susanne Riveles

Susanne Riveles received a Ph.D. in African Studies from Howard University, in Washington D.C. and holds an M.A. in Sociology from the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, Germany. Dr. Riveles has taught courses in Human Rights, Conflict Resolution, and African History at Catholic University in Washington, D.C. and at Howard University. She has published articles on international, and refugee, law and was the guest editor of ISSUE vol.xxII/2 1994, ASA quarterly journal, which focused on Human Rights in Africa. From 1980-1993, she worked for Amnesty International (AIUSA) leading their Southern Africa Coordination Group. It involved organizing meetings in schools, universities, and churches to inform and expose the evils of the regime and design activities to gain freedom for prisoners of Apartheid, and advocate for change of US foreign policy. Dr. Riveles was director of the Africa Desk for Lutheran World Relief and was Church World Service director of Education and Advocacy for International Justice and Human Rights. Her responsibilities included planning, managing, monitoring, evaluating and implementing community-based development programs and human rights and HIV/AIDS projects in countries throughout Sub-Sahara Africa and Latin America.

For three years, Dr. Riveles directed a project for the Holocaust and war victims Tracing and Information Center of the American Red Cross at the U.S. National Archives searching through German documents captured by the U.S. army during WWII and at the liberation of German concentration camps. Since retiring from full-time work, she works as a consultant for the U.N., USAID, and the American Refugee Committee.

Dr. Riveles serves on the Board of the International Alliance of Women, where she is the convener of the commission for Women, Peace and Security and served as a delegate to the UN Commission on the Status of Women CSW for the last six years.

For the past six years, Dr. Riveles represented the IAW at the Washington Friends of the International Criminal Court (WICC). She was part of the delegation to the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women (CSW).