Riccardo Bocco is Professor of Political Sociology at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva. During his 40-year career in and on the Middle East (Jordan, Israel-Palestine and Lebanon in particular), he has worked extensively on refugee issues and the role of humanitarian aid. During the 2000s, he conducted several surveys on behalf of UNRWA and other UN agencies on the living conditions of the Palestine refugees registered with UNRWA in its five fields of operation. He is also co-editor (with I. Saïd) of De-/Colonizing the Palestine Question: Contemporary Debates (forthcoming).
Lex Takkenberg is senior advisor at Arab Renaissance for Democracy & Development (ARDD), Associate Professor at Fordham University, and heads Project20s. Between 1989 and 2019 he worked for UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, in various field and headquarters positions, most recently at its Amman headquarters where he occupied the post of Chief, Ethics Office. Before joining UNRWA, he was the Legal Officer of the Dutch Refugee Council. A law graduate from the University of Amsterdam, he obtained a Doctorate in International Law from the University of Nijmegen, the Netherlands. His publications include The Status of Palestinian Refugees in International Law (Oxford University Press, 1989). A revised and updated edition, co-authored with Francesca Albanese was published in 2020.
