Sarah Williams is a British barrister who is currently in transition from a career as an entertainment lawyer to working in the field of international conflict resolution. Through her experience as a local politician in the UK and her involvement in various socio-political issues in her home country, she came to realize that her goal was to work for justice and peace and took the first step towards this by competing a masters degree in international law at the London School of Economics. She was then awarded a Rotary Peace Fellowship at UC Berkeley, where she did a double M.A. in Political Science and International and Area Studies, looking at conflict and conflict resolution from a variety of disciplinary perspectives such as international relations, political leadership, human rights and cognitive science. Sarah’s academic interests are the effect of ideas on international politics and the way in which we can use our understanding of human perspective to shape peace processes. Regionally, her focus has been the Middle East, Cyprus and Kashmir.
During her time at Berkeley, Sarah was able to intern with Human Rights Advocates with whom she attend the Annual Session of the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva and lobbied governments on the issue of child soldiers and in summer 2004 spent seven weeks in East Jerusalem and the West Bank for the Rebuilding Alliance researching the issue of housing demolitions and planning laws under the Israeli occupation. In 2005 and 2006, Sarah worked in Cyprus, Prague and Capetown as the academic director of student symposia on international conflict resolution and has consulted on the TV programme “The Price of Peace” which aired on BBC World in 2006. She is now a PhD candidate at the London School of Economics doing research into the Cyprus Peace Process. Her proudest achievement is becoming mother to child genius, Emanuel, in June 2007.