Harvard Negotiation & Mediation Clinical Program (HNMCP) Clinical Instructor Lisa Dicker and former HNMCP student and current consultant with the Metropolitan Group Erin Bloom have just published their contribution to the Armed Groups and International Law (AGIL) blog’s “Wagner Symposium.” AGIL promotes information sharing and community building between individuals and organizations working on issues related to armed groups and internation law. This symposium aims to foster deeper discussion on how best to address the Wagner Group and its affiliated entities and their impact on international law.
Dicker and Bloom’s post,“The Wagner Group and Security Sector Reform: Challenges with Prolonged Entrenchment” assesses the key challenges posed by the Russian-backed Wagner Group, “a quasi-private military company that operates in dozens of countries under opaque circumstances and unclear legal frameworks” to security sector reform (SSR), which is a “highly complex and difficult process that aims to rehabilitate and, if necessary, rebuild state security forces to ensure accountability, civilian oversight, and adherence to the rule of law. This process is challenging is any context, but becomes more complicated when foreign actors and entities are involved and must be accounted for.” They find that the “breadth of the Wagner Group’s presence, the scale of its activities, and the secrecy under which it operates creates key challenges for SSR processes” and identify how the typical mechanisms of SSR are stressed by the entrenchment of the Wagner Group.
Lisa K. Dicker is a Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School and Clinical Instructor in the Harvard Negotiation & Mediation Clinical Program’s Dispute Systems Clinic, collaborating with organizations such as the UN IOM, the US Institute of Peace, Justice Call, and Freedom House. Prior to joining Harvard Law, Lisa was Counsel at a global pro bono law firm where she advised on peace negotiations, conflict prevention, transitional justice, and post-conflict democratic transitions. Lisa’s practitioner work and research is at the intersection of public international law and conflict resolution. Her work has been published in journals including the Harvard Negotiation Law Review, the Ohio State Journal on Dispute Resolution, the Washington University Journal of Law & Policy, the University of Memphis Law Review, and the ILSA Journal of International and Comparative Law, among others. Lisa holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School and a B.A. in Political Science and Asian Studies from the University of Tennessee.
Erin Rebecca Bloom is a Consultant with Metropolitan Group, where she specializes in democracy and corruption narratives. She previously worked for a global pro bono law firm where she provided strategic advising on peace negotiations, ceasefires, and transitional justice. Erin specializes in fragile states and post-conflict transitions, violence prevention, and conflict resolution. She is a graduate of Harvard Law School and Willamette University, and holds a Certificate in Transnational Law from the University of Geneva.
