David Harland (born 28 September 1962 in

Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by me ...

) is a

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

diplomat who has been the executive director of the

Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue The Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (HD), otherwise known as the Henry Dunant Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, works to prevent and resolve armed conflicts around the world through mediation and discreet diplomacy. A non-profit organisation bas ...

(HD), a

Geneva Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaki ...

-based foundation that specialises in the mediation of armed conflict, since 2011. Harland served as a witness for the prosecution in a number of cases at the

International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was a body of the United Nations that was established to prosecute the war crimes that had been committed during the Yugoslav Wars and to try their perpetrators. The tribunal ...

Early life and education

Harland is the son of late New Zealand ambassador

Bryce Harland William Bryce Harland (11 December 1931 – 1 February 2006) was a New Zealand diplomat and academic, who served as New Zealand's first Ambassador to China, Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York, and High Commissioner to Lon ...

. Harland holds a PhD from the

Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy is the graduate school of international affairs of Tufts University, in Medford, Massachusetts. The School is one of America's oldest graduate schools of international relations and is well-ranked in it ...

(1994), a

Master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.

from Harvard University (East Asian studies, 1991), a graduate diploma (进修证) from

Beijing University Peking University (PKU; ) is a public research university in Beijing, China. The university is funded by the Ministry of Education. Peking University was established as the Imperial University of Peking in 1898 when it received its royal charter ...

(1988) and a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

from

Victoria University of Wellington Victoria University of Wellington ( mi, Te Herenga Waka) is a university in Wellington, New Zealand. It was established in 1897 by Act of Parliament, and was a constituent college of the University of New Zealand. The university is well know ...

, New Zealand (1983).

Career

Harland was appointed HD's Executive Director in 2011. In 2018, he publicly announced that the Basque armed group ETA had dissolved itself as the final step in a long-running process to bring an end to violence in the Basque country. In 2022, Harland and HD were cited as an initiator of the UN-brokered deals to ease the global food crisis by facilitating agricultural exports from Russia and Ukraine. HD was awarded the Carnegie Wateler Peace Prize for 2022 "for its more than 20-year track record in ending armed conflict and for its patient, creative and discreet approach”. Harland also sits on the UN Secretary-General's High-Level Advisory Board on Mediation and on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Robert Koch Institute Centre for International Health Protection (ZIG). Prior to that, Harland was

adjunct professor An adjunct professor is a type of academic appointment in higher education who does not work at the establishment full-time. The terms of this appointment and the job security of the tenure vary in different parts of the world, however the genera ...

at the

Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) is a graduate school of Johns Hopkins University based in Washington, D.C., United States, with campuses in Bologna, Italy, and Nanjing, China. It is consistently ranked one of the ...

(SAIS) and Chair of the

World Economic Forum The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international non-governmental and lobbying organisation based in Cologny, canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded on 24 January 1971 by German engineer and economist Klaus Schwab. The foundation, ...

Global Agenda Council on Conflict Prevention. Before joining HD, Harland was director of the Europe and Latin America Division of the

United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations The Department of Peace Operations (DPO) (French: ''Département des opérations de maintien de la paix'') is a department of the United Nations charged with the planning, preparation, management and direction of UN peacekeeping operations. Pre ...

(2006–2011), where he managed the end of the UN transitional administration in Kosovo. He served in UN peacekeeping missions in

Haiti Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and ...

(2010), in

Kosovo Kosovo ( sq, Kosova or ; sr-Cyrl, Косово ), officially the Republic of Kosovo ( sq, Republika e Kosovës, links=no; sr, Република Косово, Republika Kosovo, links=no), is a partially recognised state in Southeast Euro ...

(2008), in

Timor Leste East Timor (), also known as Timor-Leste (), officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, is an island country in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the exclave of Oecusse on the island's north-wester ...

(1999–2000), where he set up and oversaw what would be the first government departments, and in

Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sh, / , ), abbreviated BiH () or B&H, sometimes called Bosnia–Herzegovina and often known informally as Bosnia, is a country at the crossroads of south and southeast Europe, located in the Balkans. Bosnia and H ...

(1993–1998), where he co-led (with the Office of the High Representative) the post-war effort to increase freedom of movement through the introduction of a new national license plate, which he designed. During 1999, he was released from his regular duties, together with Salman Ahmed, to research and draft the UN report on the

Srebrenica massacre The Srebrenica massacre ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Masakr u Srebrenici, Масакр у Сребреници), also known as the Srebrenica genocide ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Genocid u Srebrenici, Геноцид у Сребрен ...

– "The Fall of Srebrenica". He was a

teaching fellow A teaching fellow (sometimes referred to as a TF) is an individual at a higher education institution, including universities, whose role involves teaching and potentially pedagogic research. The work done by teaching fellows can vary enormously fr ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

in 1989–1991. Harland served as a witness for the prosecution at the

in the cases of The Prosecutor versus Ratko Mladic (2012), The Prosecutor versus Radovan Karadžic (2010), The Prosecutor versus Dragomir Miloševic (2007) and the Prosecutor versus Slobodan Miloševic (2004). He was a script advisor for the Oscar-nominated film

Quo Vadis, Aida? ''Quo Vadis, Aida?'' ( '' Where are you going, Aida?'') is a 2020 Bosnian film written, produced and directed by Jasmila Žbanić. An international co-production of twelve production companies, the film was shown in the main competition section ...

(2019–2020)‘Not just a film’: Bosnia brings Srebrenica to the Oscars
Al Jazeera

Publications and articles

* "Killing Game",

Praeger Press Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. (GPG), also known as ABC-Clio/Greenwood (stylized ABC-CLIO/Greenwood), is an educational and academic publisher (middle school through university level) which is today part of ABC-Clio. Established in 1967 as Gr ...

, 1994.
"Talk of ‘emergencies’ misses the point", International Herald Tribune
31 January 2003.
"Legitimacy and effectiveness in international administration"
Global Governance, 15, 18, 2004.

International Herald Tribune, 27 January 2004.
"Post-Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina"
With Elizabeth Cousens, In William J. Durch, ed., Twenty-First-Century Peace Operations. Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace Press (2006): 49–140.
"Kosovo and the UN"
'Survival: Global Politics and Strategy', volume 52, number 5, October–November 2010, pp 75–98.

International Herald Tribune, 8–9 December 2012.
"War is Back – The International Response to Armed Conflict"
Horizons, Issue No. 7, Spring 2016, pp. 224–234.
"Never again: International intervention in Bosnia and Herzegovina"
July 2017.
"The lost art of peacemaking"
May 2018.
"The Oscars:Relentless memories of Srebrenica's misery"
April 2021.
"Afghanistan: A lesson in how not to negotiate"
Geneva Solutions, 23 August 2021.
"Russia-Ukraine grain deals: Mediating from the outside in"
21 July 2023.

References

External links

Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue – Senior Management Team
{{DEFAULTSORT:Harland, David New Zealand diplomats 1962 births Living people Harvard University alumni The Fletcher School at Tufts University alumni Victoria University of Wellington alumni