David Bagiaev (2006 - 2007)

South Ossetia

David is from South Ossetia, an autonomous region in the former Soviet Union, where he earned a BA in English from South Ossetian State University, and a law degree from North Ossetian State University. Subsequently, for his Masters degree at Sweden's University of Lund, David specialized in human rights law. In the aftermath of the war in the early 1990s between the newly independent Georgia and the breakaway region of South Ossetia, he spent four years assisting refugees, first as a project assistant for the Norwegian Refugee Council and later as a senior field clerk for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). With family on both sides of the conflict - his mother is Georgian, his father is Ossetian - "David is uniquely placed to play the role of a bridge-builder who can help span the mistrust and fear that now divides Georgian and Ossetian communities," writes one of his referees. During his time as a Sauvé Scholar, he plans to research how minority rights have been handled in Canada, especially in Québec. "David understands that finding sophisticated new ways to protect the interests of cultural minorities are exactly the questions that the next generation of leaders will have to grapple with." Born in the Caucasus mountains, he is also a keen hiker and rock-climber.