Berel Rodal is Vice-Chair of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict. In a long career with the Government of Canada, he worked at the Department of External Affairs and in the Cabinet/Privy Council Office, was Secretary of the Steering Committee on national unity in the Cabinet Office, was Director-General of the Policy Secretariat in the Department of National Defence and was a member of Canada's negotiating team in the Canada-US Free-Trade negotiations. He has lectured in Canada, the U.S., Europe and Japan on governance and the state, federalism and intergovernmental relations, nationalism and political identity, international relations, ‘information-age' issues, international trade, and strategic policy/international security affairs. He is the author of a number of publications on these subjects. His most recent publication is the book The Somalia Experience in Strategic Perspective. He was educated at McGill University and Balliol College, Oxford.