Conflict, negotiation and the search for the missing — analysis from the field.
I work with humanitarian organizations, researchers and institutions in conflict-affected places. My work draws on more than a decade with the ICRC and the UN in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and Eastern Europe and the Caucasus, and on doctoral research at the University of Toronto.
Field work meant talking with every party to a conflict, including parties who distrusted each other. I bring the same discipline to analysis: an account of how each side sees the situation, and why, before any conclusion.
Former ICRC Head of Mission. Led a team of 27 and represented the organization with authorities at all levels.
Seven field postings in three regions. Colombia, the DRC, South Sudan, Georgia, Abkhazia and Crimea.
Four working languages. English, French, Spanish and Russian.
Four ways to work with me, each grounded in field experience in the contexts in question.
Operational advisory
For humanitarian organizations and research teams working in conflict-affected settings: context analysis, approaches to access and acceptance, and the design of protection and missing-persons programs.
FormatsBriefings, program design support and review of operational strategies.
Research and evaluation
Applied research, program evaluations and research design, especially on missing persons and their families, the protection of people affected by armed conflict and violence, and community-based responses. I also develop funding proposals; my most recent secured a SSHRC Partnership Development Grant of $187,000.
FormatsApplied research, evaluations and proposal development.
Training
Humanitarian negotiation, protection, international humanitarian law and field leadership, for humanitarian organizations, Red Cross and Red Crescent societies, UN agencies and universities. At the University of Ottawa I trained two student teams, one in English and one in French, both admitted to the Jean-Pictet IHL Competition.
FormatsWorkshops, multi-day simulations and coaching.
Expert reports
Expert reports and advice for legal practitioners and institutions on international humanitarian law, the search for missing persons, and humanitarian conditions in the contexts where I have worked.
FormatsWritten reports, review of contextual evidence and testimony.
Confidentiality
My humanitarian work rested on confidential dialogue with all parties, and that confidentiality continues: I do not disclose or discuss confidential information from past assignments. Client work receives the same discretion. Engagements, their content and the identity of those I work with stay confidential unless we agree otherwise.
Also available
Media commentary and technical advising for film and television on armed conflict, humanitarian work and the search for the missing.
In each region I have worked with authorities, armed actors and affected communities whose positions were opposed. My analysis sets out how each party sees the situation before drawing conclusions.
Latin America
Two ICRC postings in Colombia — the Arauca department and the Pacific port of Buenaventura — and ongoing doctoral research on the search for the disappeared. I worked with rural communities affected by armed conflict and with urban neighbourhoods under gang control, both before and after the 2016 peace agreement.
Expertise
Armed groups and urban violence
The post-agreement transition
Enforced disappearance and search
Families of the missing
Community-based protection
Languages
Spanish, English
Sub-Saharan Africa
I worked with the UN in Ituri, north-eastern DRC, and led an ICRC field team in South Sudan, including the Abyei area, which both Sudan and South Sudan claim. I monitored the situation of civilians and people deprived of liberty, engaged with all parties on their obligations toward them, and negotiated access for medical evacuations of the wounded.
Expertise
Humanitarian access in contested areas
Dialogue with all parties to armed conflict
Detention and judicial guarantees
Medical evacuation
Languages
French, English
Eastern Europe and the Caucasus
ICRC postings in Georgia, Abkhazia and Crimea, and university study in Moscow. In Georgia I coordinated protection activities: visits to places of detention and engagement with the penitentiary system as a whole, medical evacuations, and the reunification of families separated by conflict. During COVID-19 I led the ICRC's response across Georgia, supporting vulnerable people and healthcare services. In Abkhazia I later led the ICRC's work, including the search for people missing from past conflicts and support to their families.
Expertise
Missing persons and their families
Humanitarian dialogue with authorities and communities
Detention and penitentiary systems
Medical evacuation and family reunification
Health emergency response
Humanitarian action in politically sensitive settings
Languages
Russian, English
The heart of the search
My three-minute research talk, The Heart of the Search: Examining the Citizen-Led Search for the Disappeared, placed third university-wide in the University of Toronto's Three Minute Thesis competition in 2026.
I have spent most of my career in places where conflict shapes daily life, in conversation with the people who hold power there and the people who live with its consequences.
From 2012 to 2025 I worked for the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Colombia, Crimea, Georgia, Abkhazia and South Sudan. I monitored the situation of civilians and detainees, and engaged in confidential dialogue with all parties on the conduct of hostilities and the protections owed to people affected under international law. I also searched for missing persons alongside their families, negotiated humanitarian access and organized medical evacuations of the wounded. As ICRC Head of Mission, I led a team of 27 and represented the organization with authorities and communities at every level.
The constant in that work was dialogue with every party, including those who distrusted each other. It taught me that workable answers start from understanding how each side sees its situation. That is the perspective I bring to analysis and advice, along with the discretion the work required. I continue to honour the confidentiality of my past assignments.
Today I am a PhD researcher in Criminology and Sociolegal Studies at the University of Toronto, supported by a SSHRC Canada Graduate Scholarship. I study how families of the disappeared in Colombia carry out their own searches. I hold an LLM in human rights and international humanitarian law from the University of Ottawa, and I work in English, French, Spanish and Russian.
Field experience, tested in academic and public settings.
Publications
Reyes, Nathan. 2026. "Chapter XII: The International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance." In Faith in United Nations Human Rights Treaties, edited by Michael Weiner et al., 386–418. UN University for Peace; British University in Egypt; Norwegian Center for Human Rights.
Reyes, Nathan, and Pascale Fournier. 2013. "A Language of Hybridity: Honour and Otherness in Canadian Law and Sharia." In Applying Sharia in the West, edited by Maurits Berger, 189–203. Leiden University Press.
Talks and teaching
Panelist, "Justice, Crime, and Deviance," Wilfrid Laurier University, 2026
Third place, Three Minute Thesis, University of Toronto, 2026
Panelist, Graduate Student Research Panel, University of Toronto, 2025
Guest lecturer, Introduction to Socio-legal Studies, University of Toronto, 2025
Guest lecturer, "Cultivating Courage: Self and Leadership in the Field" and "From Introspection to Negotiation," University of Ottawa, 2024
