Edward P Joseph

Edward P Joseph is a conflict management expert with fifteen years of field experience, as well as a foreign policy lecturer and analyst. In his dozen years in the Balkans, Edward served during the wars in each conflict-afflicted country, including assignments in Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia. He has served on missions as well in Haiti, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Highlights include:

Bosnia: In July, 1995 – contemporaneous with the massacres in neighboring Srebrenica – Edward and one UN colleague coordinated the evacuation of the fallen ‘safe area’ of Zepa. This required face-to-face dealings with Serb commander Ratko Mladic and his high command. Edward’s testimony at the Hague Tribunal has been cited as instrumental in a landmark war crimes verdict.

Kosovo: In April, 2012, as the US-nominated Deputy Head of the OSCE Mission in Kosovo, one of the largest democracy and human rights missions in the world, Edward negotiated an end to a rapidly brewing, potentially violent confrontation between Belgrade and Pristina. His eleventh-hour role was cited by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and OSCE Secretary-General Lamberto Zannier.

Pakistan: In Peshawar on December 27th, 2007, Edward held the last international meeting with Benazir Bhutto, an intensive, 90-minute discussion on her anxieties about the upcoming elections.

Afghanistan: In 2008-9, Edward was part of a three-person expert team that evaluated USAID’s largest program. The mission took the team to the country’s four corners, including Kandahar.

Haiti: Over 2005-6, Edward led the USAID-funded election observation mission; after the devastating earthquake in 2010, Edward led InterAction’s precedent setting NGO coordination mission.

A foreign policy analyst, Edward has been published over fifty articles, across all major outlets, including Foreign Affairs. His Foreign Affairs article, ‘The Balkans, Interrupted,’ was selected as one of ‘The Best of 2015.’ He appears frequently on live-television as a commentator on a range of foreign policy issues including on European security, the Middle East and North Africa.

Edward was the Executive Director of the Institute of Current World Affairs in Washington – the first outside (non-alumnus) leader of the foundation in its nearly century of existence. He currently leads of the National Council on US-Libya Relations, the country’s foremost advocacy group on Libya policy.

Edward earned his J.D. at the University of Virginia School of Law, and his B.A. and M.A., respectively, from Johns Hopkins University, and its School of Advanced International Studies (where he teaches). Trained as a helicopter pilot in the Army Reserve, Edward is a veteran, deployed with NATO in Bosnia. He speaks Croatian / Serbian, and French, Italian and Spanish.