Biography

Dr Robert Keeley is a former British Army Bomb Disposal Officer who has been working in humanitarian mine action since 1991. His work has taken him to several countries including Kuwait, Bosnia, Croatia, Mozambique, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Afghanistan and Sudan. He was the first humanitarian deminer to be sent to the Former Yugoslavia to help with the transition from the UN peacekeeping mission and was the head of the UN Mine Action Centre in Croatia until 1997. He has also worked for Handicap International (during which time he helped set up the first Bosnian NGO and also provided technical advice to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines) as a consultant for the European Commission, and for a commercial demining agency, European Landmine Solutions. Since 2002 he has been carrying out short term consultancy missions for a number of clients, including the United Nations, the European Commission, The US State Department, Mitsubishi Research International, the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining, the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial Fund, Norwegian People’s Aid and the Humpty Dumpty Institute. This consultancy work has encompassed the whole range of mine action and explosive ordnance disposal activities, including design and provision of mine risk education projects and establishment of a trauma care project in Vietnam. Between 2002 and 2006, he researched and completed a PhD in Applied Environmental Economics at Imperial College, London. His thesis was entitled “The Economics of Landmine Clearance”. In 2010 Dr Keeley was invited to testify before the US House Foreign Relations Committee on the UXO situation in Laos and to provide training to senior EC officials on the contracting of landmine clearance services.

US House Committee testimony