MANAGING BOARD AND OFFICE DIRECTORS

Paul R. Williams
Paul R. Williams is co-founder and Executive Director of PILPG. Since 1995 PILPG has provided pro bono legal assistance to states and governments involved in peace negotiations, drafting post-conflict constitutions, and prosecuting war criminals. In 2005, Dr. Williams, as Executive Director of PILPG, was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by half a dozen of his pro bono government clients.

Dr. Williams is regarded as a social entrepreneur for his practical and innovative approach to providing pro bono legal assistance to states and governments. During the course of his legal practice, Dr. Williams has assisted over a dozen states and governments in major international peace negotiations, including serving as a delegation member in the Dayton negotiations (Bosnia-Herzegovina), Rambouillet/Paris negotiations (Kosovo), Lake Ohrid negotiations (Macedonia), and Podgorica/Belgrade negotiations (Serbia/Montenegro). He also advised parties to the Key West negotiations (Nagorno-Karabakh), the Oslo/Geneva negotiations (Sri Lanka), the Georgia/Abkhaz negotiations, and the Somalia peace talks.

He has advised fifteen governments across Europe, Africa and Asia on matters of public international law. Dr. Williams has advised the governments of Afghanistan, Bosnia, Iraq, Kosovo, Montenegro and Nagorno-Karabakh on the drafting and implementation of post-conflict constitutions. He is also experienced advising governments on issues of state recognition, self-determination, and state succession including advising the President of Macedonia and the Foreign Minister of Montenegro. On issues relating to border and sea demarcations and negotiations, Dr. Williams has advised the President of Estonia and the Foreign Minister of East Timor.

Dr. Williams has testified before the U.S. Congress and provided expert commentary in the British House of Commons on matters of public international law and peace negotiations.

In addition to serving as the Executive Director of PILPG, Dr. Williams holds the Rebecca Grazier Professorship in Law and International Relations at American University where he teaches in the School of International Service and the Washington College of Law.

Previously, Dr. Williams served in the Department of State's Office of the Legal Advisor for European and Canadian Affairs, as a Senior Associate with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and as a Fulbright Research Scholar at the University of Cambridge. He is a Member of the American Society of International Law and serves on the Board of Directors of several non-profit organizations.

Dr. Williams is a leading scholar on peace negotiations and post-conflict constitutions. He has authored four books on topics of international human rights, international environmental law and international norms of justice, and over two dozen articles on a wide variety of public international law topics. Dr. Williams is also a sought-after international law and policy analyst, and has been interviewed more than 250 times by major print and broadcast media. He has published op-eds in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, International Herald Tribune, Chicago Tribune, Wall Street Journal Europe, and Le Monde.

Michael P. Scharf
Michael Scharf is co-founder and Managing Director of PILPG. Professor Scharf is Professor of Law and Director of the Frederick K. Cox International Law Center at Case Western Reserve University School of Law. In February 2005, Professor Scharf was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by over half a dozen of PILPG’s client states and tribunals.

Professor Scharf has provided legal assistance to every international war crimes tribunal since the Yugoslavia Tribunal. He has also established the Grotian Moment Blog, the leading authority on the Saddam Hussein and other war crimes tribunals’ legal developments.

Previously, Professor Scharf served in the Office of the Legal Adviser of the US Department of State, where he held the positions of Counsel to the Counter-Terrorism Bureau, Attorney-Adviser for Law Enforcement and Intelligence, Attorney-Adviser for United Nations Affairs, and delegate to the United Nations General Assembly and to the United Nations Human Rights Commission. Professor Scharf has served as Chairman of the District of Columbia Bar's International Law Section, and is currently Counsellor of the American Society of International Law, Deputy Secretary General of the International Association of Penal Law, and Executive Council member of the International Law Association (American Branch).

Professor Scharf graduated from Duke University and Duke Law School. He regularly testifies before the US Congress, publishes op-eds in major newspapers, and is frequently interviewed by major print and broadcast media. Author of twelve books on international law, Professor Scharf has received two national “Book of the Year” awards and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

James Hooper
James Hooper is a Managing Director of PILPG and consultant to Radio Sawa, a congressionally-funded initiative by the Broadcasting Board of Governors to broadcast to the Middle East after September 11, 2001, which he helped to create and launch as its founding general manager. He is the former director of the Washington office of the International Crisis Group (ICG), an independent non-government global advocacy organization that focuses on conflict early alert, prevention and containment. He also directed ICG’s Balkan programs.

In his prior capacity as executive director of the Balkan Action Council, a Washington-based non-profit organization, he analyzed the Balkan situation for the media in interviews with the Lehrer Newshour, CNN, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Bosnian television, BBC, Voice of America, National Public Radio, Radio Free Europe, and numerous other broadcasting outlets plus frequent interviews with major U.S. and foreign newspapers and news magazines. His frequent public speaking appearances included occasional testimony before Congress. He was the subject of a feature article in the New York Times "Public Lives" series in 1999.

Previously, as a career United States diplomat with the Foreign Service for 25 years, Mr. Hooper served at assignments in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, during the 1973 October War; Beirut, Lebanon; Damascus, Syria, during the Lebanon civil war and formative years of the Arab-Israel peace process; Tripoli, Libya, during the Qadhafi-inspired mob attacks against the American Embassy; London, England; Kuwait, where as Deputy Ambassador he negotiated and implemented the naval protection agreement for reflagged Kuwaiti oil tankers; and Warsaw, Poland, where as Deputy Ambassador he led the effort to prepare Poland’s post-communist government and military for NATO membership. He also served as the State Department’s director of Canadian Affairs and as diplomat-in-residence at the Political Science Department of the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado. While serving as deputy director of the office of East European and Yugoslav affairs from 1989-91, he was responsible for managing U.S. bilateral relations with the Balkan and Baltic states. He retired from the Foreign Service in 1997.

Mr. Hooper has worked on a range of issues with PILPG: efforts to resolve problems in Kosovo, Bosnia, Macedonia and Serbia; leading two election-monitoring delegations to Nagorno-Karabakh in the Caucasus; the search for alternative policies to replace the military regime in Burma; and Sri Lankan conflict resolution issues.

Mr. Hooper received his Master of International Affairs degree from Columbia University in New York and a Bachelor of Arts degree from the American University’s School of International Service in Washington, D.C.