Biography
Pierre Hazan is a senior advisor with the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, one of the leading organizations in armed conflict mediation. He has advised international organizations, governments and armed groups on issues related to justice, amnesty, reparation, truth commission, forced disappearances, international humanitarian law, and human rights. In 2022 and 2023, he was a Richard von Weizsäcker fellow at the Robert Bosch Foundation in Berlin. His new book, released in 2024, is titled "Negotiating with the Devil: Inside the World of Armed Conflict Mediation" (Hurst).
Pierre Hazan also worked at the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and collaborated with the United Nations in the Balkans. He was a member of the International Contact Group on the Basque Conflict, which co-organized the Peace Conference that led to the end of political violence in the Basque country in 2011. He has worked in numerous conflict zones in Africa, the Balkans, the Middle East, and Europe. From November 2021 to December 2022, Pierre Hazan was also a Commissioner within the French Independent Commission on Reparation and Reconciliation for sexual abuses committed by members of Catholic congregations, which he helped to develop.
Additionally, in 2014, Pierre Hazan founded justiceinfo.net, a media outlet of the Fondation Hirondelle, dedicated to justice issues in societies in transition. He also curated the exhibition “War and Peace” (October 2019-March 2020), held at the Martin Bodmer Foundation in partnership with the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross. At the request of the City of Geneva, Pierre Hazan coordinated of the Declaration of Geneva “Human Rights and Culture Heritage: Committed Cities Working Together” in 2018.
In 2002, along with Léo Kaneman and Yaël Reinharz, Pierre was a founding member of the International Film Festival and Forums on Human Rights.
A Fellow at Harvard Law School (2005) and a senior Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington D.C. (2006), Pierre Hazan has taught at institutions such as SciencesPo Paris, the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (Geneva), the Geneva School of Art and Design where he co-directed a SNF research project on the Politics of Memory in Divided Societies. Pierre is a member of the Law and Peace Practice Group of the Institute for Integrated Transition, based in Barcelona.
Former diplomatic correspondent, specialized in international justice, peace-keeping operations and humanitarian action with the newspapers Libération (Paris) and Le Temps (Geneva) between 1989 and 2004.
Pierre Hazan has authored many books and publications, including Negotiating with the Devil, Inside the World of Armed Conflict Mediation (Hurst, 2024), Amnesty: A blessing in disguise? (Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, 2020). He co-edited the catalog for the “War and Peace” exhibition (Gallimard, 2019). He authored La paix contre la justice ? (AVE/GRIP, 2010), Judging War, Judging History; Behind Peace and Reconciliation (Stanford University Press, 2010), Localizing Transitional Justice (co-edited with Rosalind Shaw and Lars Waldorf, Stanford University Press, 2010), Justice in a Time of War(Texas A&M, 2004).
He was the guest editor of The International Journal of Transitional Justice (April 2017) on the special issue « Beyond Borders: A New Regional Architecture of Transitional Justice? ». He directed the publication of The Tenth Anniversary of the International Criminal Court, the Challenges of Complementarity (Politorbis, Swiss Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2012). He collaborated closely with several UN special rapporteurs, particularly in the drafting of the Report on the writing and teaching of history(A/68/296), the Report on memorialization processes(A/HRC/25/49) and the report on Processes of Memorialization in the context of grave human rights and humanitarian law violations (A/HCR/45/45, 2020).
The fictional television series "Cellule de crise"(2020) on humanitarian action is based on an original idea by Jean-François Berger, Pierre Hazan, and Jean Leclerc.