Sarah Sewall
| Sarah Sewall | |
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| Former Under Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights | |
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In office February 20th, 2016 – January 20, 2017 |
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| Personal details | |
| Born |
August 21, 1961 Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouse(s) | Tom Conroy |
Sarah Sewall is a diplomat and national security expert whose pioneering academic and policy work helped create the growing field of civilian security. She most recently served as Under Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights, where she was the key architect of the Obama Administration’s preventive approach to combatting violent extremism abroad. At both the Pentagon and State Department, she built and led organizations that integrated security and human rights in their policy and operational work. She spent ten years as a professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, where she directed the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. In partnership with U.S. military leaders, she helped revise U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine, led groundbreaking field assessments of U.S. civilian casualty mitigation efforts, and created new operational concepts for halting mass atrocities.
Sewall became interested in anti-satellite weapons during a Washington internship, turning this topic into her undergraduate honors thesis at Harvard. She did graduate work on strategic and international studies at Oxford University. She worked as a military analyst for the House Democratic Study Group before becoming Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell’s Senior Foreign Policy Advisor in 1997. In that role, she was appointed to the bipartisan Senate Arms Control Observer Group, monitoring U.S. arms negotiations and treaty compliance. For six years, Sewall advised Mitchell and drafted legislation to halt U.S. nuclear testing, halt U.S. support for Cambodian rebels, oppose chemical weapons use in Iraq, and reform the War Powers Resolution.
In 1993, Sewall moved to the Pentagon, serving as the inaugural Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Peacekeeping and Peace Enforcement Policy. She built the peacekeeping office mission, staff, and operations to provide equipment and services to the United Nations. She led Defense Department policy during the expansion of UN peacekeeping in Haiti, Somalia, and Bosnia. Under her leadership, the Peacekeeping Office also absorbed all DOD humanitarian policy and activities.
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