Who We Are > Accademic Board
Academic Board
The Academic Board of the Siracusa International Institute is composed of up to nine members, appointed by the Board of Directors. Five members are nominated by the President of the Institute, while four are proposed by the President of the AIDP. The President of the Academic Board is selected by the Board of Directors from among its members upon the proposal of the Institute’s President.
The Academic Board is responsible for defining the academic objectives and activities of the Institute, ensuring that they align with its mission and strategic priorities. It proposes initiatives and programs, which are submitted to the Board of Directors for approval, taking into account the financial sustainability of each activity.
Members of the Academic Board serve for the same duration as the Board of Directors, providing advisory recommendations.
Through its work, the Academic Board plays a vital role in shaping the educational and research direction of the Institute.
The Academic Board of the Siracusa International Institute is composed of up to nine members, appointed by the Board of Directors. Five members are nominated by the President of the Institute, while four are proposed by the President of the AIDP. The President of the Academic Board is selected by the Board of Directors from among its members upon the proposal of the Institute’s President.
The Academic Board is responsible for defining the academic objectives and activities of the Institute, ensuring that they align with its mission and strategic priorities. It proposes initiatives and programs, which are submitted to the Board of Directors for approval, taking into account the financial sustainability of each activity.
Members of the Academic Board serve for the same duration as the Board of Directors, providing advisory recommendations.
Through its work, the Academic Board plays a vital role in shaping the educational and research direction of the Institute.
Steve Becker
Deputy Secretary General AIDP Attorney at Law, Chicago
Steven W. Becker is the founding member of the Law Office of Steven W. Becker LLC in Chicago, Illinois USA, which specializes in criminal defense, post-conviction practice, appellate advocacy, and civil rights litigation. Mr. Becker, a member of the Association of Defence Counsel Practising Before the International Courts and Tribunals, currently serves as Deputy Secretary General of the International Association of Penal Law. Mr. Becker has lectured throughout Europe and the Balkans, as well as in Russia, China, and Brazil, on various topics of domestic and international criminal law. Mr. Becker has authored 50 law review articles and book chapters, ranging in subject matter from free speech, law enforcement and intelligence, and terrorism to torture, judicial disqualification, and DNA testing. In addition, for more than a decade, Mr. Becker has been working on behalf of his client, the courageous mother of one of the alleged 33 victims, on the infamous John Wayne Gacy serial murder case from the late 1970s and, as part of his investigation, helped to uncover the existence of a nationwide human trafficking ring involved in the case that had remained hidden for approximately 40 years.
Shane Darcy
University of Galway Irish Centre for Human Rights, School of Law University of Galway
Professor Shane Darcy is the Deputy Director of the Irish Centre for Human Rights in the School of Law at the University of Galway, where he teaches business and human rights, international humanitarian law and international criminal law. He is the Programme Director for the LLM in International Criminal Law and the PhD programme at the Irish Centre for Human Rights. He holds a B.A. in Law and Accounting from the University of Limerick (2001), and LLM (2002) and PhD (2005) degrees from the University of Galway. He has been a visiting scholar at the Legal Studies Department, Central European University, Budapest, the Human Rights Program at Harvard Law School, the Centre for Public, International and Comparative Law at the University of Queensland and the Law School at Doshisha University in Kyoto. Professor Darcy is the author of several books and articles, including Judges, Law and War: The Judicial Development of International Humanitarian Law (Cambridge University Press, 2014) and To Serve the Enemy: Informers, Collaborators and the Laws of Armed Conflict (Oxford University Press, 2019). He is a member of the Editorial Boards of the Business and Human Rights Journal, the Irish Yearbook of International Law and the Criminal Law Forum.
Carlos Japiassù
Secretary-General, AIDP; Professor of Criminal Law, Facultade de Direito Universitade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro Rua Sao Francisco Xavier, 524/7030 Maracanà Rio de Janeiro, Brasile
Carlos Eduardo Japiassú is a full Professor of Criminal Law at the State University of Rio de Janeiro and at the Federal University of Rio Janeiro and Coordinator of the PhD Program at Estácio de Sá University.
His research focuses on Criminal Law, International Criminal Law and Prison Law. He is co-editor of Revista Magister de Direito Penal e Processual Penal and author of more than 140 academic articles, books and book chapters.
He plays a leading role in several research networks, such as: Vice-President of the International Association of Penal Law (AIDP), Vice-President of the Comité International des Pénalistes Francophones (CIPF), President of the Brazilian Institute of Correctional Law (IBEP), Honorary President of the Brazilian National Group of AIDP. He was a Member of the National Council for Criminal and Penitentiary Policy (CNPCP).
He was awarded the distinctions of the following medals: Tiradentes Medal (Rio de Janeiro State Parliament), Medal of Merit of the Rio de Janeiro Magistrate’s School and Friend of the Brazilian Navy Medal.
Professor Japiassú has an extensive academic activity in foreign universities, such as University of Buenos Aires, Beijing Normal University, University of Luxembourg, University of Pau, Loyola University (New Orleans) and University of Coimbra.
André Klip
André Klip Professor of Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure and the Transnational Aspects of Criminal Law at Maastricht University
André Klip (1965) is Professor of Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure and the Transnational Aspects of Criminal Law at Maastricht University. He is a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is vice-president of the International Association of Penal Law and directs its Scientific Committee. He has supervised many PhD students and is always interested in new challenging research proposals. He is founder and editor of the Annotated Leading Cases of International Criminal Tribunals (75 volumes since 1999). He is author of European Criminal Law. An integrative Approach (Intersentia Cambridge, 4th edition 2021) and co-author of Comparative Perspectives of Criminal Procedure (Intersentia Cambridge, 2024). He is editor of the European Journal of Crime, Criminal Law and Criminal Justice. Throughout his career, Professor Klip has been frequently involved in national and international legal practice. Both as an academic and as a practitioner he is very much engaged in international cooperation. He has been invited as a guest lecturer/ researcher across the globe. Within the Maastricht Institute for Criminal Sciences, he participates in an interdisciplinary research group that is frequently invited to conduct studies on crime, perpetrators and how to combat criminal behaviour. He is a judge at the ’s-Hertogenbosch Court of Appeal (criminal division) in the Netherlands.
Yvonne Mc Dermott Rees
University of Swansea
Yvonne McDermott Rees is Professor of Law at the Hillary Rodham Clinton School of Law, Swansea University, UK. Yvonne is the author of, amongst others, Fairness in International Criminal Trials (Oxford University Press, 2016) and Proving International Crimes (Oxford University Press, 2024) and has published widely on matters of criminal procedure and evidence. She currently leads the TRUE project, a large interdisciplinary project which examines the impact of the rise of deepfakes on trust in user-generated evidence of human rights violations. Yvonne is a Legal Advisor to the Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) and a Master of the Bench of the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple.
President
William A. Schabas OC MRIA
Professor of international law School of Law | Middlesex University | London
Professor William A. Schabas is professor of international law at Middlesex University in London. He is also professor emeritus of international criminal law and human rights at Leiden University and honorary chairman of the Irish Centre for Human Rights at the University of Galway.
Prof. Schabas is a ‘door tenant’ at the chambers of 9 Bedford Row, in London. He is the author of ‘Genocide in International Law’ (3rd edition forthcoming late 2024), and many journal articles dealing with the implementation of the Genocide Convention. He is a past president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars.
Professor Schabas has acted as counsel or as an expert witness in genocide litigation before the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights, the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and national courts. From 2002 to 2004 Professor Schabas served as one of three international members of the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Professor Schabas was named an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2006. He was elected a member of the Royal Irish Academy in 2007. He has been awarded the Vespasian V. Pella Medal for International Criminal Justice of the AIDP and the Gold Medal in the Social Sciences of the Royal Irish Academy.
Dire Tladi
Judge, International Court of Justice
Dire Tladi is a Judge of the International Court of Justice, in the Hague. Prior to that, Tladi was Professor of international law and holder of the NRF SARChI Chair in International Constitutional Law at the University of Pretoria. He was previously Chair and member of the UN International Law Commission and its Special Rapporteur on Peremptory Norms of General International Law (Jus Cogens). He was President of the South African Branch of the International Law Association. He was also Special Adviser to the South African Foreign Minister. He was legal adviser to the South African Foreign Ministry and the legal counsel to the South African Mission to the United Nations in New York. He has published widely in international law. Dire Tladi is also the author of two works of fiction.
Jan Wouters
Leuven University
Jan Wouters is Full Professor of International Law and International Organizations and Jean Monnet Chair ad personam “EU and Global Governance”. He is also the founding Director of the Institute for International Law and of the Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies, an interdisciplinary research centre with the status of both a Jean Monnet and KU Leuven Centre of Excellence, at KU Leuven. He is Administrator of the America Europe Fund. He studied law and philosophy at Antwerp University, obtained an LL.M. at Yale University and was Visiting Researcher at Harvard University. As Visiting Professor at Paris-2 (Panthéon-Assas) and the College of Europe he teaches on EU external relations law. Prof. Wouters is a Member of the Royal Academy of Belgium for Sciences and Arts and practises law as Of Counsel at Omega Law, Antwerp. He is Editor of the International Encyclopedia of Intergovernmental Organizations, Deputy Director of the Revue Belge de Droit International, and an editorial board member in eleven international journals. Jan Wouters has published widely on international and EU law, international organizations, global governance, and corporate and financial law, including more than 80 books, 150 journal articles and 300 chapters in international books. His most recent books include China, the EU and the Developing World (2015), Global Governance of Labour Rights (2015), Global Governance Through Trade (2015), The Contribution of International and Supranational Courts to the Rule of Law (2015), Global Governance and Democracy (2015), Armed Conflicts and the Law (2016), Judicial Decisions on the Law of International Organizations (2016), Research Handbook on EU Energy Law and Policy (2017), Commercial Uses of Space and Space Tourism (2017), The Commons and a New Global Governance (2018), EU Human Rights and Democratization Policies (2018), International Law: a European Perspective (2018), The G7, Anti-Globalism and the Governance of Globalization (2018), The Faces of Human Rights (2019), Changing Borders in Europe (2019), General Principles of Law and the Coherence of International Law (2019), Parliamentary Cooperation and Diplomacy in EU External Relations (2019), The Belt and Road Initiative and Global Governance (2020), Assessing the 2019 European Parliament Elections (2020), The Law of EU External Relations (3rd ed. 2020), Can We Still Afford Human Rights? (2020), The European Union and Human Rights: Law and Policy (2020), The EU and Human Rights: Analysis, Cases and Material (2021), The Rule of Law and Areas of Limited Statehood (2021), Japan, the European Union and Global Governance (2021), The G20, Development and the UN 2030 Agenda (2022), Research Handbook on Global Governance, Business and Human Rights (2022), The Nexus Between Organized Crime and Terrorism (2022), EU Industrial Policy in the Multipolar Economy (2022), Legal Advisers in International Organizations (2023), National Human Rights Institutions in Europe and Latin America (2024) and Internationaal Recht in Kort Bestek (4th ed. 2024). He recently coordinated two large European research projects, FRAME (“Fostering Human Rights Among European External and Internal Policies”, 2013-17) and RECONNECT (“Reconnecting Europe with its Citizens through Democracy and Rule of Law”, 2018-22) and coordinates a six-year multidisciplinary research programme CONNECTIVITY (“Connectivity, Contestation and Cooperation in Global Governance”) funded by KU Leuven. Apart from his participation in international scientific networks, Jan Wouters advises from time to time various international organizations and governments, trains international officials and is often asked to comment international and European developments in the media.
Wang Xiumei
Vice President, AIDP; Professor of International Criminal Law, College for Criminal Law Science, Beijing Normal University (China)
Xiumei Wang is a professor at the Law School of Beijing Normal University and vice dean of its College for Criminal Law Science. She also serves as director of the Research Center on Cooperation Regarding Persons Sought for Corruption and Asset Recovery in G20 Member States. Since 2018, she has been a member of the Board of Directors at the Siracusa International Institute for Criminal Justice and Human Rights and is an editor for the Series on International Criminal Law and the Howard Journal of Crime and Justice.
Prof. Wang is Vice President of both the China Association of Integrity and Law and the International Association of Penal Law. Specializing in Chinese criminal law and international criminal justice, she has authored over 40 books and 200 academic papers.
Her international experience includes a senior judges training program at New York University (1995), a global research fellowship at Hauser Global Law School (2003), a Fulbright scholarship (2009), and visiting scholar positions at the Max Planck Institute (2008) and Oxford University (2015).
In 2017, she won the Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani Anti-Corruption Excellence Award. In 2018, she was honored with the 8th Women’s Media Award: Female Role Model Award by UN Women China.