Ali Hosseini is a PhD candidate in Global Governance at the Balsillie School of International Affairs, focusing on global social governance. His broad research interests include peacebuilding, development, and institutionalization of human rights. His PhD dissertation focuses on failure of international intervention in assisting post-Taliban Afghanistan in institutionalization of a culture of peace, drawing interactions between a culture of violence formed in the country during decades of war, misguided peacebuilding knowledge about peace and nation-building, discounting criticality of public cultural and educational institutions, and eroded trust between people and domestic and international political actors due to compromising transparency, transitional justice and accountability for short-term political expediencies. Identifying the connection of peace with societal agreement on specific values and presence of trust between people and government, and believing that peacebuilding inevitably includes strengthening of the shared values, his research revolves around the place of organic societal development in peacebuilding governance. Criticizing the current securitized and economistic peacebuilding, his research highlights the importance of strengthening local public institutions in addressing intellectual, cultural and social aspects of peace.

As a member of the Faculty of Law of Kateb University in Kabul, Afghanistan, he taught constitutional law, administrative law, international law and human rights. He is author of four books and several papers on the rule of law, government administration, human rights institutionalization and peace building. He also worked with the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) as a human rights officer for six years. His professional work included promoting of and analyzing the human rights trends in the light of social, political and economic developments. Besides having a B.A. in Law, from Mofid University, and a M.A. in International Law, from Allameh Tabataba’i University, he obtained B.A. and M.A. in Islamic Jurisprudence and Culture from the International Center for Islamic Studies (ICIS, Iran.