About AGRSG

Funded initially by a grant from the Armenian Revolutionary Federation-Dashnaktsutyun(1) to study and report on the issue of reparations for the Armenian Genocide, the Armenian Genocide Reparations Study Group was first convened in 2007. Its members are Alfred de Zayas, Jermaine O. McCalpin, Ara Papian, and Henry C. Theriault (Chair). George Aghjayan has served as a special consultant.

The AGRSG released a preliminary draft report in 2009, which was followed by three 2010 programs on the report, featuring members of the AGRSG, at George Mason University in the United States (May 15), at the University of California Los Angeles School of Law (October 23), and in Yerevan, Armenia (December 11).

Inquiries about the AGRSG and its report can be directed to Henry Theriault at:
htheriault@worcester.edu
or
+1 (508) 929-8612
or
Department of Philosophy
Worcester State University
486 Chandler Street
Worcester, MA 01602
USA


(1) The positions taken and perspectives expressed in the report are those of the AGRSG members alone, and do not necessarily represent the views of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation-Dashnaktsutyun.


Alfred-Maurice de Zayas

AlfredDeZayasAlfred de Zayas received his J.D. from Harvard University and his Dr.phil. in history from Göttingen.  He is a member of the New York and Florida bars.  He is a retired senior lawyer with the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Geneva; former Secretary of the U.N. Human Rights Committee; and former Chief of the Human Rights Petitions Department.  Dr. de Zayas was appointed as the first Independent Expert on the Promotion of a Democratic and Equitable International Order by the Human Rights Council, effective May 2012.  In this position, Dr. de Zayas has authored multiple reports, testified numerous times, and made frequent public recommendations toward democracy and equity.  From 2006 to 2010 and 2013 to the present, he has been President of PEN International, Centre Suisse Romand.  He is author of Nemesis at Potsdam:  The Anglo-Americans and the Expulsion of the Germans (London:  Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977, republished in new editions multiple times), A Terrible Revenge:  The Ethnic Cleansing of the East European Germans, 1944-1950, 2nd ed. (New York:  Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), and The Genocide against the Armenians and the Relevance of the 1948 Genocide Convention (Beirut:  Haigazian University Press, 2010); co-author with Justice Jakob Möller of United Nations Human Rights Committee Case-Law (Kehl:  N.P. Engel, 2009); and co-author and co-editor of International Human Rights Monitoring Mechanisms (Amsterdam:  Kluwer 2001, 2nd revised edition 2009).  Dr. de Zayas regularly publishes op-ed articles and essays in European publications, including the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and has made numerous television appearances, including on CNN and RT.  Publications by and more information about Dr. de Zayas can be found at his website, www.alfreddezayas.com.  Visit also his blog http://dezayasalfred.wordpress.com/.

Dr. de Zayas was lead author of the “Terminology” section, Part 4. and the “Closing Remark.”


Jermaine O. McCalpin

McCalpinJermaine McCalpin is currently Associate Director of the Center for Caribbean Thought and Lecturer of Transitional Justice in the Department of Government, University of the West Indies, Mona.  He received his B.Sc in Political Science and International Relations and M.Sc from the University of the West Indies, Mona.  He earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science from Brown University.  Dr. McCalpin specializes in Africana political philosophy, Caribbean political thought, and transitional justice.   His research interests include truth commissions and political accountability, as well as reparations for slavery, Native American extermination, and the Armenian Genocide.   McCalpin has written on the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission and its development of a restorative justice approach to South Africa’s transitional justice issues as well as the moral justification for reparations for slavery and the Armenian Genocide.  His most recent publications include “Written into Amnesia?  The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Grenada,” Journal of Social and Economic Studies (62:3-4, 2013); “Reparations and the Politics of Avoidance in America,” Armenian Review (53:1-4, 2013); and “Truth and Freedom in Haiti:  An Examination of the 1995 Haitian Truth Commission,” The Global South (6:1, 2012).  In 2011, he was lead author of a U.N. Development Programme-sponsored study on governance and truth-telling mechanisms in Jamaica entitled, No Truth, No Trust: Democracy, Governance and the Prospects for Truth Telling Mechanisms in Jamaica.  He is currently working on a monograph on a comparative assessment of Caribbean truth commission experiments in Haiti and Grenada with South Africa.  He is also researching the political participation of the Caribbean Diaspora in the United States and their countries of origin.

Dr. McCalpin was lead author of Part 7.


Ara Papian

AraPapianAra Papian is President of the Modus Vivendi Research Center, which focuses on Armenian political issues.  From 2000 to 2006, Papian served as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Armenia to Canada.  Prior to this appointment, he was the Spokesman and Head of the Public Affairs Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia.  From 1989 to 1991, Papian was Professor of Armenian Language and Literature at the Melkonian Educational Institute in Nicosia, Cyprus, and taught Armenian history and the history of Iran at Yerevan State University from 1987 to 1989 and from 1998 to 2000, respectively.  Papian graduated from the Department of Oriental Studies of Yerevan State University (1984) and completed a postgraduate degree course of studies in Armenian History at Yerevan State University (1989).  He graduated from the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Federation (1994, Moscow) and from the NATO Defense College (1998, Rome).  He also completed a course of study in Public Diplomacy (1999, Oxford).  In 1981 to 1982 and then in 1984 to 1986, Papian served as a military interpreter/translator in Afghanistan.  He was decorated seven times with military awards.

Ambassador Papian was lead author of Part 5 and co-author of Part 8.


Henry C. Theriault

TheriaultHenryHenry Theriault is currently Professor in and Chair of the Philosophy Department at Worcester State University in the United States, where he has taught since 1998 and from 1999 to 2007 coordinated the University’s Center for the Study of Human Rights.  He earned his B.A. in English from Princeton University and his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Massachusetts, with a specialization in social and political philosophy.  His research focuses on reparations, victim-perpetrator relations, genocide denial, genocide prevention, and mass violence against women and girls.  He has published numerous journal articles and chapters in the area of genocide studies, including “Repairing the Irreparable:  ‘Impossible’ Harms and the Complexities of ‘Justice,’ in Prácticas Genocidas y Violencia Estatal:  en Perspectiva Transdiscipinar (2014); “Hell Is for Children:  The Impact of Genocide on Young Armenians,” in Genocide:  A Critical Bibliographic Review, Volume 10 (2014); “Reparations for Genocide:  Group Harm and the Limits of Liberal Individualism,” International Criminal Law Review 14:2 (2014); “Yüzyl Türkiye’si İçin Ermeni Soykırımı Sorunu:  Sorumluluk ve Çözüme Yönelik Tazmin” (“The Challenge of the Armenian Genocide for 21st Century Turkey:  Responsibility and Reparation Toward Resolution”), Öncesi ve Sonrası Ile 1915:  Inkâr ve Yüzleşme:  Inkâr ve Yüzleşme Sempozyumu 24-25 Nisan 2010 (2013); “Shared Burdens  and Perpetrator-Victim Group Conciliation,” in Genocide, Risk and Resilience:  An Interdisciplinary Approach (2013); and “Denial of Ongoing Atrocities as a Rationale for Not Attempting to Prevent or Intervene,” in Genocide:  A Critical Bibliographic Review, Volume 9 (2013).  He has lectured and given panel papers around the world, including in Armenia, Turkey, the Mountainous Karabakh Republic, Lebanon, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Rwanda, Britain, France, Belgium, Italy, Argentina, and across the United States.  He is founding co-editor of the peer-reviewed Genocide Studies International and was recently named co-editor of Transaction Publishers Genocide:  A Critical Bibliographic Review.  From 2007 to 2012 he served as  co-editor of Genocide Studies and Prevention, and was guest editor of the International Criminal Law Review special issue on “Armenian Genocide Reparations” (14:2, 2014), and the Armenian Review special issue on the “New Global Reparations Movement” (53:1-4, 2012).

Dr. Theriault served as Chair of the AGRSG and was lead author of the introduction and Parts 1-3 and 6, and co-author of Part 8.