Dr. George A. Lopez, chair of Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame, will present a lecture “Can We Achieve Peace in the War on Terror?” at 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 8, in the Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall in UALR’s Fine Arts Building.

An informal reception at 6 p.m. in the Fine Arts Gallery will precede the lecture. Both events are free and open to the public. The events are sponsored by the UALR Middle Eastern Studies Center with the Notre Dame Club of Arkansas.

Lopez holds the Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., Chair in Peace Studies at Notre Dame. His research interests focus primarily on the problems of state violence, especially economic sanctions, gross violations of human rights, and ethics and the use of force. His work has been published in a wide range of social science and policy journals.

Working with peace activist David Cortright since 1992, Lopez has written more than 25 articles and book chapters, as well as five books on economic sanctions, including “The Sanctions Decade: Assessing U.N. Strategies in the 1990s.” With Cortright and Alistair Millar, Lopez wrote “Winning without War: Sensible Security Options for Dealing with Iraq” in October 2002. The policy brief was called the most influential document for those favoring an alternative to war with Iraq.

Lopez and Cortright’s research detailing the unlikely presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq appeared before the war in “Disarming Iraq” in the September 2002 issue of Arms Control Today and then later after the war in “Containing Iraq: the Sanctions Worked” in Foreign Affairs (July/August, 2004). Some of his work was highlighted in the 2006 Notre Dame Magazine article “Global Warning.”

Lopez has served in an advisory capacity to a number of foundations and organizations. From 1988 through 1998, he chaired the selection committee of the Research and Writing Grants Committee of the MacArthur Foundation’s Program in Peace and International Cooperation.

He has served as interim executive director of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and chaired its board of directors until June 2003. In 2001 and 2002,  he was a senior research associate at the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs in New York City. He served as a senior Jennings Randolph Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C., and served on the United Nations Panel of Experts for monitoring and implementing UN Sanctions on North Korea.

Lopez is the recipient of a number of teaching awards at Notre Dame. He has served as director of the Kroc Institute’s Summer Institute on Teaching Peace in the 21st Century since its inception.

For more information about Lopez’s lecture contact Dr. Clea Bunch, UALR assistant professor of history at 501-569-3235.