Jerry White (activist)

Last updated
Jerry White
Jerry White (activist).jpg
Born (1963-06-07) June 7, 1963 (age 61)
Education Brown University
University of Michigan
Awards Nobel Peace Prize (1997)

Jerry White (born June 7, 1963) is Executive Director of the United Religions Initiative. He co-founded the Survivor Corps, formerly the Landmine Survivors Network, created by and for survivors to help victims of war, [1] and is a member of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which was the recipient of the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize. He was a Professor of Practice at the University of Virginia from 2015 to 2022. He is a Senior Ashoka Fellow and a Gabelli Fellow at the Gabelli School of Business in New York City.

Contents

Background

In 1984, while studying abroad in Jerusalem, White lost his lower right leg after stepping on a landmine during a backpacking trip. The mine had been laid by Syrian soldiers during the 1967 war.

Following this incident, White co-founded Survivor Corps with Ken Rutherford, where he led efforts to draft and enact human rights and humanitarian legislation, including the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, promoting and protecting the rights of people with disabilities. [2]

Through this work, White arranged for Diana, Princess of Wales, to visit Bosnia and Herzegovina, and later joined in efforts to promote a "mine-free Middle East" with King Hussein and Queen Noor of Jordan. In 2010, White received a Knesset vote in Israel to clear old minefields, including the Baptismal Site of Jesus on the Jordan River.

White has been published extensively, testified before the United States Congress and the United Nations, and received several awards in recognition of his humanitarian and human rights leadership, including the Lifetime Achievement Award from Glasgow Caledonian New York College in 2019, the University of Massachusetts-Boston Chancellor’s Medal for Global Service in 2016, the Rumi Award for Interreligious Diplomacy in 2015, the Superior Honor Award from the U.S. State Department in 2014, the Roots of Peace Global Humanitarian Award in 2010; the first International UNA Humanitarian Prize from Sir Paul McCartney and Heather Mills in 2003, the 2001 Paul G. Hearne American Association of People with Disabilities Leadership Award, the 2000 Mohammed Amin Humanitarian Award, Brown University's 2000 William Rogers Alumni Award, and the Center for International Rehabilitation's Leadership Award in 1999. He shares in the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize, awarded to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines and its first coordinator Jody Williams.

Professional

White began his career at the Brookings Institution and at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he served as a research assistant. He later became Assistant Director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control and an editor for Risk Report . In the late 1990s he served on the board of directors of the Amputee Coalition of America. In these positions White campaigned against weapons of mass destruction.

In 1995, White co-founded Landmine Survivors Network, later Survivor Corps, with Ken Rutherford, which pioneered improvements in war victim assistance, providing amputees with peer mentors, artificial limbs, and job training. White and Rutherford's leadership in the International Campaign to Ban Landmines helped secure the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty and the Cluster Munitions Ban Treaty.

Between 2010 and 2012 Jerry served as Executive Co-Chair of the Abraham Path Initiative with Founder William Ury.

In April 2012 White was appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary for Partnerships and Learning at the US State Department's Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations (CSO). While at the CSO, he was responsible for strategic planning for the Bureau, and he introduced strategies to avoid violence in the Middle East and North Africa.

After leaving the State Department in January 2015, Jerry founded Global Impact Strategies Inc. (giStrat) and Global Covenant Partners (GCP). Global Covenant Partners is a small non-profit dedicated to preventing religion-related violence.

He joined the University of Virginia as a Professor of Practice in 2015, and taught a course titled Religion, Violence and Strategy: How to Stop Killing in the Name of God. His work with Professor Peter Ochs to inhibit religion-related violence across the Mideast and North Africa was profiled in Virginia Magazine’sIn the Name of God: UVA team develops new approach to battling religion-based violence.”

Since 2022, he has been the Executive Director of the United Religions Initiative, which promotes enduring, daily interfaith cooperation, the end of religiously motivated violence, and the creation of cultures of peace, justice, and healing for the Earth and all living beings.

Personal

Jerry White used to live in the Mediterranean island of Malta [3] with his wife Kelly and four children.

He holds a bachelor's degree from Brown University, a master's of business administration from the University of Michigan, an honorary doctorate from Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and a distinguished honorary professorship from Hiroshima University. In 2005 White delivered the commencement speech at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan. In May 2010, White delivered the commencement address at the Mendoza Graduate School of Business, University of Notre Dame.

Related Research Articles

The Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation (VVAF), established in 1980, now the Veterans for America (VFA), is a Washington, D.C.-based international humanitarian organization that addresses the consequences of war and conflict. The founder of VVAF is Bobby Muller, a former U.S. Marine lieutenant and Vietnam veteran.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jody Williams</span> American political activist (born 1950)

Jody Williams is an American political activist known for her work in banning anti-personnel landmines, her defense of human rights, and her efforts to promote new understandings of security in today's world. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 for her work toward the banning and clearing of anti-personnel mines.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">International Campaign to Ban Landmines</span> International organization

The International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) is a coalition of non-governmental organizations whose stated objective is a world free of anti-personnel mines and cluster munitions, where mine and cluster munitions survivors see their rights respected and can lead fulfilling lives.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lloyd Axworthy</span> Canadian politician

Lloyd Norman Axworthy is a Canadian politician, elder statesman and academic. He served as Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Jean Chrétien. Following his retirement from parliament, he served as president and vice-chancellor of the University of Winnipeg from 2004 to 2014 and as chancellor of St. Paul's University College. He is currently the Chair of the World Refugee & Migration Council.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ottawa Treaty</span> Anti-personnel landmine ban treaty

The Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction of 1997, known informally as the Ottawa Treaty, the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, or often simply the Mine Ban Treaty, aims at eliminating anti-personnel landmines (APLs) around the world.

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) is a US-based not-for-profit human rights NGO that uses medicine and science to document and advocate against mass atrocities and severe human rights violations around the world. PHR headquarters are in New York City, with offices in Boston, Washington, D.C., as well as Nairobi. It was established in 1986 to use the unique skills and credibility of health professionals to advocate for persecuted health workers, prevent torture, document mass atrocities, and hold those who violate human rights accountable.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Survivor Corps</span>

Survivor Corps, formerly known as the Landmine Survivors Network, was a global network of survivors helping survivors to recover from war, rebuild their communities, and break cycles of violence. The organization operated programs in Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Burundi, Colombia, Croatia, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Georgia, Jordan, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Uganda, Rwanda, the United States and Vietnam.

The Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC) is an international civil society movement, which campaigns against the use, production, stockpiling, and transfer of cluster munitions. Cluster munitions, a type of munition stockpiled by more than 80 states, are documented to have caused significant civilian deaths and injuries and have frequently caused indiscriminate effects in both conflict and peace times. Their use is prohibited under the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions, a convention formally endorsed on May 30, 2008, in Dublin, Ireland, and was signed by 94 countries in Oslo on December 3-4, 2008. The Convention entered into force, becoming binding upon state parties to the convention on August 1, 2010, after 30 countries formally ratified it. As of January 4, 2012, it had been signed by 111 countries, of which 77 have ratified.

Donovan James Webster was an American journalist, author, film-maker, and humanitarian.

A mine clearance organization, or demining organization, is an organization involved in the removal of landmines and unexploded ordnance (UXO) for military, humanitarian, or commercial reasons. Demining includes mine clearance, as well as surveying, mapping and marking of hazardous areas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Humanity & Inclusion</span> Non-governmental organization

Humanity & Inclusion is an international non-governmental organization. It was founded in 1982 to provide help in refugee camps in Cambodia and Thailand. Headquartered in France and Belgium, since its creation, it has opened branches in six other countries: Switzerland, Luxembourg, United Kingdom, Germany, Canada and the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geneva Call</span>

Geneva Call is a non-governmental organization based in Geneva, Switzerland. It is currently focusing its efforts on banning the use of anti-personnel mines, protecting children from the effects of armed conflict, prohibiting sexual violence in armed conflict, working towards the elimination of gender discrimination and building armed non-State actors’ knowledge and implementation of broad International Humanitarian Law (IHL) rules.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ken Rutherford (political scientist)</span> American political scientist

Kenneth R. Rutherford is the co-founder of the Survivor Corps, a group that helps the victims of war, and an American researcher in the field of political science. He is also a member of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which was the recipient of the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize. Rutherford has served as the Director of the James Madison University Center for International Stabilization and Recovery, a Peace Corps Volunteer in Mauritania (1987-1989), a UNHCR Emergency Refugee Coordinator in Senegal (1989), and a humanitarian emergency relief officer in northern Kenya and Somalia (1993). In 2024, Rutherford taught at Hue University in Vietnam as a Fulbright Scholar Fellow.

The Uganda Landmine Survivors Association (ULSA) is a non-governmental organization, focused primarily on advocacy and victim assistance throughout Uganda. The organization was founded in April 2005 in order to campaign against the use, production and transfer of landmines, cluster munitions and explosive remnants of war (ERWs). ULSA also serves as a peer to peer support network for survivors, providing them with training in vocational, leadership and advocacy skills in partnership with other organizations throughout Northern and Western Uganda.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United Nations Mine Action Service</span> United Nations organization

The United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) is a service located within the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations that specializes in coordinating and implementing activities to limit the threat posed by mines, explosive remnants of war and improvised explosive devices.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Center for International Stabilization and Recovery</span>

The Center for International Stabilization and Recovery (CISR), formerly the Mine Action Information Center (MAIC), is a public policy center at James Madison University that manages information, conducts training, holds conferences and workshops, and performs research relevant to humanitarian mine clearance, victim assistance, mine risk reduction and other explosive remnants of war (ERW).

Raphael F. J. McGrath, usually known as Rae McGrath, lives in Langrigg, Cumbria and is a British campaigner and specialist in humanitarian response to conflict and natural disaster. He founded the Mines Advisory Group (MAG), and, as a leading member of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), represented the organisation when it received the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1997.

The Organization of Amputees Republike Srpske (UDAS) is registered as a nonprofit organization and non-governmental organization based in Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), founded by amputees which are mostly landmine victims in order to provides support for victims of landmines, unexploded ordnance (UXO), cluster munition and other persons with disabilities and their families to integrate them back into the community, thus enabling them to live normal lives.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ITF Enhancing Human Security</span> Non profit humanitarian organization

ITF Enhancing Human Security is a humanitarian, non-profit organization founded by the Republic of Slovenia., which specializes in land mine clearance and post-conflict reconstruction. It was established on 12 March 1998 with the purpose of helping Bosnia and Herzegovina in its post-conflict rehabilitation, specifically with mine clearance and assistance to mine victims.

Amina Azimi is an advocate for disabled women's rights in Afghanistan. In 2012 she won the N-Peace Award.

References

  1. "Jerry White - Survivor Corps". www.abilitymagazine.com.
  2. Cameron MA, Lawson RJ, Tomlin BW. To walk without fear : the global movement to ban landmines. Toronto ; New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Chapter 7, "The Role of the Landmine Survivors Network," pp. 99-117.
  3. "The mine that set off a mission". Times of Malta. 27 September 2010.