May 24, 10:30 AM – 11:45 AM
McCosh Hall, Room 50

Moderator:

G. John Ikenberry
Albert G. Milbank Professor of Politics and International Affairs

Panelists:

Tanisha Hewanpola *24
Political Affairs Officer, United Nations Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs

Danny Quah ’80
Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy and Li Ka Shing Professor in Economics, National University of Singapore

Jonathan Cohen ’85
Ambassador (retired); International Consultant and Adviser

John Melkon ’90
Director and Professor, United States Military Academy

Susan Farbstein ’00
Director, International Human Rights Clinic; and Clinical Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

Sponsored by the Alumni Association of Princeton University

Participants:

G. John Ikenberry
G. John Ikenberry is a leading theorist of international relations whose work has mapped the origins and rise of the liberal modern world order. In addition to his professorship at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs and in the Department of Politics, he is also a Global Eminence Scholar at Kyung Hee University in Seoul, South Korea. In 2018-2019, Ikenberry was a visiting fellow at All Souls College, Oxford University. In 2013-2014, he was the 72nd George Eastman Visiting Professor at Balliol College, Oxford. Ikenberry is an American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellow and the author of eight books, including, most recently, “Debating Worlds: Contested Narratives of Global Modernity and World Order” (2023) and “A World Safe for Democracy: Liberal Internationalism in the Making of Modern World Order” (2020).

Tanisha Hewanpola *24
Tanisha Hewanpola’s work focuses on women’s participation in peace processes, inclusive ceasefires, conflict-related sexual violence, gender-responsive sanctions and gender-based hate  speech. Previously, she was the speechwriter for the president of the U.N. General Assembly. Prior to joining the U.N., Hewanpola was a career diplomat in Australia’s foreign service. She served as Australia’s human rights, gender equality, conflict prevention and peacebuilding expert on the U.N. Security Council in New York. She also worked on Asia Pacific and Latin America policy, as a legal adviser and as a member of Australia’s crisis response team, including during the Arab Spring and Fukushima nuclear disaster. Hewanpola has a Master in Public Policy degree from Princeton, where she was a John L. Weinberg ’47 Fellow in Public and International Affairs. She is admitted to practice law in South Australia.

Danny Quah ’80
Danny Quah works on world order, economic growth and development, and inequality and income mobility. In his research on world order, Quah analyzes the supply and demand of international systems, contrasting the goals of the Great Powers and the needs of the global community. He seeks to help shape economic and geopolitical discourse through academic research, public commentary, as a member of the World Bank President’s Economic Advisory Panel and other public commissions, and in advisory roles at the World Economic Forum, the United Nations Development Programme, and government agencies and ministries. After receiving his A.B. from Princeton and Ph.D. from Harvard, Quah served as assistant professor of economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and then as professor of economics and international development at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is the author of the prize-winning article “The Global Economy’s Shifting Centre of Gravity.”

Jonathan Cohen ’85
Ambassador Jonathan Cohen is a retired diplomat who spent 35 years in the U.S. Foreign Service, including as ambassador to Egypt and the United Nations, as deputy assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasia, and as deputy chief of mission in Iraq, France (acting) and Cyprus. His other postings included Thailand, Jerusalem, OSCE Vienna, Sweden, Turkey and Italy. He is the recipient of a Presidential Award for Superior Conduct of Foreign Policy, a Distinguished Honor Award for his service in Iraq and the Charles Cobb Award for Trade Development. Since his retirement from government in 2022, Cohen has served as a distinguished fellow at the Royal United Services Institute and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. His company, JoCo Advisors, assists businesses operating in the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean. He and his wife, Lidija, live in London.

John Melkon ’90
John Melkon is the director of the Center for the Study of Civil-Military Operations and professor of geography at the United States Military Academy. Melkon is also an Extraordinary Professor of Practice at North-West University in South Africa. He served as operations adviser to the U.S. Army in Africa during Operation Odyssey Dawn and to the Department of Defense during Operation Enduring Freedom. He is a retired Special Forces officer with tours in Europe, Africa, Southeast Asia and the Middle East and combat tours in Afghanistan. He is Ranger- and Special Forces-qualified and was awarded the Combat Infantry Badge and Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal. Melkon is a Ph.D. candidate at Stellenbosch University, and holds an M.A. in politics and certificate in enterprise risk management from Columbia University and an MBA and MPIA from Texas A&M. He was awarded the Médaille de la Défense Nationale by France.

Susan Farbstein ’00
In her roles at Harvard Law School, Susan Farbstein investigates and seeks justice for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine; advances corporate accountability for human rights abuses in global supply chains; considers the role of civil proceedings in writing history and shaping collective understandings of past abuse; and promotes gender equity and women’s leadership in human rights organizations. She has litigated landmark cases related to human rights violations in Bolivia, Nigeria and South Africa. She has also engaged on a range of accountability and transitional justice issues, including in South Africa, The Gambia, Rwanda, Mexico, Argentina, Myanmar and Thailand. In addition to her Princeton degree, Farbstein holds an MPhil from the University of Cambridge and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.