Dr Alex Vines OBE is the Research Director of Risk, Ethics and Resilience; and Head of the Africa Programme at Chatham House. Previously, he has held roles at Chatham House as director for Regional Studies and International Security, and director for Area Studies and International Law.
He chaired the UN Panel of Experts on Côte d’Ivoire from 2005 to 2007 and was a member of the UN Panel of Experts on Liberia from 2001 to 2003. He was also a member of the Commonwealth Observer Group to Mozambique in 2019 (and Ghana in 2016) and a UN election officer in Mozambique (1994) and Angola (1992).
He worked at Human Rights Watch as a senior researcher on its Africa, Arms and Business and Human Rights programmes, and has served as a consultant including for the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC); JICA, DFID, USAID, the EU and for the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
He has also written expert reports for the EU parliament and has testified to law makers including for the US Congress and Senate, the EU parliament, the UK and Finnish parliaments and the Angolan and Mozambican National Assemblies.
He is an assistant professor at Coventry University, and sits on the editorial and advisory Boards for the South African Journal of International Affairs, Africa Review (journal of the African Studies Association of India), and the Journal of Southern African Studies.
He is also a director of EG Justice – an NGO focused on Equatorial Guinea and is on the advisory board of the John & Elnora Ferguson Centre for African Studies (JEFCAS) at the University of Bradford.
Alex was awarded an OBE in 2008 in recognition of his work including founding and developing Chatham House’s Africa Programme and holds a PhD from Coventry University.