Alex de Waal is a program director of the Social Science Research Council, an advisor to the African Union Peace and Security Department, a senior fellow of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, and a director of Justice Africa in London. His academic research has focused on issues of famine, conflict, and human rights in Africa. He has served as adviser to the African Union mediation team for the Darfur peace talks (2005–06) and the African Union High-Level Panel on Darfur (2009) and Sudan (2009–2010). He was awarded an OBE in the British New Year’s Honours List of 2009, was on the Prospect/Foreign Policy list of one hundred public intellectuals in 2008, and the Atlantic Monthly list of twenty-seven “brave thinkers” in 2009.