Experts & Speakers Faculty Profile
Timothy William Waters
Associate Professor of Law
Associate Professor of Law
IU Maurer School of Law
Interests:
Ethnic conflict and secession, International criminal law, Transitional justice, Human rights, East Central Europe and Balkans, Islamic lawEducation:
- B.A. in English literature, communications (magna cum laude) at UCLA, 1989
- M.I.A in East Central Europe, international law at Columbia University, 1998
- J.D. at Harvard Law School (cum laude), 1999
Background:
- Visiting Fellow and Visiting Scholar, Harvard Law School (2002-2005)
- International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (1999-2000)
- Peace Corps Volunteer, Hungary (1991-1994)
Professor Waters' scholarly interests include the structure of the inter-state system, ethnic conflict, human rights, transitional justice, and comparative law, especially in European and Islamic contexts. His principal research involves re-defining self-determination to devise an effective right of peaceful secession. He has published extensively in leading journals of international law, including Yale, Harvard, NYU, and Virginia, as well as area studies.
Waters is a frequent contributor to policy debate on international law and politics. His op-eds on Iraq, the Balkans, and international justice have appeared in the New York Times, International Herald Tribune, and Christian Science Monitor. He has presented his work to universities, government bodies, and institutes in the U.S., Europe, Iran, and Israel.
Waters has served as a consultant on legal system reform for the Open Society Institute, UNDP, and the Latvian Ministry of Justice, on ethnic discrimination for Human Rights Watch, and as an expert witness in Padilla et al. He monitored implementation of the Dayton Peace Accords in Bosnia for the OSCE, and at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal, he helped draft the indictment of Slobodan Milosevic. He was a Peace Corps volunteer in Hungary, where he first developed his interest in regulation of minority-majority conflicts.
During several research fellowships at Harvard Law School and graduate studies at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, Waters explored the interaction of law and ethnic conflict. He has also studied at the Lund University in Sweden and Bogazici University in Turkey, and visited at Boston University, the University of Mississippi, Bard College and Central European University in Budapest.
