Togo – COI

Benjamin N. Lawrance, Ph.D.

Professor of History at the University of Arizona

Email: benlaw@email.arizona.edu

Webpage:  http://www.rit.edu/cla/endowed_chairs.php

Benjamin N. Lawrance is the former Conable Chair in International Studies at Rochester Institute of Technology and is currently a professor of history at the University of Arizona. He has conducted field research in West Africa since 1997 and published extensively about political and social conditions. He has served as an expert witness in the asylum cases for  over 130 West Africans in the US, Europe and Canada which have involved human trafficking, citizenship, statelessness, female genital cutting, gender issues, gender identity, ethnic and religious violence, and witchcraft accusations.

Dr Jennifer Seely 

Email: seelyje@earlham.edu

Dr Seely is an Associate Professor of Politics at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana. Her areas of expertise are in African politics, democratization, and the international political economy of development. She conducted dissertation research in Togo and Benin, and she has field experience in a number of francophone African countries. She has published some of her findings about Togolese politics since the early 1990s in the journals Electoral Studies and Democratization, and in the reference work Africa Contemporary Record. Since 2005 Dr Seely has served as an expert witness in several cases of Togolese asylum seekers, at different times preparing to testify in person, on the telephone, or in writing.