Leadership
Dr. Kennedy Graham
He has a B. Com (Auckland University), MA (Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy, Boston) and PhD (Victoria University of Wellington) and has authored or edited five books and many articles on international relations and law.
In the 1970s and ‘80s, Dr Graham was a NZ diplomat in Canada, Thailand, and Geneva, being involved in the regional negotiations for the South Pacific Nuclear-Free Zone (Treaty of Rarotonga) and representing New Zealand at the UN Conference on Disarmament.
From 1989 to ‘94 he was Secretary-General of Parliamentarians for Global Action (New York) where he developed the concept of the ‘planetary interest’ for promotion in parliaments around the world, resulting in an edited book by that title (Taylor & Frances/Routledge; 1999).
In 1995 he was visiting scholar at Emmanuel College (Cambridge University, UK), the Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies (Dhaka) and the Rockefeller Centre ’s Residency Program (Bellagio, Italy). From 2004-07 was Visiting Professor at the College of Europe (Bruges, Belgium).
As an international civil servant, Dr Graham was planning director at the International Institute for Democracy & Electoral Assistance (Stockholm, 1996-98), director of the UN University Leadership Academy (Amman, 1999-2001), research fellow at the UN Centre for Regional Integration Studies (Bruges, 2002-3), and a consultant to the UN High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges & Change (2004).
Returning to New Zealand, Dr. Graham was research fellow and lecturer at Canterbury University and Victoria University (VUW), from where he served also as a senior consultant to the UN’s Political & Security Council Affairs Division (New York, 2005-07).
He subsequently served three terms in the New Zealand Parliament (2008-17), being vice-chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee and a member of the Justice and Privileges committees. During this time, he served international on the governing board of GLOBE-International, working on climate change issues and participating in UN climate conferences from 2009 to ‘16.
In 2013, Dr Graham was founding director of the NZ Centre for Global Studies (an independent charitable trust) and remains a member of the Centre’s Trust Board. He has been Vice-President of the UN Association of New Zealand (UNANZ), and is currently senior associate at the Institute for Governance & Policy Studies (VUW) and a member of Auckland University’s Global Studies Advisory Council.