to join the airline industry, an area which had always interested her. The demise of Swissair put an end to this fruitful, albeit short, experience and after a short stint in the watch industry, she was offered the chance to work on the DFD Programme at the Institute of Development Studies, which later became the IMAS Programme. In summer 2011, she joined the Outreach team as Programme Officer.