Graduate at Yale University and Harvard Law School. Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. Founding executive director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy (1998–2002). Covered the wars in the former Yugoslavia as a reporter for the U.S. News and World Report, the Boston Globe, and the Economist (1993–1996).

Publications include: A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide (awarded the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction, the 2003 National Book Critics Circle Award for general non-fiction, and the Council on Foreign Relations’ Arthur Ross Prize for the best book in U.S. foreign policy). Editor (with Graham Allison) of Realizing Human Rights: Moving from Inspiration to Impact (St. Martin’s, 2000).