Laura Davis

Expert Network Event Attendee Contributor

Laura Davis is a scholar and practitioner specializing in EU foreign policy, transitional justice and peace mediation, including women’s participation in these processes. She has extensive field experience in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where she was based for several years, Mali, central Africa, Kenya, and Madagascar. She has provided expert technical assistance to peace processes and transitional justice initiatives and advises a range of development projects. She has led multinational research teams tackling sensitive topics in complex security environments.

Laura has an MA (Oxon) in Modern History from the University of Oxford and a PhD in EU Studies from the University of Ghent, where she is an associate post-doctoral researcher. She is currently based in Jerusalem.

Laura’s scholarly publications include analysis of EU support to transitional justice in general and to the International Criminal Court, as well as fieldwork-driven analyses of EU foreign p
olicy in the DRC and Mali, and of powersharing in the DRC. She has also published a range of policy- and programming-oriented reports on transitional justice, security sector reform, peace mediation and women’s empowerment in these process. Her book, EU foreign policy, transitional justice and mediation: principle, policy and practice (Routledge 2014) is the first scholarly analysis of EU engagement in these fields.

For more information see http://www.lauradavis.eu/

Articles Authored

Kissing the frog: Gender equality in EU conflict prevention and other fairy tales (16 July 2018) - Even if gender equality were not a desirable objective in its own right, we know that gender equality is a key component of stability and security. It follows that gender analysis should inform all external conflict prevention interventions, and that gender equality should be moved from the periphery of EU conflict prevention to its heart, as a specific objective.

The EU’s Capabilities for Conflict Prevention (24 February 2017) - The idea of the EU as a peace process is an important strand in the EU’s identity in dealing with the rest of the world, and the European Council has declared that conflict prevention is a primary objective of the EU’s external action.