Pitt Is Hosting Inaugural Meeting of National Initiative Addressing Global Terror Threat

Pitt Professor Janne Nolan is directing Ford Foundation-supported working group of experts on project titled "Internal Security and the Rule of Law: Building a Global Regime to Eliminate Terrorism"

PITTSBURGH-As part of a project aimed at constructing a comprehensive international regime to combat terrorism on a global scale, a working group organized by Pitt's Matthew B. Ridgway Center for International Security Studies is gathering through today at the Cosmos Club in Washington, D.C., for the first of three meetings; the Ridgway Center is part of the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs (GSPIA) and the University Center for International Studies.

The Ford Foundation-supported project, titled "Internal Security and the Rule of Law: Building a Global Regime to Eliminate Terror," is directed by GSPIA professor and Ridgway Center Deputy Director Janne Nolan.

Among the presenters at the meeting are:

* Prudence Bushnell, former dean of the Leadership and Management School at the Foreign Service Institute, and ambassador to Kenya (1996-1999) and Guatemala (2002-2005), whose presentation is titled "Diplomacy and Security: Redefining Missions to Combat Terrorism";

* Keynote speaker Ariel Levite, principal deputy director for policy at the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission, who will discuss international security in Israel;

* Robert Litwak, director for International Security Studies at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, whose presentation is titled "Assessing the Nexus of WMD and Terrorism";

* Paul Stares, vice president of the Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention at the U.S. Institute of Peace, who will discuss how to define the global

* challenge; and

* William Keller, Ridgway Center director, Wesley W. Posvar Chair, and GSPIA professor, as well as Ridgway faculty members Dennis Gormley, senior lecturer in GSPIA, and Simon Reich, GSPIA professor and Ford Institute for Human Security director.

The group members will meet again in February and May 2007 and prepare essays for a joint volume to be subsequently published.

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