Professor William A. Schabas (Canada/Ireland) – COURSE DIRECTOR
Honorary Chairman, Irish Center for Human Rights, National University of Ireland, Galway; Professor of International Law, Middlesex University, School of Law, UK; Professor of International Criminal Law and Human Rights, Leiden University, The Netherlands
Professor William A. Schabas is professor of international law at Middlesex University in London. He is also professor of international human law and human rights at Leiden University, emeritus professor of human rights law at the National University of Ireland Galway and honorary chairman of the Irish Centre for Human Rights, invited visiting scholar at the Paris School of International Affairs (Sciences Politiques), honorary professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, visiting fellow of Kellogg College of the University of Oxford, and professeur associé at the Université du Québec à Montréal. Prof. Schabas is a ‘door tenant’ at the chambers of 9 Bedford Row, in London.
Professor Schabas is editor-in-chief of Criminal Law Forum, the quarterly journal of the International Society for the Reform of Criminal Law. He is President of the Irish Branch of the International Law Association and chair of the International Institute for Criminal Investigation. From 2002 to 2004 he 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.
Judge Rosario Aitala (Italy)
Judge, International Criminal Court
Prior to joining the ICC in 2018, Judge Aitala was a senior prosecutor in Rome, where he dealt with international terrorism, international crime as well as international cooperation in criminal matters. He also served as the most senior adviser on international and legal affairs of the President of the Italian Senate, the second most senior institutional figure in the country.
Judge Aitala has almost three decades of experience in law, criminal phenomena, human rights and international relations. After winning the competitive examination as Judge, he held several judicial positions in Milano, Trapani (Sicily) and Rome, dealing mainly with mafia, organised crime, international terrorism, corruption, financial crime and offences against vulnerable persons.
During his career, Judge Aitala has completed over one hundred medium- and short-term assignments as expert, consultant and lecturer in criminal, international and international criminal law, organised crime, terrorism, money laundering, human rights and institutional building in about 30 countries of Southern and Central America, the Caribbean, the Balkans, Eastern Europe, Asia and the Middle East for a number of international institutions including the United Nations, the European Union and the Council of Europe.
He has taught and researched extensively on criminal and international law, geopolitics and international relations in many academic institutions including the Luiss Guido Carli University in Rome, the Second University of Napoli, and the University of Rome Tor Vergata. He is honorary professor of Criminal Law at the University of Buenos Aires and at the Arben Zylifari Academy in Tirana.
Professor Diane Maria Amann (USA/Ireland)
Emily & Ernest Woodruff Chair in International Law and Faculty Co-Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center, University of Georgia School of Law, USA
Diane Marie Amann holds the Emily & Ernest Woodruff Chair in International Law at the University of Georgia School of Law. She has served since mid-2017 as a Faculty Co-Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center. Since 2012, she has served as the International Criminal Court Prosecutor’s Special Adviser on Children in & affected by Armed Conflict. She holds a courtesy appointment at the University of Georgia School of Public & International Affairs, is an affiliated faculty member of the university’s African Studies Institute and, in Spring 2021, is a Visiting Professor of Law at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law.
The author of eighty publications in English, French and Italian, Amann’s scholarship addresses issues related to international criminal justice, human and child rights, constitutional law, and security governance. Amann came to Georgia Law from the University of California, Davis, School of Law, where she was Professor of Law, the founding Director of the California International Law Center, and a Martin Luther King Jr. Hall Research Scholar, and from which she received the Distinguished Teaching Award and the Homer Angelo Award for Outstanding Contributions to International Law. She has served as a Visiting Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, at the University of California, Los Angeles, and at the Irish Centre for Human Rights at the National University of Ireland, Galway, and as a Professeur invitée at the Université de Paris 1 (Panthéon-Sorbonne).
Before entering academia, she practiced law in San Francisco before state and federal trial courts and before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Amann holds a Dr.h.c. degree in law from Universiteit Utrecht in the Netherlands. She earned her J.D. cum laude from Northwestern University, where she served as a note and comment editor of the Northwestern University Law Review and was inducted into the Order of the Coif, her M.A. in political science from the University of California, Los Angeles, and her B.S. in journalism, with highest honors, from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Amann is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a Counsellor and past Vice President of the American Society of International Law and a past chair of the Section on International Law of the Association of American Law Schools.
Philipp Ambach (Germany)
Chief, Victim Participation and Reparations Section, Registry, International Criminal Court
Dr. Philipp Ambach is Chief of the Victims Participation and Reparations Section in the Registry of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Previously, he worked in the Presidency of the ICC as the President’s Special Assistant for more than five years until November 2016. From February to September 2015, Dr. Ambach temporarily worked as a team leader and legal officer in the Registry of the ICC. Before that, Dr. Ambach held for more than three years the position of legal officer in the Appeals Chamber of the ICTY, ICTR, as well as in the Registry of the ICTY.
Nationally, Dr. Ambach had been accepted at the Cologne Public Prosecutor’s Office prior to his employment with the ICTY. Dr. Ambach holds a Ph.D. in international criminal law of Free University of Berlin; his thesis develops a proposed framework convention for the establishment of international(ised) hybrid tribunals. He has authored a number of publications on various topics in the area of international criminal as well as humanitarian law and regularly gives guest lectures on ICL/IHL topics at various universities, academic institutions and summer schools.
Professor Daniele Archibugi (Italy)
Research Director, Italian National Research Council (CNR), Italy; Professor of Innovation, Governance and Public Policy, University of London, Birkbeck College, UK
Daniele Archibugi is an Italian economic and political theorist. He is a Research Director at the Italian National Research Council (CNR) in Rome, affiliated at the Institute on Population and Social Policy (IRPPS). He is also Professor of Innovation, Governance and Public Policy at the University of London, Birkbeck College, Department of Management. He works on the economics and policy of innovation and technological change, on the political theory of international relations and on political and technological globalisation.
Professor Archibugi graduated with an Economics degree at the University of Rome “La Sapienza” with Federico Caffè, and obtained a D.Phil. degree at SPRU of the University of Sussex. He has worked and taught at the Universities of Sussex, Naples, Cambridge, Sapienza University of Rome, LUISS University of Rome, Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto and SWEFE University, Chengdu. He was Leverhulme Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics, and Lauro de Bosis Visiting Professor at Harvard University. In June 2006, Archibugi was appointed Honorary Professor at the University of Sussex.
Daniele Archibugi is an adviser to the European Union, the OECD, several UN agencies and various national governments. He has led many research projects for the European Commission and other international organizations. He is the author of several books and more than 150 articles in refereed journals.
Ms Delia Chatoor (Trinidad and Tobago)
Retired Foreign Service Officer, Ministry of Foreign and CARICOM Affairs, Trinidad and Tobago
Delia Chatoor is a retired foreign service officer with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Trinidad and Tobago. She was the Head of the Americas Unit of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and provided guidance on International Law (International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights Law) to the Ministry and other institutions. She has also been delivering lectures on these subjects as well as Multilateral Diplomacy to the University of the West Indies and other institutions. She has been assisting in the setting of examination papers for new officers to the Ministry.
Former Vice-President of Trinidad and Tobago Red Cross Society, she is the holder of a Masters Degree in International Law from University College, London and a post-graduate diploma in International Relations from the University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago
Ms. Federica D’Alessandra (Italy)
Executive Director, Oxford Programme on International Peace and Security, Institute for Ethics, Law, and Armed Conflict (ELAC), Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford, UK
Federica D’Alessandra is the founding Executive Director of the Oxford Programme on International Peace and Security at the Blavatnik School of Government’s Institute for Ethics, Law, and Armed Conflict (ELAC). She is also an Academic Affiliate of the Oxford Bonavero Institute of Human Rights, a member of the Steering Committee of the Oxford Network of Peace Studies, and an Adviser to the Harvard Sustainable Peace Initiative, and to the Ferencz International Justice Initiative at the Simon Skjodt Center for Genocide Prevention. Prior to joining Oxford, Federica held various appointments at Harvard University, including at the Harvard John F. Kennedy School of Government, and at the Harvard Law School, where she focused on mass atrocity response and prevention, transitional justice, national security, and human rights. Her research interests include international law, normative and political theory, US and Italian foreign policy, transatlantic relations, European defense, international organizations, global governance, leadership, ethics, and public policy.
Federica often serves as Counsel and Adviser to governments and international organisations on matters of international law and policy. Federica is Co-Chair of the International Bar Association (IBA) War Crimes Committee and of the International Bar Association Human Rights Law Committee, a member of the Councils of the IBA Human Rights Institute and the IBA Section on Public and Professional Interest; she is also a member of the American Bar Association, and of the American Society of International Law.
Federica has been recognised by Forbes magazine one of “30 Under 30” leaders with “the likelihood of changing the field of law and policy over the next half-century”, and among the “Most Influential European Thinkers” (Forbes Italy). In 2018, she was named as one of 18 “Italians of the year” by the Italian Journalistic Agency (AGI).
Federica is a graduate of Milan’s Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Utrecht Universiteit, and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. She also studied at the Université Paris Sorbonne, and hold degrees in Law, Criminology, and Political Science.
Dr. Chile Eboe-Osuji (Nigeria)
Former President, International Criminal Court; Distinguished International Jurist and Special Advisor to the President’s Office, Ryerson University Law School, Canada
Judge Eboe-Osuji was president of the International Criminal Court between March 2018 and March 2021. Prior to joining the ICC, Judge Eboe-Osuji was the Legal Advisor to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, during which time he anchored the High Commissioner’s interventions in cases involving human rights questions. In that capacity, he led the writing of amicus curiae submissions to the European Court of Human Rights and the United States Supreme Court. He served as principal appeals counsel for the Prosecution in the Charles Taylor Case at the Special Court for Sierra Leone, and has held several posts at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, including Head of Chambers and Lead Prosecution Trial Counsel.
He practiced law as a barrister before trial courts in Nigeria and Canada; and conducted appeals before the Court of Appeal for Ontario (Canada) and the Supreme Court of Canada. Judge Eboe-Osuji taught international criminal law as adjunct professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Ottawa, Canada, and has an extensive record of legal scholarship and publications, including the books titled International Law and Sexual Violence in Armed Conflicts, and Protecting Humanity (ed). He is the editor-in-chief of the Nigerian Yearbook of International Law. He served as legal expert to Nigeria’s delegation to the ICC-ASP Special Working Group on the Definition of the Crime of Aggression. He was called to the Bar in Nigeria (1986); Ontario, Canada (1992); and British Columbia, Canada (1992). He served as a pupil barrister and articled student-at-law under Chief Mike Ahamba SAN (of Ahamba & Associates, Owerri, Nigeria); Mr David W Scott QC (of Scott & Aylen, now Borden Lardner Gervais LLP, Ottawa, Canada); and, Dr Christopher Harvey QC (of Russell & DuMoulin, now Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP, Vancouver, Canada).
Judge Eboe-Osuji received his PhD degree from the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands (with thesis in international criminal law). He received his LLM degree from McGill University, Canada; and also did his Canadian law accreditation studies at McGill. He received the LLB degree from the University of Calabar, Nigeria.
Ms. Niamh Hayes (Ireland)
Acting Head, Gender and Children Unit, Office of the Prosecutor, International Criminal Court
Niamh Hayes is the current Acting Head of the Gender and Children Unit in the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. From January to December 2017, Niamh Hayes was seconded by UN Women as an expert advisor on sexual and gender-based violence, working in the Investigative Analysis Section of the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. She is about to complete her doctoral research on the investigation and prosecution of sexual violence by international criminal tribunals as a Ph.D. student at the Irish Centre for Human Rights, National University of Ireland Galway. Ms Hayes has written numerous academic publications on sexual violence as an international crime. From 2012 to 2016 she was the Head of Office and SGBV expert for the Institute for International Criminal Investigations, and participated in specialist professional SGBV trainings on four continents. She has worked with UN Women, the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, the ICTR and the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office on training and best practices projects relating to the investigation and documentation of conflict-related sexual violence. In 2016 she acted as a legal consultant for a research project conducted by the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) on increasing accountability for sexual and gender-based crimes at the ICC and in other jurisdictions.
She has lectured on international criminal law at Trinity College Dublin and Leiden University, monitored ICC trial developments as a legal consultant for Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice and worked as an intern on the Karadži? trial at the ICTY.
Professor Francine Hirsch (USA)
Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor of History, Department of History, University of Wisconsin – Madison, USA
Francine Hirsch is Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she teaches courses on Soviet and Modern European history and on the history of human rights. She received her PhD in History from Princeton University in 1998. Her research and teaching interests include Russian and Soviet History, Modern European History, Comparative Empires, the History of Human Rights, and Russian-American Engagement. She received the Herbert Baxter Adams Prize of the American Historical Association (as well as several other awards) for her first book, Empire of Nations: Ethnographic Knowledge and the Making of the Soviet Union (2005), which examines the role of ethnographers and other former imperial experts in the formation of the Soviet Union.
Her second book, Soviet Judgment at Nuremberg: A New History of the International Military Tribunal After World War II (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020) presents the first complete history of the Nuremberg Trials. Drawing on thousands of documents from the former Soviet archives, it reveals the unexpected contribution of Stalin’s Soviet Union to the International Military Tribunal and to the postwar development of international law. Her current project centers on the history of Russian-American relations through the perspectives of economics, culture, science, and international law.
Judge Piotr Hofmanski (Poland)
President, International Criminal Court
Judge Piotr Hofmanski has been Judge of the International Criminal Court as of 11 March 2015 and was elected President on 11 March 2021. After graduation from the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toru? in 1978, he started his academic career as an assistant in the Chair of the Criminal Procedure Law at this University. After completing PhD studies in Toru? (1981), he was offered the position of adjunct at the Chair of Criminal Procedure Law at the University of Silesia in Katowice. He completed the second scientific degree (habilitation) in 1989 and was appointed Professor at the Chair of Criminal Law of the University of Bia?ystok. Since 2000 he has been Professor of the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, where he runs the Chair of Criminal Procedure Law. He started his judicial career in 1994 as a judge of the Appellate Court in Bia?ystok and then was appointed a judge of the Criminal Chamber of the Polish Supreme Court in 1996.
He was involved in some projects carried out by the Council of Europe as a member of the Council of Europe’s committee of experts, called the Reflection Group on Developments in International Co-operation in Criminal Matters from 2001 to 2002. He was appointed member of the Committee of Experts on Transnational Justice, which was established to continue the work of the Reflection Group, and which realised its mandate from 2004 to 2006.
He is an author of more than 300 books, commentaries, articles dealt with various aspects of criminal law, criminal procedure, international cooperation in criminal matters and human rights protection.
Professor Dov Jacobs (France)
Assistant Professor in International Law, Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies, Leiden University, The Netherlands
Dr. Dov Jacobs is an International Law and International Criminal Law expert, Defense Counsel at the International Criminal Court and International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals and founder of, Strategic International Legal Consulting (SILC). He is currently on the defense teams of Laurent Gbagbo and Mahamat Said at the ICC and on case of Félicien Kabuga case at the MICT. He has also been involved as an Amicus Curiae in both the Afghanistan and Palestine situations at the ICC.
He is an Assistant Professor of Public International Law at Leiden University, regular guest professor in a number of universities (Sciences Po, Université de Lille, etc.) and he has published extensively in the field of international law and international criminal law. His current research interests cover international criminal law and procedure, public international law (particularly state responsibility) and legal theory.
He is a door tenant at 9 Bedford Row, Senior Editor of the Leiden Journal of International Law and Chair of the ICCBA Counsel Support Staff Committee. He regularly comments on international (criminal) law issues on his blog, Spreading the Jam.
Professor Neha Jain (India)
Professor of Public International Law and Co-Director of the Academy of European Law, European University Institute, Italy
Neha Jain is Professor of Public International Law and Co-Director of the Academy of European Law at the European University Institute. She is on special leave from her position as Associate Professor at the University of Minnesota Law. Jain’s scholarship focuses on public international law, human rights law, criminal law, and comparative law. She is the author of Perpetrators and Accessories in International Criminal Law (Hart, 2014) and her work has appeared in numerous journals, including the American Journal of Comparative Law, American Journal of International Law, European Journal of International Law, and Harvard International Law Journal.
Jain has been a Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin at the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law and held fellowships at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study, the Danish National Research Foundation’s Centre of Excellence for International Courts, and the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law. She has also served as a visiting professional in the Chambers Division of the International Criminal Court. Jain is a Board Member of the European Society of International Law and has served as a member of the Asian Society of International Law’s Planning Committee and Co-Chair of the American Society of International Law’s Midwest Interest Group. She is Managing Editor of AJIL Unbound, a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the European Journal of International Law, and an editorial board member of the Criminal Law Forum.
Professor Charles C. Jalloh (Sierra Leone)
Professor of Law, Florida International University College of Law, USA; Member, United Nations International Law Commission
Charles C. Jalloh is Professor of Law at Florida International University (FIU) in Miami, USA, a member of the United Nations International Law Commission, and founding Editor-in-Chief of the African Journal of Legal Studies and the African Journal of International Criminal Justice. A prolific scholar, he has published widely on issues of international law. Called to the Bar in 2004, he has advised states and international organizations on issues of domestic and international law and appeared in proceedings before international tribunals. His practice experience includes as counsel in the Department of Justice Canada, the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, an associate legal officer in the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda working on high profile cases involving the 1994 Rwandan genocide, a legal adviser in the Special Court for Sierra Leone where he was duty counsel and head of the public defender’s office in The Hague trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, and as a visiting professional, in the International Criminal Court (ICC).
In 2015 and 2018, Professor Jalloh appeared as External Counsel representing the African Union before the Appeals Chamber of the ICC in The Hague in two separate proceedings involving two African heads of state. He is currently a member and chair of the Panel of Experts assisting the Committee on the Election of the Prosecutor established by the Assembly of States Parties of the International Criminal Court, a member of the Advisory Board of eyewitness to Atrocities, an Independent Legal Expert for the Directorate of Legal Affairs of the African Union Commission and Founding Director of the African Court Research Initiative funded by Open Society.
His education includes a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Guelph, Bachelor of Laws and Bachelor of Civil Law degrees from McGill University, and a Master’s in International Human Rights Law, with distinction, from Oxford University, where he was a Chevening Scholar. He holds a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) specializing in International Law from the University of Amsterdam.
Professor Fannie Lafontaine (Canada)
Professor of Criminal Law, Laval University, Faculty of Law, Québec, Canada
Fannie Lafontaine is a lawyer, full professor at the Faculty of Law at Laval University and holder of the Canada Research Chair on International Criminal Justice and Human Rights. She is a regular member of the Quebec Institute of International Studies and Co-Director of the Centre for International and Transnational Law at Laval University. She is the founder and co-director of the International Criminal and Humanitarian Law Clinic, recipient of the “Tribute to social innovations” prize at Laval University.
Before joining Laval University, she worked as special adviser and human rights officer in the Executive Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva; as human rights officer and special assistant to the President of the International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur; as a lawyer for the Global Justice Center (Justiça Global) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; as a law clerk to the Honourable Louise Arbour at the Supreme Court of Canada and as a Barrister at McCarthy Tétrault law firm in Montréal. In 2015, she was appointed by the Quebec government to act as independent civilian observer of an investigation by the Montreal police concerning criminal acts alleged to have been committed by members of other police forces against Indigenous women in the entire province.
She graduated from the National University of Ireland Galway (Ph.D. 2011), with first class honours from Cambridge University (LL.M. 2004) and with distinction from Laval University (LL.B.1999). She has won numerous awards, including the 2016 Excellence in Teaching award from Laval University. She is the author of the book Prosecuting Genocide, Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes in Canadian Courts (Toronto: Carswell, 2012), co-author of the annual publication Human Rights Charters (Wilson & Lafleur) and author of many other publications in Canadian and international law.
Professor Louise Mallinder (UK)
Professor of Law, School of Law, Queen’s University Belfast, UK
Louise Mallinder is Professor of Law at Queen’s University Belfast, appointed in 2018. She was previously a Professor of Human Rights and International Law at the Transitional Justice Institute, Ulster University. She holds a PhD, an LLM in human rights law, and BA in economic and social history and politics, all from Queen’s University Belfast. She also has a Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education Practice from Ulster University.
Professor Mallinder’s research interests relate to the fields of international human rights law, international criminal law, and law and politics in political transitions. Within these areas of research, she has a longstanding and internationally recognised expertise in amnesty laws, and in recent years, she has worked on projects relating to the role of lawyers as transitional actors, dealing with the past in Northern Ireland, and socio-legal research methods related to transitional justice. As part of multiple collaborative research projects, she has carried out fieldwork in a number of transitional contexts including Cambodia, Chile, South Africa, Israel, Palestine, Tunisia, Argentina, Uruguay, Uganda and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Professor Mallinder is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and the Higher Education Academy. She has been awarded the British Society of Criminology Book Prize (jointly awarded) and the Hart Socio-Legal Studies Association Early Career Prize. She is also a member of the Institute for Integrated Transitions Law and Peace Practice Group, the Royal Irish Academy’s Ethical, Political, Legal, and Philosophical Committee, and the ESRC and AHRC Peer Review Colleges. In addition, she was Chair of the Committee on the Administration of Justice, a human rights non-governmental organisation based in Belfast, Northern Ireland from (2015-2020) and is serving as Vice-Chair in 2020.
Professor Yvonne McDermott Rees (Ireland/UK)
Professor of International Criminal Law and International Human Rights Law, Hillary Rodham Clinton School of Law, Swansea University, UK
Professor Yvonne McDermott Rees joined the Hillary Rodham Clinton School of Law at Swansea University as an Associate Professor in 2017, and was promoted to full Professor in 2019. She is the author of Fairness in International Criminal Trials (Oxford University Press, 2016), Proving International Crimes (Oxford University Press, forthcoming, 2020) and over 50 journal articles and book chapters, primarily in the fields of human rights, international criminal law, and the law of evidence. She is Principal Investigator on a new project entitled, ‘The Future of Human Rights Investigations: Using Open Source Intelligence to Transform the Discovery and Documentation of Mass Human Rights Violations’, funded by the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council.
Professor McDermott Rees holds undergraduate law degrees from the National University of Ireland, Galway, an LL.M. in Public International Law from Leiden University, and a Ph.D. from the Irish Centre for Human Rights. Her doctoral thesis was awarded the Special Mention of the Rene Cassin Thesis Prize 2014. She is an Associate Academic Fellow of the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple and a Door Tenant at Invictus Chambers, London. She was one of six legal academics from across the UK to be shortlisted for the Oxford University Press ‘Law Teacher of the Year’ Award in 2016. Professor McDermott’s work has been cited as legal authority by numerous leading international and national courts, including the International Criminal Court and the Supreme Court of India.
Ms. Sarah Pellet (France)
Counsel, Office of Public Counsel for Victims, International Criminal Court
Sarah Pellet has been working within the Office of Public Counsel for Victims at the International Criminal Court since December 2005 and is currently Counsel therein. In this capacity, she represents 283 former child soldiers in the Bosco Ntaganda case. She also represents victims in the Lubanga reparations proceedings, as well as in the Gaddafi, Kony, Simone Gbagbo and Abd-al-Rahman (“Ali Kushayb”) cases and the situations in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and in the State of Palestine.
Prior to joining the International Criminal Court in 2004 as associate legal officer within the Division of Court Services, she was legal adviser to the French National Consultative Commission on Human Rights. She holds post-graduate program diplomas in international law from the University of Paris II-Panthéon-Assas and from the University of Paris X-Nanterre and an LL.M. in International Legal Studies from the New York University School of Law. Ms. Pellet has published numerous articles in relation to international criminal law and rights of victims.
Judge Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque (Portugal)
Former Judge, European Court of Human Rights; Professor, Faculty of Law, Catholic University of Lisbon, Portugal
Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque was Judge of the European Court of Human Rights between 2011 and 2020. Between 1992 and 2004 he sat on the bench of different courts in Portugal. Since 2017, he is Visiting Professor at Paris II-Assas University. Since 2015, he is Professor Catedrático at the Law Faculty of the Catholic University of Lisbon, where he teaches Criminal Law and Procedure, Penitentiary Law, Public International Law, International Law of Human Rights and Philosophy of Law. He has published widely in these fields of law. He has been Visiting Professor in the USA and China and addressed audiences in Angola, Belgium, Brazil, China, France, Germany, Guiné, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, United States and United Kingdom.
He has worked as an expert for the Council of Europe and the European Commission of the European Union. He is currently member of several international law associations. He holds a Law Degree from the Faculty of Law of the State University of Lisbon, a Master of Law and a Doctorate of Law from the Faculty of Law of Catholic University of Lisbon.
Dr. Giulia Pinzauti (Italy)
Assistant Professor of Public International Law, Grotius Centre for
International Legal Studies, Leiden University, The Netherlands
Dr. Giulia Pinzauti is an Assistant Professor of Public International Law atthe Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies of Leiden Law School, where she teaches International Dispute Settlement, Peacebuilding and Transitional Justice, and Public International Law. Dr. Pinzauti has broad experience in public international law, international criminal law and the law and practice of international courts and tribunals. Prior to joining the Grotius Centre, she served as an associate legal officer at the International Court of Justice (2015-2016) and in the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (2012-2014) in The Hague.
Dr. Pinzauti also previously worked as part of the legal staff for the Pre-Trial Judge and the Appeals Chamber at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (2011-2012). Formerly, she worked as a teaching and research assistant at the University of Florence (Italy). She holds a PhD in international law from the European University Institute (2011), as well as a BA and MA from the University of Florence. She is a member of the editorial board of the Leiden Journal of International Law and of the editorial committee of the Journal of International Criminal Justice. She is also treasurer of the Antonio Cassese Initiative for Justice, Peace and Humanity, a foundation that promotes global education and training in human rights, humanitarian law and transitional justice. She publishes on public international law, international humanitarian law and international criminal law.
Professor Joseph Powderly (Ireland)
Associate Professor of Public International Law, Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies, Leiden University, The Netherlands
Professor Joseph Powderly joined the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies as an Assistant Professor of Public International Law in March 2011, and was appointed Associate Professor in September 2018. He is Director of the Grotius PhD Track Programme and lectures in international criminal law, international criminal litigation, and public international law at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. His research focuses in particular on the judicial function in an international criminal law context, but also looks more broadly at issues relevant to international criminal justice, international humanitarian law, international human rights law, and cultural heritage law. Joe received his PhD in international criminal law from the Irish Centre for Human Rights, NUI, Galway, in 2017. In addition, he holds a B.A. (English and Legal Science, NUIG, 2004), an LL.B. (NUIG, 2005), and an LL.M. in International Human Rights Law (NUIG, 2006).
Prior to joining the Grotius Centre he was a Research Fellow in International Criminal and Humanitarian Law at the TMC Asser Institute, The Hague (2010-2011). Between September 2008 and January 2010, he was a Doctoral Fellow/Researcher at the Irish Centre for Human Rights. He has published widely in the area of international criminal law, and international human rights law. He is the author of over 80 case-reports for the Oxford Reports on International Criminal Law. He is currently a member of the Editorial Board of the Leiden Journal of International Law and Criminal Law Forum, as well as an editor of the blog, PhD Studies in Human Rights.
Ambassador Stephen J. Rapp (USA)
Senior Visiting Fellow of Practice, Institute for Ethics, Law, and Armed Conflict’s Programme on International Peace and Security, Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford, UK; Former Ambassador-at-large, Office of Global Criminal Justice, Department of State, USA
Stephen Rapp is Senior Visiting Fellow of Practice with the Blavatnik School’s Institute for Ethics, Law, and Armed Conflict’s Programme on International Peace and Security. At the Blavatnik School, he is co-leading – with Federica D’Alessandra – a new research and stakeholder consultation project to develop policy proposals to strengthen global capacity to gather and preserve evidence of criminal responsibility of the most serious violations of human rights. He also currently serves as Distinguished Fellow at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Center for Prevention of Genocide, and as Chair of the Commission for International Justice and Accountability. From 2009 to 2015, he was Ambassador-at-Large heading the Office of Global Criminal Justice in the US State Department.
Ambassador Rapp was the Chief Prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone from 2007 to 2009, where he led the prosecution of former Liberian President Charles Taylor. From 2001 to 2007, he served as Senior Trial Attorney and Chief of Prosecutions at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, where he headed the trial team that achieved the first convictions in history of leaders of the mass media for the crime of direct and public incitement to commit genocide. Before becoming an international prosecutor, he was the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Iowa from 1993 to 2001.
He received a BA degree from Harvard, a JD degree from Drake, and several honorary degrees from US universities in recognition of his work for international criminal justice.
Professor Leila Sadat (USA)
Special Adviser on Crimes Against Humanity to the ICC Prosecutor; James Carr Professor of International Criminal Law, School of Law, Washington University in St Louis, USA
Leila Nadya Sadat is the James Carr Professor of International Criminal Law and currently serves as Special Adviser on Crimes Against Humanity to the International Criminal Court Prosecutor. Trained in the common law and civil law systems, she is an internationally recognized authority and prolific scholar writing in the fields of public international law, international criminal law, human rights and foreign affairs. She has published more than 150 books and articles in leading journals, academic presses, and media outlets throughout the world and regularly lectures and teaches abroad. She is the Director of the Crimes Against Humanity Initiative, a ground-breaking project to write the world’s first global treaty on crimes against humanity, and the current President of the International Law Association (American Branch) as well as a member of the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations and the American Law Institute.
Professor Fabián Salvioli (Argentina)
United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence; Professor of International Law and Human Rights, School of Law, University of La Plata, Argentina
Fabián Salvioli is a human rights lawyer and professor. He has a Ph.D. on Juridical Sciences and a Master degree on International Relations. He took up his functions as United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence on 1 May 2018. As an academic, Fabián Salvioli is professor of International Law and Human Rights at the School of Law of the University of La Plata, where he is also Director of the Human Rights Master Program and Director of the Institute of Human Rights.
He has lectured in many countries and universities across the Americas, Europe, Africa and Asia. He is also member of the General Assemblies of the International Institute of Human Rights (in Strasbourg, France) and the Inter American Institute of Human Rights (in San Jose de Costa Rica, Costa Rica). Professor Salvioli has authored several books and articles on international human rights law, including on the United Nations human rights mechanisms, the Inter-American human rights system, reparations, interpretation and application of human rights principles, and international justice.
He was member of the United Nations Human Rights Committee between 2009 and 2016, and its President between 2015 and 2016. As a lawyer, he has litigated cases before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. He received several honorary titles in recognition of his work in the fields of human rights and education, including: Honorary Professor of the University of Buenos Aires, Honorary Professor of the National University of La Pampa, Illustrious Graduate of the National University of La Plata, Illustrious Citizen of the City of La Plata, and Outstanding Personality of the Province of Buenos Aires.
Aminata Touré (Senegal)
Former Minister of Justice and Former Prime Minister, Senegal
Aminata Touré is a Senegalese politician and Human Rights activist. She held several governmental positions including Prime minister (2013-2014), Minister of Justice (2012-2013), President’ Special Envoy for Internal and External Affairs (2015-2019), President of the Economic, Social and Environmental Council (2019-2020). Dr. Touré has worked as a human rights and women’s rights activist within Senegal and around the world. She was Director of the Gender and Human Rights World Department of the United Nations Population Funds in New York (from 2009 to 2012), Senior Adviser at UNFPA Headquarter in New York (from 2003 to 2009), UNFPA Senior adviser in Côte d’Ivoire (from 1998 to 2001), and UNFPA Senior adviser in Burkina Faso (from 1996 to 1997).
At the early stage of her career, Dr. Touré worked in the private sector and with the Senegalese branch of the International Planned Parenthood Federation. From 2014 to 2020, Dr. Touré led and co-led Presidential election observation missions on behalf of the African Union and The Carter Center in Mauritius, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Liberia and Guyana.
Aminata Touré holds a Master in Economics and a MBA from the University of Aix-Marseille in France and a PhD from the International School of Management in Paris. Dr Touré directed more than 30 United Nations publications and authored in 2021 a book highlighting African’s contribution to International Penal Law through the Extraordinary Judiciary Chambers that trialed Hissein Habré, former President of Chad. Beside her native language, Wolof, Aminata Touré is fluent in French and English.
Mr. Philip Trewhitt (UK)
Executive Director, Institute for International Criminal Investigations (IICI), The Netherlands
Philip Trewhitt is the Executive Director of the Institute for International Criminal Investigations (IICI). A British national, Mr. Trewhitt has over 17 years’ experience of conducting and leading investigations including into violations of international humanitarian law and human rights, as well fraud and corruption within international organisations. From 2003-2004, he was the UK government focal point on transitional justice in Baghdad; he then headed the Baghdad team conducting investigations into breaches of Iraqi sanctions under the United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme. Following a number of positions in the United Nations, he was appointed in 2011 to lead the investigation team for the UN Commission of Inquiry into breaches of international humanitarian law and human rights by all parties to the Libya conflict.
Immediately prior to joining IICI, Philip Trewhitt was a fraud and corruption investigator with the European Investment Bank in Luxembourg. He holds an undergraduate degree in Law and an MA in War Studies from King’s College, London. He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2004 and is a recipient of the Office of the US Secretary of Defense Public Service Award.
Dr. Michail Vagias (The Netherlands)
Senior Lecturer in Law, The Hague University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands
Michail (Michael) Vagias is a Senior Lecturer in Law at The Hague University of Applied Sciences and Programme Manager for the ProCuria Project on Professional Legal Training. Following the conclusion of his PhD studies in Leiden University, Dr. Vagias became a lecturer and later a Senior Lecturer in Law at The Hague University of Applied Sciences. He has acted as an Expert on Mission for migration policy development, as well as legal counsel in international cases before international courts. Dr. Vagias’ research interests focus on questions of jurisdiction in domestic and international law.
In addition to his monograph (The Territorial Jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, CUP, 2015), Dr. Vagias’ research is regularly published in leading international periodicals on international law and international criminal law such as the American Journal of International Law, the Leiden Journal of International Law, the Cambridge International Law Journal and the Italian Yearbook of International Law.
Professor Larissa van den Herik (The Netherlands)
Professor of Public International Law, Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies, Leiden University, The Netherlands
Larissa van den Herik is professor of public international law at the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies at Leiden University. She is General Editor of the Cambridge Studies in International and Comparative Law. She also serves as general editor of the Leiden Journal of International Law (former Editor-in-Chief 2005-2013).
Professor Van den Herik is chair of the ILA Study Group on UN Sanctions and International Law. She also holds the position of vice-chair of the Advisory Committee on Public International Law Issues to the Netherlands Government and has advised the government in that capacity, inter alia, on drones, cyber warfare, humanitarian assistance, and autonomous weapons systems. Professor Van den Herik has been appointed as a member of an Expert Group on political support for interstate violence and humanitarian intervention.
Her areas of research and expertise include international peace and security law with a focus on UN sanctions (see e.g. contribution to legal parts of the Watson reports on sanctions and due process of 2006, 2009, and 2012) and terrorism, international criminal law and particularly the law on genocide and crimes against humanity, the role of domestic courts and questions of corporate responsibility and natural resources. Her current research focuses on fact-finding in international law, specifically in conflict situations, and the role of commissions of inquiry.
Professor Kerstin von Lingen (Germany)
Professor for Contemporary History, Department for Contemporary History, University of Vienna, Austria
Prof. Dr. Kerstin von Lingen is a historian and researcher, Professor at the Department for Contemporary History at the University of Vienna. From 2013-2017, she led an independent research group at Heidelberg University in the Cluster of Excellence “Asia and Europe in a Global Context” entitled “Transcultural Justice: Legal Flows and the Emergence of International Justice within the East Asian War Crimes Trials, 1946-1954”, supervising four doctoral dissertations on the Soviet, Chinese, Dutch, and French war crimes trial policies in Asia, respectively.
Her publications include two monographs in English, Kesselring’s Last Battle: War Crimes Trials and Cold War Politics, 1945-1960 (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2009) and Allen Dulles, the OSS and Nazi War Criminals: The Dynamics of Selective Prosecution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013). Her edited volumes include: Transcultural Justice at the Tokyo Tribunal: The Allied Struggle for Justice, 1946-48 (Brill 2018); Justice in times of turmoil: War Crimes trials in the Wake of Decolonization and Cold War in Asia (Palgrave 2016); Debating Collaboration and Complicity in War Crimes Trials in Asia (Palgrave 2017). In German, she published the multi-authored volumes Kriegserfahrung und nationale Identität in Europa [War experience and national identity in Europe after 1945], Paderborn: Schoeningh, 2009, and co-edited with Klaus Gestwa, Zwangsarbeit als Kriegsressource in Europa und Asien [Forced labor as a resource of War: European and Asian perspectives), Schoening 2014.
Professor Sharon Weill (France)
Assistant Professor of International Law, American University of Paris and Sciences Po, Paris, France
Sharon Weill (PhD, University of Geneva) is an Assistant Professor of international law at the American University of Paris and Sciences Po, Paris (PSIA). In 2019 she was nominated by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to serve as a judge in the French Asylum Courts (CNDA). Prior to that, she worked for several years as a research fellow at the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian and Human Rights law and was coordinating the legal discipline in the master program in humanitarian action of the University of Geneva.
Her particular field of interest is the relationship between international and domestic law, the politics of international law, law and conflicts and the role of national courts – topics on which she has published numerous articles and book chapters. Her research method combines legal doctrine with socio-political approaches including trial ethnography. She is also legal advisor to various NGOs and UN bodies for which she gives training seminars.
She is the author of the book The Role of National Courts in Applying International Humanitarian Law (Oxford University Press, 2014) and co-editor of the book Prosecuting the President – The Trial of Hissène Habré (Oxford University Press, 2020).
Professor Wang Xiumei (China)
Professor of International Criminal Law, College for Criminal Law Science, Beijing Normal University, China
Prof. Wang Xiumei currently serves as Director of the Office of International Exchange & Cooperation, and Professor of Law at Beijing Normal University (BNU), and as Adjunct Judge at Supreme People’s Court. Prior to joining the BNU, Prof. Wang worked as deputy prosecutor general at Fangshan District Prosecution Office of Beijing (2008-2009), as Assistant to The Hague International Criminal Court’s Pre-trial Chamber in 2004, as Associate Professor of Law at Renmin University of China (2000-2005) and as judge at Tianjing Intermediate People’s Court (1988-1997).
Prof. Wang holds a Bachelor degree of Law from Tianjin Normal University, a Master and a PhD of Law from Renmin University of China. She completed her Postdoctoral research on International Criminal Law at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
In addition, Prof. Wang was also a visiting scholar at New York University School of Law (1995-1996), a Global Research Fellow (2003-2004) under Hauser Global Law Program, and a Fulbright Scholar (2009-2010) both at the New York University. Prof. Wang has published a total of 160 papers and authored 45 books.
Prof. Wang is currently Deputy-Secretary General of the International Association of Penal Law (IAPL-AIDP) and Secretary General IAPL-AIDP Chinese Group. She is the Executive Director of the Research Center on Cooperation Regarding Persons Sought for Corruption and Asset Recovery in the G20 Member States. Prof. Wang was awarded “Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani Anti-Corruption Excellence Award” in the field of “Anti-corruption Academic Research and Education” in 2017.