Member, Delphi Global Board of Advisors

Anthony Wanis-St. John is a conflict resolution professional who specializes in negotiations in hostile environments, particularly ceasefires and peace processes. He is an Associate Professor at American University’s School of International Service. He’s the author of Back Channel Negotiation: Secrecy in Middle East Peacemaking (Syracuse University Press 2011). With Roger Mac Ginty, he co-edited the 3rd edition of Contemporary Peacemaking (Palgrave Macmillan 2022). 

Anthony has worked with the Department of Defense’s Defense Security Cooperation University to train civilian and combat advisors, including for the U.S. Army’s Security Force Assistance Command. In the field he advised Darfur military commanders on the need for operational and strategic unity and later supported the Syrian Opposition Council’s efforts to negotiate with the Syrian government. In 2016 he co-facilitated the strategic review of USAID/OTI’s countering violent extremism portfolio in Abuja, Nigeria. He has facilitated Track II workshops for Palestinian and Israeli official negotiation staff. With the United States Institute of Peace he conducted electoral violence prevention work in Haiti, negotiation trainings for the US Military Observer Group, and trained Ugandan military deploying to Mogadishu as part of AMISOM. In Myanmar he supported efforts to build the preventive diplomacy capabilities of ASEAN and did the same for the Arab League in Cairo.  He supported World Bank judicial modernization projects in Mexico, Guatemala, Venezuela and El Salvador.

He has provided negotiation instruction at the U.S. Joint Special Operations University, U.S. Army 352nd Civil Affairs Command and the 450th Civil Affairs Battalion as well as Marine Corps University’s Command and Staff College, the Department of Labor’s International Labor Affairs Bureau, the Department of State’s Conflict and Stabilization Operations Bureau and others.  He earned his Ph.D. from the Fletcher School, Tufts University and was a Doctoral Fellow at Harvard Law School’s Program on Negotiation and a Non Resident Fellow at Joint Special Operations University.