Early life and education

Alemayehu Fentaw Weldemariam, born on June 8, 1979, in Alamata

Alamata

Alamata is a town in northern Ethiopia. Located in the Debubawi zone of the Tigray region , it has a latitude and longitude of and an elevation of 1520 meters above sea level...

, Ethiopia

Ethiopia

Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...

, is an Ethiopian public intellectual based in Addis Ababa

Addis Ababa

Addis Ababa is the capital city of Ethiopia...

. Weldemariam graduated summa cum laude with a Master of Arts in Peace and Conflict Studies from the European University Center for Peace Studies

European University Center for Peace Studies

European Peace University is a private university in Stadtschlaining, Austria.The institution was founded in 1988 as European University Center for Peace Studies by Gerald Mader in his capacity as president of the ASPR, with the support of European UNESCO commissions, and is affiliated to the...

, at Stadtschlaining

Stadtschlaining

Stadtschlaining is a town in the district of Oberwart in Burgenland in Austria. The European University Center for Peace Studies is in Stadtschlaining....

, in April 2009, Austria, where he is also a Fellow of the Salzburg Global Seminar. Besides, he is a Fellow of the Academy for International Business Officials, in Beijing

Beijing

Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...

, China. He received his LL.B degree from Addis Ababa University School of Law in July 2005.

Career

He has taught various courses at Jimma University

Jimma University

Jimma University is one of the top teaching universities in Ethiopia, and is located in Oromia Region, Jimma Zone. It offers programs and researches which lead toward degrees in different fields of studies. It was established in December 1999 with the amalgamation of the Jimma College of...

 Law School, including Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, Jurisprudence, and Law of Traders and Business Organizations where also served as the founding editor of Jimma University Journal of Law and Head of the Research and Publications Office. Besides, he has served as project officer with the Organization for Social Justice in Ethiopia, legal advisor to the Ethiopian Chamber of Commerce, and regional director of the Ethiopian Global Initiative

Ethiopian Global Initiative

The Ethiopian Global Initiative is an international non-profit initiative based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 2006, it operates globally in various continents bringing the resources of Ethiopians and non-Ethiopians together to implement sustainable projects in Ethiopia.- History :Samuel...

, contributor to the Horn of Africa Bulletin, a monthly publication of the Life and Peace Institute, based in Uppsala, Sweden, editor-in-chief of Addis Fortune, and a consultant on regional and national peace and security. Weldemariam has researched and published extensively on Ethiopian law, politics, national security and foreign policy, as well as regional peace and security.

Views

Weldemariam is a political liberal in the Rawlsian sense of the term, but he owes his political liberalism more to Joshua Cohen

Joshua Cohen

Joshua Cohen may refer to:*Joshua Lionel Cowen, born Cohen , American inventor*Yehoshua Cohen , Israeli assassin*Joshua Cohen , American philosopher*Joshua J. Cohen, mayor of Annapolis, Maryland...

, Bruce Ackerman

Bruce Ackerman

Bruce Arnold Ackerman is an American constitutional law scholar. He is a Sterling Professor at Yale Law School and one of the most frequently cited legal academics in the United States....

 and Martha Nussbaum

Martha Nussbaum

Martha Nussbaum , is an American philosopher with a particular interest in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, political philosophy and ethics....

 than to John Rawls. In his book, Legal Pluralism in Contemporary Ethiopia(2010), Weldemariam, following the tack taken by Andreas Eshete, defends multination federalism in line with the nonideal theory of John Rawls

John Rawls

John Bordley Rawls was an American philosopher and a leading figure in moral and political philosophy. He held the James Bryant Conant University Professorship at Harvard University....

 under unfavorable conditions. He contends that legal pluralism is an important federalist policy in a pluralist society such as Ethiopia. He does so by telling the story of the suppression of the diverse customary and religious laws in the country’s recent past as part of the larger history of ethnic homogenization and state centralization. Since 1957, customary and religious laws had been alienated from the state legal system by virtue of the great influx of Western transplants providing the setting for competition between legal universalism and legal pluralism. In 1995, legal pluralism triumphs over legal universalism, as the 1995 FDRE Constitution recognizes the validity of customary and religious laws in personal and family matters. He analyzes the salient elements of legal pluralism in Ethiopia, argues for redrawing the frontiers of formal legal pluralism in such a manner as to include criminal matters, and points out the challenges.
In an interview with the Reporter(2008), the Amharic private bi-weekly, Weldemariam made an incisive analysis of Ethiopian politics and the role of political parties in the country as well as ethnic animosity in Ethiopian institutions of higher learning. Weldemariam’s gloomy analysis bears on the future of democratization in general and free and fair elections in particular in Ethiopia. Invoking Weldemariam’s observation, Wondwosen Teshome(2009, 822)of the University of Vienna writes, “In fact, frustrated by the fragmentation of opposition parties and the refusal of many African incumbents to hand over power peacefully some political observers felt that unless the army stages a coup it is not possible to remove electoral autocrats democratically.”
The interview provoked a brutal retaliation by the regime in Addis Ababa. In this regard, Abrha Belai, editor of Ethiomedia, the major Diaspora website based in Seattle, Washington, wrote, “Before he left for Austria on a scholarship, Alemayehu Fentaw was a lecturer at the Law Faculty of Jimma University. A few days prior to his departure, Alemayehu was interviewed by the Reporter newspaper on such issues, among other things, like federalism, regional governments, multi-party democracy. While elaborating, Alemayehu said that opposition parties may never seize power in Ethiopia unless the army stages a coup and removes the regime. The Reporter made that remark the headline of the story. Trouble began to haunt Mr. Alemayehu and family.”
His work as human rights and peace activist figures in prominently in his advocacy for the release of Judge Birtukan Mideksa

Birtukan Mideksa

Birtukan Mideksa is an Ethiopian politician and former judge. She is the leader of the opposition Unity for Democracy and Justice party. The English equivalent of Birtukan is "orange."-Early life:...

, leader of Unity for Democracy and Justice

Unity for Democracy and Justice

The Unity for Democracy and Justice is an Ethiopian political party established on 20 June 2008 to contest the 2010 elections. It is mostly based on the parties which constituted the Coalition for Unity and Democracy. The party's leader is Birtukan Midekssa. It is a major component in the...

, the major opposition party in Ethiopia, against the rise of authoritarianism, and his critique of the Ethiopian national security and foreign policy in many of his writings. He was nominated for the Lorenzo Natali Prize for Excellence in Reporting on Human Rights for the year 2009 for his Sudan Tribune article about the re-incarceration of Judge Birtukan Mideksa.
Following the re-release of Judge Birtukan Mideksa from prison on 6 October 2010, he wrote a critical article exposing the sinister motive behind the decision and the particular procedure selected for her release. He criticized the Government of Ethiopia for harbouring an ill will to crush the morale of this great leader of a major opposition party not only by incarceration, but also by selecting procedures ill fitted for securing freedom from prison like forcing her to confess and request for pardon as well as for being hell-bent on destroying her political career. In his The Unbearable Lightness of Pardon: Reflections on Birtukan’s Second Sailing, he contends that "Apparently, in both of her sailings out of prison, the master of the ship was none other than the Prime Minister. One thing that the granting of pardon in both instances proved to all of us is nothing but the unbearable lightness of pardons. In spite of the cruel and inhumane treatment Birtukan received in the hands of her jailors, one thing that is certain is that she will remain to be a source of inspiration for all who work to advance basic human rights in Ethiopia and the world over."
In a series of articles, Weldemariam engaged in a constructive criticism of Ethiopia's national security and foreign policy in which he unmasked the incumbent's obsession with territorial security to the detriment of human security. More particularly, he blames Ethiopia for its incursion into Somalia in December 2006. He also prognosticated the low ebbs in Ethiopia's bilateral ties with the US as result of foreseeable diplomatic wrangles over the grim domestic human rights situation. His criticism never went without provoking an official response from the foreign policy establishment. A case in point is the publication of 'A Bogus Call for a Paradigm Shift-Ethiopia’s Foreign Affairs and National Security Policy and Strategy', in A Week in the Horn, the e-weekly of The Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In the official response, the Foreign Ministry wrote "Alemayehu Fentaw does not just miss these central elements of the Policy and Strategy instrument. He concocts facts and makes unsubstantiated allegations. One is the suggestion that US-Ethiopia relations would cool under the new US administration. In fact, as is obvious, the relationship between the two countries is thriving."

Books

Legal Pluralism in Ethiopia: A Critical Introduction, Lambert Academic Publishing, Saarbrücken, Germany, 2010

Articles

• The Unbearable Lightness of Pardon: Reflections on Birtukan’s Second Sailing, October 10, 2010, Rasselas Review,

• Ethiopia: On Forgiveness, Reconciliation, and Pardon, Sudan Tribune, April 10, 2009,

• Ethiopia: The Authoritarian Executive, the Rubber-Stamp parliament, and Delegation of Powers, American Chronicle, October 26, 2008,

• Ethiopia: Reflections on the Crusade against Real Estate, American Chronicle,December 16, 2010,

• Anarchy, Terrorism, and Piracy in Somalia: Revisited, American Chronicle, December 16, 2010,

• Ethiopia’s Somalia Policy: A Very Brief Critique, The Rasselas Review, January 2011,

• Legal Pluralism: Its Promises and Pitfalls for Ethiopia, Jimma University Journal of Law, Vol.1, No.1, October 2007,

• Ethiopian Unfair Competition Law: A Critical Evaluation, Jimma University Journal of Law, Vol. I No.2, January 2008

• Ethiopian Unfair Competition Law, The University of Oxford Center for Competition Law and Policy, CCLP Working Paper 21,

• Some Observations on Ethiopian Unfair Competition Law, Ethiopian Journal of Legal Education, Vol. 1, No.2, April 2009

• A Nascent Peace and Security Architecture in the Horn of Africa: Prospects and Challenges, Horn of Africa Bulletin, March, 2009, Uppsala Sweden,

• The Emerging Peace and Security Architecture in the Horn of Africa: Prospects and Challenges, Transcend Media Service, Oslo,

• A Critique of the National Security Policy: Towards “Human Security” in Ethiopia, Horn of Africa Bulletin, Vol. 21, No. 11, November 2009, Uppsala, Sweden,

• Towards Inclusive Security in Ethiopia, Horn of Africa Bulletin, Vol 22, N0. 6, June–July 2010, Uppsala, Sweden,

• The South Sudan Referendum: Domestic & Regional Security Implications, Horn of Africa Bulletin, Uppsala, Sweden, December 2010,

• “Does Devaluation Make Sense in Ethiopia Now?” Editor’s Note, Addis Fortune, Volume 10, Number 481, July 12, 2009,

• “His Holiness Should Renounce Assault Committed in His Name”, Editor’s Note, Addis Fortune, Volume 10, Number 482, July 26, 2009,

• The Ambiguous Legacy of Adwa as a National Symbol, Social Science Research Network,24 Mar 2011,

• Greater Ethiopia: The Evolution of a Pluralist Politico-Legal System in a Pluralist Polity, Social Science Research Network,August 15, 2011,