Advisory Board

Dr Asli Ozcelik Olcay is Senior Lecturer in International Law at the University of Glasgow, where she co-leads the University’s interdisciplinary research theme ‘Peaceful, Secure, and Empowered Societies’. Her expertise relates to issues of international and constitutional law arising in the context of peace processes.

“At a moment of need for fresh thinking on peace, locally and globally, the Scottish Peace Platform provides an invaluable space for bringing together Scotland’s diverse expertise in conflict resolution, power-sharing, peacebuilding, disarmament, and beyond. As the ‘Peaceful, Secure, and Empowered Societies’ team of the University of Glasgow, our role aligns with the Platform’s objective of strengthening research–practice–community exchange and connections.”

Dr Allan Gillies is a lecturer of political and international studies in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Glasgow. Previously, he held an Economic and Social Research Council Global Challenges Research Fund Fellowship and received a Lord Kelvin/Adam Smith Scholarship, also at Glasgow. His research examines the political economies of transnational illicit commodities in Latin America, with focus on Colombia and Bolivia. His work intervenes in debates around the causes of drug violence in Latin America, the development of the state in post-colonial contexts, political transition and the dynamics of socio-environmental conflict.

“As co-convenor of the Glasgow Latin American Research Network (GLARN), I hope to facilitate connections between our members and the wider peacebuilding community in Scotland.”

Frazer Macdonald Hay is a peace-building consultant, researcher, and writer whose work explores the intersections of architecture, memory, violence, and the everyday. He is the founder of Uniform November, a consultancy working internationally on post-conflict recovery, cultural heritage protection, displacement, and social cohesion.

Frazer has worked in contexts including Iraq, Ukraine, Mexico, Syria, and Indonesia with organisations such as the UN’s International Organisation for Migration, UNESCO, ICCROM, The HALO Trust, the British Council’s Cultural Protection Fund (CPF), and a range of NGOs and universities across the UK, Norway, Singapore, and the Netherlands. His practice combines field-based peacebuilding with critical research into how ordinary buildings, people, and places carry legacies of conflict, silence, and resilience.

He holds a Master’s degree in Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of St Andrews and a Master’s degree in Architectural Conservation from the University of Edinburgh. He writes regularly on memory, cultural heritage, violence, and peace advocacy, with a particular interest in how everyday and infra-ordinary places and spaces can become sites of dialogue, accountability, and repair.

“The Scottish Peace Platform has enormous potential to become a credible, accessible space for peace advocacy and education in Scotland. I’m committed to supporting and advising the platform so it remains relevant, transparent, and grounded in both lived experience and critical thinking — especially at a time when peace work requires renewed commitment across society.”

Mark Camburn joined SCIAF (Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund) in 2010 as a Programme Officer for Latin America, and became the Director of International Programmes in 2024, responsible for overseeing SCIAF’s development and humanitarian work around the world. He studied Latin American Development Studies at Portsmouth University, and built up his grassroots experience in Bolivia, where he lived for around 15 years. In Bolivia, he worked with small-scale farmers and local organisations on locally-led Natural Resource Management programmes. At SCIAF, Mark has worked for over 15 years with SCIAF’s peacebuilding work in Colombia. He has worked closely with local and national peacebuilding stakeholders, from community leaders to national peace envoys, and supported their peacebuilding work at a local, national, and international level. Mark is also passionate about sport, and its power as a peacebuilding tool. In 2020, he set up SCIAF’s first Sport4Peace programme in Colombia (Rugby4Peace), which uses rugby as a tool to impart key life and conflict resolution skills to young people in rural Colombia.

“At SCIAF, we are really excited by the opportunity to share the amazing peacebuilding work of our local partners, in countries such as Colombia, DRC, Ethiopia, and South Sudan, with the Scottish Peacebuilding community through the Scottish Peace Platform. We are also keen to learn from other peacebuilding practitioners in Scotland, and incorporate learning into our day-today peacebuilding work.”

Dr Gari Donn is founder and Executive Director of UN House Scotland and Chair of the UN Association Scotland, a registered charity addressing the mission, vision, values and goals of the UN at civil society levels. Previously, as an academic at the University of Edinburgh Gari researched – and taught post graduate students – in International Education Policy with a focus on countries of the Middle East and SubSaharan Africa.  She was seconded to the Commonwealth Secretariat where she had responsibility for supporting Ministries of Higher Education.  Gari recently retired as JP for the Edinburgh and Lothian Sheriffdom, this after 30 years of service.  She is on the Boards of the Acronym Institute of Disarmament Diplomacy (AIDD) and the Scottish Centre of Tagore Studies (ScoTs).

Rhys Munro is a 3rd year Politics student at the University of Edinburgh and a Resident Intern at United Nations House Scotland. He currently leads the Human Trafficking team, as well as co-leading the Model UN Team. He is passionate about equal access to education, and believes that education is a crucial factor in peace-building.

“My hope is that the SPP can provide training and education to young people regarding peacebuilding; in doing so, I believe it can become a focal point that facilitates youth participation in peacebuilding at every level.”

John Edward is the Head of Operations of the Scottish Council on Global Affairs.

The SCGA is Scotland’s international relations institute founded by the universities of Glasgow, St Andrews and Edinburgh.  It provides a hub for collaborative policy-relevant research and a home for informed, non-partisan debate on all areas of foreign and security policy broadly defined. In this, it aligns with the Scottish Peace Platform in bringing the expertise of Scottish academic institutions to peacebuilding and peacemaking.

Before his work with SCGA, John’s most recent role was as the Chief Executive of the Scottish Council of Independent Schools, prior to which he was Head of the European Parliament’s Office in Scotland. John worked for nine years in Brussels firstly in the then-new European Policy Centre, as personal assistant to Max Kohnstamm.  He was subsequently EU Policy Manager for Scotland Europa, Brussels.  John was also Chief Spokesman for the non-party political Scotland Stronger in Europe campaign for the 2016 EU referendum.

Frances Guy currently heads up Scotland’s International Development Alliance, a network of members based in Scotland working on global sustainable development. She worked as gender team leader for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) regional office in the Arab states based in Jordan between 2017 – 21 and was representative for UNWomen in Iraq from May 2012 to December 2014. Between 1985 and 2012 she worked in the British Foreign Service. She was Ambassador to Yemen from 2001–04 and Ambassador to Lebanon from 2006–11. As Gender Advisor to UNDP and as a country representative for UNWomen, Frances was closely involved in the promotion of the Women, Peace and Security agenda in Iraq and Syria and the wider MENA region.

“I am hopeful that a participatory inclusive peace platform in Scotland that reaches out to the many grassroots organisations working on different aspects of peace across Scotland can draw on the strengths of all those organisations and encourage a wider public debate on the links between peace, wellbeing and sustainable development.”

Janet Fenton is a Scottish Quaker eco-feminist, committed to peace, human rights and sustainability. She joined CND as a teenager and is now an International Steering Group Member of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017 for its contribution to the adoption of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapon (TPNW).

Previously, she worked for many years in the theatre in Scotland, Nottingham, London and Ireland, and in community arts, issue-based playwrighting and community development through arts in Craigmillar, Stockbridge and North Edinburgh and from Stockwell to the West End in London. She then set up an environmental and social justice resource, the Ever Green Trust, in Portobello and ran it for ten years, and is a former Coordinator of Peace and Justice Scotland (P&J).

She is still an active participant in Trident Ploughshares (TP), the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), a director of the Nuclear Information Service and Secretary of the Scottish Parliament Nuclear Disarmament Cross Party Group. She is a consultant with the Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy (AIDD), since working for it together with TP and P&J on the conference on Trident International Law in Scotland (2009) and the book, published by Luath Press, of the same name. AIDD has Consultative Status at the United Nations and Janet has participated on its behalf at various UN negotiations for the TPNW, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the Conference on Disarmament and on the UK’s Human Rights Universal Periodic Review. She has led civil society delegations at United Nations at meetings for the TPNW and Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) from Secure Scotland.

However, she commits most of her time to organising Secure Scotland’s activities which challenge and address prevailing toxic ideas of security that increase inequality. This is done through a range of projects operating at grass roots, national, transnational and parliamentary levels. She continues to speak out, offer workshops and panels and to write, including for the press and online publications, briefings, opinion pieces, and other wee thoughts about life appear on various platforms.