Berkley Center

Thomas Banchoff is director of the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs and serves as vice president for global engagement at Georgetown University, where he is a professor in the Department of Government and the Walsh School of Foreign Service.

Dr. John Borelli, a historian of religions and theologian, is special assistant for Catholic identity and dialogue to President John J. DeGioia of Georgetown University. Borelli has been at Georgetown University since 2004, where he teaches, manages conferences and events, coordinates dialogues, facilitates workshops, and promotes university relations with offices and institutes of the Holy See.

Rebecca DeWinter-Schmitt is an assistant professor at the American University School of International Service. Her work focuses on civil society efforts to ensure corporate social responsibility, and to that end she has consulted for Amnesty International and co-chairs its Business and Human Rights Group. She is the author of a number of publications and presentations that cover a wide variety of topics, including business ethics, the anti-sweatshop movement, and the private military and security industry. DeWinter-Schmitt received a Ph.D. from American University, her M.A. from the University of Marburg in Germany, and her B.A. from Dickinson College.

Gunther Gebhardt is a theologian and interfaith expert, and since 1998 the senior advisor of the Global Ethic Foundation at Tubingen, Germany. He served as Secretary General for Europe of the World Conference on Religion and Peace (WCRP; now Religion for Peace, RfP) in Geneva from 1984 to 1997, and he is currently a voluntary Vice-Moderator of RfP/Europe. He holds a Ph.D. in theology from Fribourg University, Switzerland.

Walter Kälin is a Swiss international human rights lawyer, legal scholar, and advocate currently serving as the Representative of the United Nations’ Secretary-General on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons. Kälin has served as a member of the United Nations’ Human Rights Commission and has consulted for numerous organizations, including the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations’ High Commissioner on Refugees. He is a professor at the University of Bern, and he is the author of numerous works including The Face of Human Rights (2004) and The Law of International Human Rights Protection (2009). Kälin received his doctor of law from the University of Bern and his LL.M. from Harvard University.

M. Cathleen Kaveny is the Darald and Juliet Libby Professor at Boston College, with appointments in both the Department of Theology and Law School. Her research and teaching focus on the intersection of law, religion, ethics, and morality. She serves on the masthead of Commonweal as a regular columnist.

Brian Lepard is the Harold W. Conroy Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Law. He is the author of numerous books and articles on the Baha’i faith, world religions, human rights, ethics, and international law, including Hope for a Global Ethic: Shared Principles in Religious Scriptures (2005) and Customary International Law: A New Theory with Practical Applications (2010). 

David Little, a research fellow at Georgetown University’s Berkley Center, is a leading authority on the history of religious freedom, ethics and human rights, and religion and conflict resolution. Little retired in 2009 as T.J. Dermot Dunphy Professor of the Practice in Religion, Ethnicity, and International Conflict at Harvard Divinity School and as an associate at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University. Until summer 1999, he was senior scholar in religion, ethics, and human rights at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP). From 1996 to 1998, he was member of the Advisory Committee to the State Department on Religious Freedom Abroad. Little’s publications include several volumes in the USIP series on religion, nationalism, and intolerance, as well Religion and Nationalism in Iraq: A Comparative Perspective (2007, with Donald K. Swearer), and Peacemakers in Action: Profiles of Religion in Conflict Resolution (2007). Little was also a part of the Christianity and Freedom Project headed by the Berkley Center's Religious Freedom Project.