ARCHIVED SPECIALIST PROFILE

Senior Fellow
Jennings Randolph Fellowship Program
October 2002-July 2003

Project Focus

Dilemmas of Self-Determination: A Challenge to African Constitutionalism

Areas of Specialization

Africa • Sudan • Ethnic Conflict in Sudan • Constitutionalism • Economics • Environment • Refugees and Migration • Conflict Management and Resolution • Human Rights • International Nongovernmental Organizations • The United Nations

Foreign Languages: Dinka, Arabic

Background

Francis Mading Deng has served as special representative of the United Nations Secretary General on Internally Displaced Persons since 1992. Until recently he was distinguished professor of political science at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and co-director of the CUNY Graduate Center-Brookings Institution Project on Internal Displacement. Deng entered Sudan's diplomatic service in 1972, after working as a human rights officer at the UN Secretariat (1967-72) and teaching courses on law and anthropology at New York University. He was Sudan's ambassador to Denmark, Norway, Finland, and Sweden (1972-74), to the United States (1974-76), and to Canada (1980-83), and minister of state for foreign affairs (1976-80). In 1983 he declined the position of Sudan's permanent representative to the United Nations for reasons related to Sudan's civil war. Since that time, Deng has devoted himself to researching, writing, and teaching on issues related to refugees, human rights, and conflict.

Deng was a 1987-89 Distinguished Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace. He has also held fellowships from the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He has written, co-written, edited, and co-edited almost thirty books, and scores of articles and reports ranging from anthropological studies to literary works to scholarly articles on history, law, and conflict. Deng holds a doctoral degree in law from Yale University.

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