David Harland is a New Zealand diplomat who has been the executive director of the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (HD), a Geneva-based foundation that specializes in the mediation of armed conflict, since 2011. Harland served as a witness for the prosecution in a number of cases at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

 

Harland holds a PhD from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy (1994); a Master's degree from Harvard University (East Asian studies, 1991); a Graduate Diploma from Beijing University (1988); and a Bachelor of Arts from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand (1983).

 

Harland was appointed HD's Executive Director in 2011. He currently also sits on the United Nations secretary-general's high-level advisory board on mediation, and on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Robert Koch Institute Centre for International Health Protection (ZIG). Prior to that, Harland was adjunct professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), and Chair of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Conflict Prevention.

 

Before joining HD as executive director, Harland served as director of the Europe and Latin America Division of the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations (2006–2011). He served in United Nations peacekeeping missions in Haiti (2010), Kosovo (2008), Timor Leste (1999-2000) and Bosnia and Herzegovina (1993–1998). During 1999, he was released from his regular duties to research and draft the United Nations report on the Srebrenica massacre, "The Fall of Srebrenica".[12] He served as a Teaching Fellow at Harvard University from 1989 to 1991.

 

Harland served as a witness for the prosecution at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the cases of "The Prosecutor versus Ratko Mladic"] (2012), "The Prosecutor versus Radovan Karadžic" (2010), "The Prosecutor versus Dragomir Miloševic" (2007), and the Prosecutor versus "Slobodan Miloševic" (2004).