John Watts

John Watts joined BLJ London as Managing Partner in 2014 after seven years as Chief Executive of BLJ Worldwide’s Asia and Middle East offices.

John was Special Adviser to Prime Minister Tony Blair. During his time in 10 Downing Street, John experienced working closely with world leaders and public figures at the very highest levels of government and business.

Many events achieved global coverage including the G8 Summit at Gleneagles attended by President George W. Bush and President Vladimir Putin, the historic conclusion of devolution to Northern Ireland in June 2007 and the former Prime Minister’s involvement in the successful London 2012 Olympic bid.

Before working at Number 10, John was Director of Conferences and Events for the Labour Party. Responsible for the presentation of the party’s 2005 general election campaign, he was also charged with organising Europe’s largest annual political convention.

He studied Arabic and Middle East Affairs at Birzeit University in Palestine as well as in the Sultanate of Oman.

John Comaroff

John Comaroff is an ABF Affiliated Research Professor and Professor of African and African-American Studies and Anthropology at Harvard University. Before joining the Department of African and African American Studies, John Comaroff was the Harold H. Swift Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the University of Chicago, Honorary Professor of Anthropology at the University of Cape Town, and Research Professor at the American Bar Foundation.

His current research in South Africa is on crime, policing, and the workings of the state, on democracy and difference, and on postcolonial politics. His authored and edited books include, with Jean Comaroff, Of Revelation and Revolution (2 vols), Ethnography and the Historical Imagination, Modernity and its Malcontents, Civil Society and the Political Imagination in Africa, Millennial Capitalism and the Culture of Neoliberalism, Law and Disorder in the Postcolony, Ethnicity, Inc.,  Zombies et Frontières A l’Ere Néolibérale, and Theory from the South: or, how Euro-America is evolving toward Africa.

Jessé Souza

Jessé Souza holds an undergraduate degree in Law from the University of Brasília (1981), MSc in Sociology from the University of Brasília (1986), PhD in Sociology from Karl Ruprecht Universität Heidelberg, Germany (1991), Postdoc in Philosophy and Psychoanalysis at New School for Social research of New York, USA (1994-1995) and Sociology Habilitation at Universität Flensburg, Germany (2006).

He has partaken in several post-doctoral training programs and was a Visiting Professor at Universität Bremen, Germany (1999-2000). He wrote and coordinated 27 books as well as over 100 articles and book chapters in several languages on social theory, Brazilian social thinking, and theoretical/practical studies on inequality and social classes in present-day Brazil.

He is a Full Professor at UFABC (Federal University of ABC). He recently published the books “A elite do atraso: da escravidão a lava jato [The regression elite: from slavery to the car wash]”, “A tolice da inteligência brasileira [The foolishness in Brazilian intelligence]”, in 2015, and “A radiografia do golpe [X-ray of the coup]” in 2016, both published by Editora Leya. In 2017 he published “Inequality in capitalist Societies”, by Routledge Publishing House, alongside Boike Rehbein and Surinder Jodkha.

James Green

James N. Green is a Professor of Brazilian History at Brown University. He lived in Brazil for eight years where he was one of the founders of the first organization in defense of homosexual rights in the country. He received his PhD in Latin-American History at UCLA, in 1996, and now serves as the President of the New England Council on Latin American Studies (NECLAS).

Geraldo Prado

Geraldo Prado graduated in Law from the University of the State of Rio de Janeiro, in 1983. He finished his Master’s degree program in Law in 1998 at University Gama Filho, where he defended his dissertation “Sistema Acusatório: a conformidade constitucional das leis processuais penais” [Accusatory System: constitutional compliance of criminal procedural laws]. In 2003, he received his Doctor’s degree in the same institution, with his thesis “Elementos para uma análise crítica da Transação Penal no direito brasileiro” [Elements for a critical analysis of the plea bargain in Brazilian Law].

Associate professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), where he has worked since 2004 in the graduation course of the National Law School, and since 2015 in the post-graduation program in Law (PPGD).

In the graduation course, he teaches Criminal Procedural Law and in his doctor’s degree program he investigates the “System of Epistemic Controls”. A bachelor of Law from the University of the State of Rio de Janeiro (1983 – UERJ), he has both a master’s and a doctor’s degree in law from University Gama Filho (1998 and 2003 – UGF).

He carried out post-doctorate studies in History of the Legal Ideas and Cultures at the University of Coimbra (2010). An outsourced consultant of the Agency for Assessment and Accreditation of Higher Education of Portugal, Geraldo Prado contributes to Portuguese, Spanish and Latin-American universities.

Since June 2013 he is an investigator at the Research Centre for Criminal Law and Criminal Sciences of the University of Lisbon. By 2016, he joined the RATIO LEGIS – Centre for Research and Development in Legal Sciences of Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa, with research in “Mercado, Regulação e Fiscalidade: o papel das Instituições Superiores de Controlo Financeiro na promoção de uma boa governança” [Market, Regulation and Taxation: the role of Higher Education Institutions of Financial Control in promoting a good governance].

He’s a visiting professor at Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa. He’s a writer for Revista Portuguesa de Ciência Criminal (RPCC) [Portuguese Maganize of Criminal Science]. As an author of books and articles published in Brazil and abroad, he integrated the Commission instituted by the Ministry of Justice for the Reform of the Book on Appeals and Objections in the Code of Criminal Procedure.

A career judge, he retired from the position of appellate judge at the State Appellate Court of Rio de Janeiro (2012).