Our People
Dr Joshua Lincoln
Visiting Fellow
Senior Fellow
PhD, MALD (Tufts University), BSFS (Georgetown University)
Dr. Joshua Lincoln (PhD) is a Visiting Fellow at Kellogg College and a Senior Fellow at the Centre for International Law and Governance at the Fletcher School of Global Affairs, Tufts University (since 2020). He advises governments, companies, and international organizations on issues related to governance and multilateralism.
Dr. Lincoln’s research interests span multilateral processes, international organizations, and the geopolitical and global governance challenges arising from the Net Zero decarbonization transition and related pollution issues. His current work includes the 2022–2025 intergovernmental negotiations (INC) toward a global plastics treaty.
In addition to his advisory work, he serves on the Board of Directors of the Global Governance Forum, the Board of Advisors for Cambrian Futures, and is a member of the New Carbon Economy Consortium and the Academic Council on the United Nations System.
With 25 years of professional experience, Dr. Lincoln has held executive roles in management, program development, communications, and government relations and worked in Africa, Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia.
Between 2000 and 2013, Dr. Lincoln worked at the United Nations, serving as Chief of Staff to the Director-General of the UN Office at Geneva and as Senior Officer in the Executive Office of the Secretary-General in New York. He also spent seven years in peacekeeping and preventive diplomacy with the UN Cameroon-Nigeria Mixed Commission and field missions in Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Sudan.
From 2013 to 2019, Dr. Lincoln was Secretary-General of the Bahá’í International Community, representing its international governing council in external affairs. His 2023 book, ‘Abdu’l-Bahā ‘Abbās: A Life in Social and Regional Context (Idra, 2023), has been translated into Hebrew and Arabic. A second English edition is under publication by Sutherland House.
During his earlier career and training, he was associated with institutions including the World Bank, the Carter Presidential Center, the Reebok Foundation, Harvard Law School’s Program on Negotiation, and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Dr. Lincoln’s recent publications include “Towards a Global Plastics Treaty: Human Rights and Global Ethics at the Intersection of Pollution and Climate Change” (in Why the Social Sciences Matter, 2nd ed., Springer, forthcoming); “Carbon, Confusion and Conflict: Global Governance Implications of the Net-Zero Energy Transition” (in Global Governance and International Cooperation: Managing Global Catastrophic Risks in the 21st Century, Routledge, 2024); and “Global Governance in an Era of Pluralism” (Global Policy, Vol. 13, No. 4, 2022), with Ian Johnstone. In addition to contributing to World Politics Review, Dr. Lincoln was part of an expert panel that produced an annotated revision of the UN Charter: A Second United Nations Charter: Modernizing the UN for a New Generation (Global Governance Forum, 2024).