Senior Fellows Zachary Kaufman and Kuong Ly Named “Top 99 Under 33 Foreign Policy Leaders”

Senior Fellows Zachary D. Kaufman  (Denmark, 1999; American Planning Board Member) and Kuong Ly (France, 2009) were recently named in the “Top 99 under 33 Foreign Policy Leaders,” a list created by Young Professionals in Foreign Policy and The Diplomatic Courier, a global affairs magazine. The list, according to the accompanying press release, “captures the extraordinary and diverse impact that 99 Millennials under the age of 33 have on international affairs . . . . [The list] offers insight into the creativity, determination, and passion of the young people who are already tackling the world’s critical global challenges.”

“These intellectual entrepreneurs represent the state of the world we live in: a high percentage of the world’s population is under 30 years of age and more young people than ever before have started their own non-profits, organizations, or foundations,” said Editor-in-Chief of The Diplomatic Courier, Ana C. Rold. “This generation was defined by the events of 9/11 and this special feature represents the passion of this generation to find solutions to the world’s intractable problems.”

Although at different stages of their careers, these two Senior Fellows have run parallel paths: both are completing degrees at prestigious universities in the United Kingdom (Ly his M.Phil at Cambridge and Kaufman his D.Phil at Oxford) they are both writers and activists focusing their efforts on genocide and war crimes. Ly was featured as a “top 9” under 33. Ly, formerly a community organizer in Boston, just completed an LLM in International Human Rights Law from the University of Essex and an M.Phil in International Relations at Cambridge University as a Marshall Scholar. Although only in his mid-twenties, Ly experienced life as a Cambodian refugee firsthand and later worked to prosecute war crime perpetrators in the Khmer Rouge era in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979 as an American Society of International Law Arthur Helton Fellow in the Co-Prosecutor’s office of the Khmer Rouge Tribunals. He currently working in the philanthropy sector, dealing with the notion of the right to adequate and equitable education and is also in the process of writing a book about his own search for justice as the son of survivors of the Khmer Rouge era who returns to make peace with the past.

Kaufman, who is 32, has tackled issues of foreign policy through a combination of government, academic, private sector, and civil society initiatives. An attorney and social entrepreneur, Kaufman has worked for the U.S. Government (including in the U.S. Departments of State and Justice and as a member of the Obama-Biden Africa Policy Team), three international war crimes tribunals and on building Rwanda’s first public library, the Kigali Public Library. Through his work as a speaker, writer and professor (currently at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs), Kaufman has contributed to public discourse on international law and human rights. Kaufman is the co-editor and co-author of After Genocide: Transitional Justice, Post-Conflict Reconstruction, and Reconciliation in Rwanda and Beyond. His next book, Social Entrepreneurship in the Age of Atrocities: Changing Our World, will be published next year.

See profile of Zachary D. Kaufman »

See profile of Kuong Ly »