David Hawk

Human Rights and International Relations Expert

Area of Interest: human rights in North Korea, human rights provisions in conflict resolution, non-governmental human rights advocacy, human rights organization and agency management, and human rights education and training.

David Hawk

While in college and graduate school in the 1960s Hawk began human rights work in voter registration, community organizing and civil rights efforts in Mississippi and Georgia. His interest in East Asia also began with the escalation of the war in Vietnam while he was in college and graduate school. Hawk was the Executive Director of Amnesty International, USA during its formative stage in the mid-1970s. He also directed the UN human rights office, during the mid-1990s when it was the largest field operation of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. In the early 1980s Hawk did path-breaking original photographic and archival documentation of the human rights atrocities in Cambodia under Khmer Rouge rule, and researched and authored the first systematic and comprehensive documentation and analysis of the political prison camp system in North Korea. He has served on the Board of Directors of AIUSA and Human Rights Watch/Asia.

Articles in CanKor:

• Publication: Bridging the chasm between human rights and peace
• Dissenting view of David Hawk’s “Pursuing Peace While Advancing Rights”

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