Co-Founder, Global Witness
Patrick Alley is a co-founder and director of Global Witness, which focuses on preventing conflict and corruption arising from the use of natural resources. Alley’s work centers on tackling the trade in conflict resources, particularly in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, and Cote d’Ivoire. Alley also leads Global Witness’s campaign against industrial logging. He has taken part in over fifty field investigations in South East Asia, Africa, and Europe.
Professor, S.J. Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah
Professor Anghie received a B.A. and an LL.B. from Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. He earned an S.J.D. from Harvard Law School, where he also served as a MacArthur Scholar at the Harvard Center for International Affairs and a Senior Fellow in the Graduate Program at the law school. In the summer of 1994, he completed an internship with the International Monetary Fund in Washington, D.C. He also practiced law in Melbourne, Australia. Professor Anghie joined the faculty at the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law faculty in 1995. He served as Faculty Director of the L.L.M. program from 1995 to 2001; he also served on the University President’s Task Force on Internationalization and on various other committees examining issues of internationalization at the university level. He frequently teaches courses at other universities, including the University of Melbourne, Cornell Law School, American University Cairo, the University of Auckland, the University of Tokyo, and the Law College in Sri Lanka. Professor Anghie’s research interests include public and private international law; human rights; globalization, development issues, and international law; terrorism and the use of force; international business transactions and international economic law; colonialism and the history of public international law; and third world approaches to international law Professor Anghie teaches Contracts, International Law, International Business Transactions, and International Environmental Law. In 2005 he was awarded the Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award.
Senior Lecturer, University of Kent
Yutaka Arai-Takahashi is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Kent. His major research projects include the historical evolution of the Geneva Conventions 1949 and, in particular, the protection of civilians (women and children).
Expert on Arms Trafficking, Peace and Security, and Human Rights
Kathi Austin is an internationally recognized expert on arms trafficking, peace and security, and human rights. For 18 years, she has carried out original and in-depth field investigations pertaining to the illegal trade in weapons, illicit trafficking operations, illegal resource exploitation, transnational crime and terrorism. She has documented conflicts spanning Africa, Latin America, East and Central Europe, and South Asia. Ms. Austin has served the United Nations and worked as a consultant and advisor to various multilateral institutions, nongovernmental organizations, and governments, including the World Bank, the International Crisis Group, Human Rights Watch and the U.S. Department of State. She has also served as visiting scholar at Stanford and University of California, Berkeley. Austin served as Chief of the Joint Mission Analysis Centre in the United Nations Peacekeeping Missions in Timor-Leste (2007/2008) and Burundi (2006/2007). She was also a member of the UN Panel of Experts on the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Prior to these U.N. posts, Austin was a senior anticorruption policy advisor at the Open Society Justice Initiative from 2004 to 2005. Her independently produced documentaries include: Killing Tradition: The Arming of Africa (2002); Forsaken Cries: The Story of Rwanda (1997); and Africa: Environmental Degradation, Human Deprivation (1994).
University of Dundee
Elizabeth Bastida is a lecturer and leads the Mining Programme at the Centre for Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Law and Policy, University of Dundee. She teaches International and Comparative Mineral Law. Elizabeth has researched extensively on the analysis and evaluation of prevailing models of the legal, institutional and contractual framework for the mining sector from a sustainable development perspective. Her research has contributed in understanding patterns of law and regulation in the sector, exploring the interface with environmental regulation, human rights law and land law, and suggesting ways forward towards integrated frameworks that promote sustainable development. While grounded in theory, her research intends to provide bridges to enhance practice in the sector. She has keen interest in what has been called “knowledge transfer” and has worked extensively in teaching and training materials in her subject.
Elizabeth has recently moved to a part-time lecturer position as she does advisory work, particularly on the social dimension of development projects. She has been a research fellow at the Institute of Social and Legal Sciences ‘Ambrosio Gioja’, Law Faculty, University of Buenos Aires and has practised law with the firms Tomás de Pablos & Associates, Taffarel, Sanchez & Associates, and Hope, Duggan & Silva in Buenos Aires, with responsibilities in the Mineral and Environmental Law section. Elizabeth has been an external legal consultant to various governmental, intergovernmental, non-governmental organisations and corporate institutions, as well as companies. She has been Deputy Managing Editor of the Journal of Energy and Natural Resources Law and assistant editor of the CEPMLP Internet Journal. She is a member of the Environmental Law Group of the IUCN, and of the Advisory Committee of the International Study Group for the Review of African Mining Regimes, under the auspices of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa.
Elizabeth is a qualified lawyer in Argentina (Specialisation in Natural Resources Law, University of Buenos Aires (cum laude); LL.M in Resources Law and Policy (CEPMLP, Dundee; with distinction), Ph.D (CEPMLP/Dundee).
Deputy-Prosecutor, International Criminal Court
On 8 September 2004, Mrs. Fatou Bensouda of the Gambia was elected Deputy Prosecutor by the Assembly of States Parties. She is in charge of the Prosecution Division of the Office of the Prosecutor. Prior to her election, Mrs. Bensouda worked as a Legal Adviser and Trial Attorney at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Arusha, Tanzania, rising to the position of Senior Legal Advisor and Head of The Legal Advisory Unit. Before joining the ICTR, she was the General Manager of a leading commercial bank in The Gambia. Between 1987 and 2000, she was successively Senior State Counsel, Principal State Counsel, Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions, Solicitor General and Legal Secretary of the Republic, then Attorney General and Minister of Justice, in which capacity she served as Chief Legal Advisor to the President and Cabinet of The Republic of The Gambia. Mrs. Bensouda also took part in negotiations on the treaty of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the West African Parliament and the ECOWAS Tribunal. She has been a delegate at United Nations’ conferences on crime prevention, the Organization of African Unity’s Ministerial Meetings on Human Rights, and the delegate of the Gambia to the meetings of the Preparatory Commission for the International Criminal Court. Mrs. Bensouda holds a masters degree in International Maritime Law and Law of The Sea and as such is the first international maritime law expert of The Gambia.
Professor, London School of Economics
Dr Beyani is a Senior Lecturer in Law, having joined the Department as a Lecturer in Law in 1996. He studied law at the University of Zambia (LL.B. 1982, and LL.M. 1984) and at Oxford (D.Phil. 1992). Formerly a Research Fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford, (1991-1995) with Lectureships in Law at Exeter and St.Catherines Colleges, Oxford, (1993-1995) and Crown Prince of Jordan Fellow, Queen Elizabeth House, Refugee Studies Programme, Oxford (1993-1995). Previously Lecturer in Law, University of Zambia (1984-1988), and Teaching Assistant in Law, University of Zambia (1982 to 1984).
Chaloka Beyani has received research grants from the Association of Commonwealth Universities (Academic Fellowship) 1988-1991, the Ford Foundation (1991-1992; 2001-2003), the Nuffield Foundation (1990 and 1992), and the Shaler Adams Foundation 1995.
He has acted as legal advisor, consultant, and expert to: the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights; the Office of the High Commissioner on Refugees; the World Health Organization; the United Nations Population Fund; United Nations Development Fund for Women; the European Union; the Commonwealth Secretariat; and the African Union.
More recently, Chaloka Beyani has drafted and negotiated the adoption of peace treaties by the 11 core Member States of the International Conference on the Great Lakes in East and Central Africa. He has also drafted and negotiated the adoption of an African Union Convention on Internally Displaced Persons.
Chaloka Beyani was an expert mediator with the Foundation for International Security, the Republic of Moldova and the Entity of Transnestria (1997-2002) with respect to the Constitution of a Common state and the international legal status of a Common state in Moldova. He was, a member of the Constitutional Review Task Force of the Republic of Zambia 1992, and of the project on the Federal Constitution in Sri Lanka at the Centre for Federalism and Ethnic Studies 1994.
Professor, Université du Québec à Montréal
Bruce Broomhall is a professor of law as well as director of the Centre for the Study of International Law and Globalization at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), where he teaches international and transnational criminal law, public international law, and Canadian criminal law.
Prior to joining UQAM, Professor Broomhall was associate professor in the Legal Studies Department at Central European University (Budapest) as well as senior legal officer for international justice at the Open Society Justice Initiative. In the latter capacity he worked to promote the ratification and national implementation of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the documentation of international crimes in support of the ICC Prosecutor’s office, and the mobilization of civil society by coordinating advocacy, training, research and other collaboration in Cambodia, the Caucasus, Colombia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He had previously participated as a civil society delegate in the Rome Diplomatic Conference that adopted the ICC Statute, and was Director of the International Justice Program at the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights (New York), where he was an active member of the Steering Committee of the NGO Coalition for the ICC, promoting universal jurisdiction, the entry into force of the Rome Statute, and respect for the Court’s autonomy and effectiveness during negotiation of its Rules of Procedure and Evidence and Elements of Crime.
Dr. Broomhall has published widely on the role of criminal punishment in the enforcement of international norms, notably in his book International Justice and the International Criminal Court: Between Sovereignty and the Rule of Law (Oxford University Press, 2003). He holds a Ph.D. from Kings College London and an LLB from the University of British Columbia Faculty of Law.
Jonathan A. Bush
Lecturer-in-Law, Columbia Law School
Jonathan Bush is a lawyer and author teaching at Columbia Law School, where his courses include Nuremberg, the Law of War and War Crimes, and Human Rights Reparations in International and Domestic Law. Among his recent articles is a study of postwar trials for Nazi economic crimes (Columbia Law Review, June 2009). He is currently writing the biography of Telford Taylor (1908-98), the American constitutional lawyer and chief prosecutor at the later twelve Nuremberg trials (1946-49), and has co-edited, with Prof Donald Bloxham, “Prosecution without Precedent: the Diary of an American Nuremberg Prosecutor” (Berghahn Books forthcoming). Bush previously taught at the University of Texas (Austin) Law School, Santa Clara and Yeshiva Universities, and Brooklyn Law School. Before entering academia, Bush was founding General Counsel of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum (Washington DC) and a trial lawyer with the US Department of Justice, prosecuting Nazi war criminals. Bush obtained his undergraduate degree from Princeton, his graduate degree from Oxford and his law degree from Yale. His areas of academic concentration are international and criminal law and American and British legal history, and he has written on war crimes and trials in and after World War II and elsewhere, the legal treatment of medieval and Renaissance Jews, and the origins of slavery in North America. Professor Bush has held senior fellowships at the Center for Scholars & Writers (NY Public Library), the National Humanities Center (Research Triangle Park, NC), the School of History, Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton, NJ), and the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum (Washington DC). He has also been co-counsel or consulted in a number of cases including Rumsfeld v. Padilla (2004) and Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006).
Policy and Legal Analyst
Luke Danielson is a lawyer, researcher, and academic, who in his career has focused on the environmental, economic, and social impacts of the mining and minerals industries. He is a Principal of the Sustainable Development Strategies Group, a research and consulting non-profit, and practices law in Gunnison, Colorado. His law clients include both leading mining companies and nongovernmental organizations interested in mining and minerals problems. He is a former regulatory official, and was three times Chair of the Mined Land Reclamation Board, Colorado’s permitting agency. He has consulted on various aspects of minerals policy and environmental management to a variety of governments, including Chile, Peru, the Peoples Republic of China, Cuba, and Romania. Mr. Danielson was the Director of the Mining, Minerals and Sustainable Development Project at the International Institute for Environment and Development in London. He was also the Director of the Mining Policy Research Initiative of the International Development Research Centre in Montevideo. He has taught on various aspects of mining and minerals policy and law at a number of leading universities, including the University of Colorado, the University of Denver, Simon Fraser University, the University of Chile, Western State College and Tulane University. He is an Honorary Lecturer at the Centre for Energy, Mineral and Petroleum Law and Policy at the University of Dundee, and serves on the sustainability or stakeholder advisory groups of Caterpillar, Inc, and INMET.
Michel De Smedt
The Head of Investigations
Michel De Smedt started at the International Criminal Court in The Hague in 2004 initially as head of the Analysis Section but his responsibilities were soon expanded to also cover planning and operations related to the investigations. Since 16 January, 2006 he has been heading the Investigation Division. Before joining the Court, Michel De Smedt worked at the Belgian Gendarmerie from 1986 as a commissioned officer, first as a platoon commander, then at the Headquarters in the Directorate General of operations, and subsequently as head of strategic planning and audit. Between 1994 – 2000 he combined these duties with those of Project Manager for the collaboration agreement in the field of policing between South Africa and Belgium, supporting the transformation of the South Africa Police after the apartheid period by working around 4 key areas: serious and organized crime, community policing, public order policing and police management. In 2000, Michel became partner in a management consultancy firm for public administrations and advised different organizations (e.g. law enforcement agencies, Public Administration Reform for the Democratic Republic of Congo, Belgian National Defense Department, National Prosecutor’s office of Belgium, Committee attached to the Parliament supervising the Belgian Police Services, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Home Affairs). Michel De Smedt holds a Masters Degrees in Criminology and one in Business Administration. He also has succeeded in the officer’s training at Belgian Royal Military Academy and at the Royal Gendarmerie Academy, and the Senior Officer’s course at the Royal Gendarmerie.
Registrar, International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
Mr. Adama Dieng was born on 22 May 1950. He began his career as Registrar of the Regional and Labour Courts in Senegal in 1973, and then served as Registrar of the Supreme Court of Senegal for six years. In 1982, he joined the International Commission of Jurists where he served successively as Legal Officer for Africa, Executive Secretary and, from October 1990 to May 2000 as Secretary-General. While holding that post, Mr. Dieng was appointed the United Nations Independent Expert for Haiti (1995).
On 26 January 2001, he was appointed Registrar of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda by the Secretary-General of the United Nations. He took up his duties on 1 March 2001.
Professor, Leiden University
John Dugard is Emeritus Professor of Public International Law at Leiden University.
For many years, Dugard was Professor of Law at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, serving as dean (1975-1977) and director of the Centre for Applied Legal Studies (1978-1990), a research centre committed to the promotion of human rights in South Africa. He has held visiting positions in the United States (Princeton, Duke, Berkeley, and Pennsylvania), Australia (New South Wales), and England (Goodhart Visiting Professor in Legal Science, 1995-1996, Cambridge). From 1995 to 1997, Dugard was Director of the Lauterpacht Research Center for International Law, Cambridge. His publications include The South West Africa/Namibia Dispute (1973), Human Rights and the South African Legal Order (1978), Recognition and the United Nations (1987), International Law: A South African Perspective (2000).
Since 1997, Dugard has been a member of the UN International Law Commission, serving as Special Rapporteur on Diplomatic Protection since 2000. Since 2001 he has served as UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights on Palestinian Territories Occupied Since 1967. He is a Judge ad hoc in the International Court of Justice.
Dugard is a graduate of the Universities of Stellenbosch (South Africa) and Cambridge, and received an LL.D. from Cambridge in 1980. He has been awarded honorary degrees in law by the Universities of Natal, Cape Town, and Port Elizabeth. He is a member of the Institut de Droit International.
Associate Professor, Texas Southern University
Emeka Duruigbo is an Associate Professor at Texas Southern University-Thurgood Marshall School of Law, where he started in 2006 as an Assistant Professor. Prior to that, he was an Adjunct Professor of Law at Golden Gate University, and a Senior Legal Counsel at the Natural Heritage Institute. He has also been a Research Fellow in the Program on Energy and Sustainable Development at Stanford University, a Resource Development Associate at the Law Finance Group Inc. and a Research Assistant at the Faculty of Law of the University of Alberta.
Deputy Prosecutor, ICTY
Norman Farrell has been the Deputy Prosecutor of the Tribunal since 1 July 2008. Before his appointment as Deputy Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Norman Farrell was the Principal Legal Officer in the ICTY’s Office of the Prosecutor, a post he held from 2005. Previously, he was the Senior Appeals Counsel and Head of the Appeals Section in the Office of the Prosecutor for both the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and the ICTY. Mr. Farrell joined the ICTR and ICTY’s Office of the Prosecutor in 1999, as Appeals Counsel. From 1996 to 1999, he worked for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in several capacities: as a Delegate and Coordinator in charge of the dissemination of International Humanitarian Law in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina; a Legal Advisor on International Humanitarian Law in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; and an Advisor on International Criminal Law and International Humanitarian Law in Geneva, Switzerland. From 1988 until 1996 he was Crown Counsel (Criminal Division) with the Attorney General for the Province of Ontario, in Toronto, Canada. Mr. Farrell has been a visiting scholar at the International Studies Centre, Queens University Law School in Herstmonceux, England and a trainer and lecturer at a series of training seminars on International Humanitarian Law for Judges and/or Prosecutors from Indonesia, Sierra Leone and Cambodia. He has also lectured at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy and for a number of years taught courses at the Pearson International Peacekeeping Training Centre in Canada. Mr. Farrell holds a Master of Laws (LL.M.) degree from Columbia University, New York, United States of America.
Lee Carol Godden
Professor, University of Melbourne
Professor Godden researches and teaches within the Melbourne Law School. She is the Director of the Centre for Resources, Energy and Environmental Law within the Law School. Prior to that position she held an appointment as Director of the Office for Environmental Programs.Professor Godden’s research interests include environmental law, natural resources law (especially water) property law and indigenous peoples’ land rights. The impact of her work extends beyond Australia with comparative research on environmental law and sustainability, property law and resource trading regimes, water law resources and Indigenous land rights issues, in countries as diverse as Canada, New Zealand, UK, South Africa, and the Pacific.Engagement with the theoretical and the grounded aspects of law is a hallmark of her scholarship distinguished by an interdisciplinary approach. She maintains a focus on legal theory, drawing on her background in law and geography. Her work has appeared in leading International journals, as well as leading Australian law journals. Professor Godden has been awarded ARC Discovery Project and Linkage Project funding, as well as grants from bodies, such as the AIATSIS.Professor Godden teaches environmental law, water law and climate law (Melbourne Law Masters program). Previously, she has taught property law, legal theory, and Master of Environment subjects. She regularly supervises research higher degree students.She has a longstanding record in community knowledge transfer; a recipient with other project members of a 2007 Vice Chancellor’s knowledge transfer award. Her contribution to environmental conservation and social justice has been recognised by invited membership of leading international and national environmental, and natural resource organisations. Her work continues with engagement in public interest issues such as the impact of climate change on environmental law and water law and economic development for indigenous communities.
Legal adviser, ICRC Legal Division
Jean-Marie Henckaerts is the head of project on customary international humanitarian law and a co-author of the ICRC study on the subject. He was a member of the ICRC delegation to the Diplomatic Conference on a Second Protocol to the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (The Hague, 1999) and a member of the Drafting Committee of the 30th International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent (Geneva, 2007). His work also covers the protection of women and the protection of the environment, including water resources, in armed conflict.
He received the degree of Doctor of Juridical Science (SJD) in 1994 from The George Washington University Law School. He previously received the degree of Master of Laws (LL.M.) from the University of Georgia in 1990 and the degree of Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) from the University of Brussels in 1989.
He has taught at the University Centre for International Humanitarian Law in Geneva, Boston University Brussels and Webster University Geneva. He has lectured at the International Institute of Human Rights in Strasbourg, the UNITAR Fellowship Programme in International Law in The Hague and the International Institute of Humanitarian Law in Sanremo).
Judge, International Court of Justice
LL.M. (Honours), Kiev State University; Master of Philosophy (International Law), King’s College, University of London; Hon. LL.D., University of Sierra Leone; Barrister-at-Law; Honorary Bencher, Honourable Society of Lincoln’s Inn, London; Hon. Professor, Gujarat National Law University, Gujarat, India.
Joined the Government service of Sierra Leone in 1964 and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1969. As a Barrister and Legal Practitioner of the High Court of Sierra Leone, was appointed State Counsel and Special Adviser to the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice. Served as Legal Adviser to the Permanent Mission of Sierra Leone to the United Nations. Served as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Sierra Leone to the United Nations, New York, while concurrently accredited as High Commissioner of Sierra Leone to Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, and Ambassador to the Republic of Korea (Seoul) and Cuba (1981-1985). Served as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Belgium, France, Luxembourg and the Netherlands while concurrently accredited to the European Communities and to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) (1985-1988). Served as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Sierra Leone to the Organization of African Unity (OAU) with concurrent accreditation to Ethiopia, Kenya, the United Republic of Tanzania and Zambia (1988-1992); also accredited to Republic of Korea (Seoul) and High Commissioner to Barbados, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago (1988).
As delegate to the General Assembly, served on the Sixth Committee (Legal) from 1977 to 1994 and was elected Chairman. Also served as delegate of Sierra Leone to the following United Nations bodies: the Special Committee on the Review of the Charter and on the Strengthening of the Role of the Organization; the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL); the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space; the United Nations Programme of Assistance in the Teaching, Study, Dissemination and Wider Appreciation of International Law; served as Chairman of the United Nations Special Committee on the granting of independence to colonial countries and people (Committee of 24); headed various United Nations missions on the observance of the exercise of the right of self-determination in various non-self governing territories.
Represented Sierra Leone at many plenipotentiary conferences, including the United Nations Conference on the Succession of States in respect of Property, Debts and Archives, and was a signatory of the Convention; the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS III) and Chairman of the African Group at the Conference. In that capacity, was closely associated with the elaboration of some of the key provisions of the resulting Convention. Was a signatory of the Convention.
Played an active role in and contributed to the elaboration of various contemporary legal instruments. Member of the International Law Commission (January 1982-1994), and Chairman of the Commission during its forty-third session (1991). Former Chairman of the Committee mandated to elaborate a Draft Statute for an International Criminal Court. As a member of the International Law Commission, was an active participant and contributor to the codification and progressive development of such important international legal instruments as the Draft Code of Crimes against Peace and Security of Mankind; Relations between States and International Organizations; the Jurisdictional Immunities of States and their Property; the Law of State Responsibility; the proposed Statute of an International Criminal Court; and the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Water Courses; the articles on most-favoured-nation clauses; the draft articles on the status of the diplomatic courier and the diplomatic bag not accompanied by diplomatic courier, and of the optional protocols thereto.
Contributions to other major areas of international law, including the law of self-determination, human rights law, international humanitarian law, and the peaceful settlement of disputes, and has written and lectured on these subjects. Served as expert consultant with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) at Geneva on the implementation of and respect for international humanitarian law. Has delivered lectures on all of these topics in many countries, including Cameroon, Canada, China, Ethiopia, Germany, Greece, India, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Malta, Norway, Peru, Sweden, the United Republic of Tanzania and the United States of America.
Participated in conferences, symposiums and seminars on international law, including those held by the International Ocean Institute (Malta and Halifax, Nova Scotia); the International Law Institute (Hawaii); the International Criminal Jurisdiction (Talloires); the International Institute of Higher Studies in Criminal Sciences; Centre for International Studies, New York University School of Law; the Asian-African Legal Consultative Committee. Also served as external examiner in international law for Ph.D. candidates of the University of Dalhousie, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
Member of the American Society of International Law and of the Planning Council of the International Ocean Institute (Halifax and Malta); Member and Vice-President of the African Association of International Law and Comparative Law; President of the African Society of International and Comparative Law; President, Henry Dunant Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (Geneva) (1999-2006); Member of the International Institute of Humanitarian Law, San Remo; Member of the Institute of International Law; Member of the Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations, International Labour Office (Geneva); Member of the Advisory Board of the Manchester Journal of International Economic Law; Member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Cologne Commentary on Space Law, Institute of Air and Space Law, University of Cologne; May 2009 Member of the Advisory Board of the Journal of International Humanitarian Legal Studies (JIHLS).
Awarded the Order of Commander of Rokel by the Government of Sierra Leone for outstanding professional service (1991); the International Institute of Humanitarian Law Prize for the Promotion, Dissemination and Teaching of International Humanitarian Law (2005); and the Order of Grand Officer of the Republic of Sierra Leone (the highest national award) in recognition of his service to the nation in the field of international law and international justice as a judge at the International Court of Justice (2007).
Philippe Le Billon
Associate Professor, Geography, University of British Columbia
Philippe Le Billon (MBA Paris, PhD Oxford) is an associate professor at the University of British Columbia with the Department of Geography and the Liu Institute for Global Issues. Before joining UBC, he was a research associate with the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) and the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), with fieldwork in Angola, Cambodia, Sierra Leone, and the former Yugoslavia.
Prosecutor, International Criminal Court
Luis Moreno-Ocampo has been the first Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court since 2003. As a prosecutor in Argentina from 1984 to 1992, Moreno-Ocampo was involved in precedent-setting prosecutions of top military commanders for mass killings and other large-scale human rights abuses. In 1992, Moreno-Ocampo resigned as Prosecutor of the Federal Criminal Court of Buenos Aires and established a private law firm, Moreno-Ocampo & Wortman Jofre, which specializes in corruption control programs for large firms and organizations, as well as criminal and human rights law.
Moreno-Ocampo has served on the global advisory board and the board of Transparency International, a world-wide organization whose aim is to reduce corruption in business transactions. He has also been the president of Transparency International for Latin America and the Caribbean. Moreno-Ocampo was the founder and president of Poder Ciudadano. He has been a visiting professor at both Stanford University and Harvard University.
Associate Professor Political Science, Northwestern University
Professor Reno is a specialist in African politics and the politics of “collapsing states.” His current work examines violent commercial organizations in Africa, the former Soviet Union, and the Balkans and their relationships to state power and global economic actors. Reno’s research takes him to places such as Sierra Leone, Congo, and Central Asia where he talks to insurgents (including so-called “warlords”), government officials, and foreigners involved in these conflicts. His books include Corruption and State Politics in Sierra Leone (Cambridge, 1995) and Warlord Politics and African States (Lynne Rienner, 1998). He is completing the forthcoming volume, The Evolution of Warfare in Independent Africa.
Professor, UC Irvine
Wayne Sandholtz is Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Irvine. His research assesses the diffusion and effects of international norms and on how international rules change over time. Much of his recent work focuses on the development of rules for the protection of cultural property in wartime, including “Plunder, Restitution, and International Law” (International Journal of Cultural Property, forthcoming) and Prohibiting Plunder: How Norms Change (Oxford University Press, 2007). His most recent book is International Norms and Cycles of Change (Oxford University Press, 2008, with Kendall Stiles).
Professor, Université de Genève
Marco Sassòli is professor of international law at the University of Geneva, Switzerland. From 2001-2003, Marco Sassòli has been professor of international law at the Université du Québec à Montreal, where he remains associate professor. He is also associate professor at the Université de Laval. He chairs the board of Geneva Call, an NGO with the objective to engage armed non-State actors to adhere to humanitarian norms. He is also a member of the board of the International Council of Human Rights Policy and is currently member of the EU appointed Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Conflict in Georgia.
He graduated as doctor of laws at the University of Basel (Switzerland) and is member of the Swiss bar. He has worked from 1985-1997 for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) at the headquarters, inter alia as deputy head of its legal division, and in the field, inter alia as legal adviser of the ICRC delegation in Israel and the Occupied Territories, as head of the ICRC delegations in Jordan and Syria and as protection coordinator for the former Yugoslavia. Later, he has served as first secretary-general of the Swiss Fund for Needy Victims of the Holocaust/Shoah and as registrar at the Swiss Supreme Court.
Professor, Leiden University
Professor Nico Schrijver is Chair of Public International Law at Leiden University, and Academic Director at the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies, Leiden University/Campus The Hague. He is also Visiting Professor on Europe and North-South relations at the Université libre de Bruxelles;President of the Netherlands Society of International Law; Member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (since 2008); Member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, The Hague; Member (membreassocié) of the Institut de droitinternational (elected in 2007); and Member of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
He appeared before the International Court of Justice and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, and as legal counsel in law of the sea cases before special ad hoc tribunals, and as expert in proceedings before the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), and before the Inter-American Court for Human Rights. He has working experience in the UN system, including as legal officer for the Office of the Legal Counsel, United Nations. He is Chairperson of the Committee on the International Law of Sustainable Development of the International Law Association (previously General Rapporteur) and Co-Chair (with Dr Kamal Hossain) of the ILA Study Group on UN Reform.
He is a Member of the Human Rights Committee of the Advisory Council on International Affairs of the Netherlands Government; and served, inter alia, as chairperson of the Advisory Council’s Committee on the Human Rights Approach to Development Co-operation (2003), Failing States – A Global Responsibility (2004), and Reforming the United Nations: a Closer Look at the Annan Proposals (2005).
He is a Member of the Board of the Netherlands Institute for Human Rights; Member of the 5-member high-level Task Force on the implementation of the right to development of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights; Member of the Advisory Committee on Issues of International Law of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Netherlands. He is former Chairman and currently Board member of the Academic Council on the United Nations System, New York/New Haven; Co-founder and Board member of the European Society of International Law.
Professor Schrijver has visiting professorships at the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague; at the Université libre de Bruxelles; at the Institute of Law of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing; and at the Universiti Teknologi Mara, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Assistant Professor, University of British Columbia
Professor Stewart joined the University of British Columbia in August 2009, after spending two years as an Associate-in-Law at Columbia Law School in New York. Prior to his time at Columbia, Professor Stewart was an Appeals Counsel with the Prosecution of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. He has also worked for the Legal Division of the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Prosecution of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. His research interests include international criminal law and counter-terrorism, international humanitarian law, comparative criminal law, public International Law, legal theory and the Great Lakes Region in Africa.
Professor Stewart initially graduated from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand with degrees in both law and philosophy. He has since completed an Diplôme d’études approfondies in international law at the Université de Genève and is currently finishing a JSD at Columbia University in New York. He has taught at Columbia Law School, Queens University’s summer program on international law, and the University of Geneva. Professor Stewart is also the Chair of Editorial Board of Journal of International Criminal Justice, and an appointed member of the Institute of International Humanitarian Law.
In 2006, Professor Stewart received the La Pira Prize for his article on unlawful confinement at Guantánamo. In recent months he was awarded the Cassese Prize for his ongoing work on the liability of corporate actors for international crimes. He is presently a Fellow with the Open Society Initiative in New York for an aspect of this work that deals with the accomplice liability of arms vendors.
Professor, Oxford University
Stefan Talmon MA LLM DPhil is Professor of Public International Law in the University of Oxford and a Fellow of St Anne’s College Oxford. He practices as a Barrister from 20 Essex Street Chambers in London. He regularly advises governments and international corporations on questions of international law and has appeared before domestic and international courts, including the International Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights. His research interests lie in the area of general international law, the law of international organizations, the European Union as an actor in international law, international humanitarian law, and the law of the sea. He has published seven books and some fifty articles on questions of international law. At the moment, he is working on the Occupation of Iraq, the Legal Regime of the Arctic Ocean, and the Battle for the Recognition of Kosovo.
Larissa van den Herik
Associate Professor, University of Leiden
Dr Larissa van den Herik is associate professor of public international law at the University of Leiden and editor-in-chief of the Leiden Journal of International Law. She previously worked at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, where she defended her PhD thesis on The Contribution of the Rwanda Tribunal to the Development of International Law (Martinus Nijhoff) in 2005. She was awarded the Bulthuis Van Oosternieland Prize for this academic work. In 2007, Larissa received a three-year grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research to do research on illegal trade during times of armed conflict concerning the responsibility of corporations and individual businessmen. Dr. Van den Herik is a member of the editorial board of De Internationale Spectator, a commentator of the Dutch International Crimes Act (Militair Straf- en Tuchtrecht, losbladige editie, Kluwer), and annotator for the International Law in Domestic Courts Project (OUP, University of Amsterdam). She is the author of several articles and annotations in the field of public international law, international criminal law and the law on peace and security, as well as co-editor of collections of essays in the field of international criminal law (Future Perspectives on International Criminal Justice, T.M.C. Asser Press – Cambridge University Press, 2009 and Fragmentation and Diversification of International Criminal Law, in preparation).
Harmen van der Wilt
Professor, Amsterdam University
Harmen van der Wilt is a Professor of International Criminal Law at the Amsterdam School of Law, University of Amsterdam. His research interests lie, among others, in the concepts of criminal responsibility in International Criminal Law, the principle of complementarity at the ICC, criminal procedure of the international criminal tribunals and cooperation between states and the international criminal tribunals as well as European arrest warrant and harmonisation of criminal law in Europe.
Professor Van der Wilt has been involved in professional training programs for judiciary and public prosecutors in Addis Abeba (Ethiopia) and training programs for young staff-members of Lobatchevski University of Nijni Novgorod (Russia). He has been a member of the Research Council of an EU-project on the European Arrest Warrant. Currently, he is a member of the Steering Committee of the EU-project DOMAC (Impact of International Procedures on Domestic Criminal Procedures in Mass Atrocity Cases).
Professor van der Wilt publishes extensively (both in Dutch and English) in the area of the international criminal law. His publications, among others, include: ‘System Criminality in International Law’ (editor, together with André Nollkaemper), Cambridge University Press 2009, ‘Equal Standards? On the Dialectics between National Jurisdictions and the International Criminal Court’, in International Criminal Law Review (2008), ‘Genocide, Complicity in Genocide and International v. Domestic Jurisdiction: Reflections on the van Anraat Case’ and ‘Joint Criminal Enterprise: Possibilities and Limitations’ in the Journal of International Criminal Justice (2006 and 2007).
Elies van Sliedregt
Professor, VU University Amsterdam
Elies van Sliedregt is Professor of Criminal Law at VU University Amsterdam. She is senior editor of the Leiden Journal of International Law and President of the International Criminal Law Network. Van Sliedregt is a member of The Young Academy of The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Her research interests lie in the field of international, European and comparative criminal law
In 2007, Professor Van Sliedregt received de La Pira Prize for her article on Joint Criminal Enterprise and Genocide. Her PhD thesis on criminal responsibility for violations of international humanitarian law (T.M.C. Asser Press, 2003) was awarded several prizes and a 2nd edition will appear in the Oxford monographs on international law (OUP) in 2011. Recently, she was awarded a prestigious VIDI-grant by the Netherlands Research Council to set up a research group that conducts research into the harmonization of international criminal law in the field of substantive international criminal law.
Professor Van Sliedregt has published extensively in the field of international and European criminal law. Most recently, she co-authored an article on corporate complicity and the cases of two Dutch businessmen who were prosecuted for complicity in war crimes in Liberia and Iraq (Journal of International Criminal Justice 2010, issue 3).
Director of Programs, Open Society Justice Initiative
Robert O. Varenik serves as the director of programs for the Open Society Justice Initiative. Varenik was previously based in Mexico City with the Law Faculty of Mexico City’s CIDE (Center for Investigation and Economic Research), where he coordinated work on criminal justice and public security reform and directed the student clinic on juvenile sexual abuse and trafficking.
In Mexico, Varenik also designed and directed projects for the Institute for Security and Democracy (Instituto Para la Seguridad y la Democracia – Insyde) which he helped found in 2003.
Since the late 1980s, Varenik’s work as a human rights lawyer has focused principally on criminal justice and judicial reform issues in Latin America and the Caribbean, Northern Ireland, Turkey, and Cambodia. For more than a decade, Varenik served the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights (now Human Rights First) in a variety of positions, including coordinator for Latin America and director of the protection program, aimed at assisting human rights activists and lawyers at risk.
Lead Mining Specialist, World Bank
Gotthard Walser is a Lead Mining Specialist at the Oil, Gas and Mining Policy Division of the World Bank and the Program Manager of the Communities and Small-scale Mining (CASM) multi-donor initiative. Through advising services and technical assistance loans, the focus of his activity is to provide support to national and regional governments to improve management of mineral resources, and to promote investments leading to sustainable development and improved benefits for national and local economy. An important part of his work is dedicated to the formalization of artisanal mining in Africa, Asia and Latin America, the integration into the local economy and diversification of economic activities. Prior to joining the World Bank in 1994, he worked with the Geological Survey of Sweden and Swedish mining companies for more than 15 years. Responsibilities during this period included planning and management of regional mineral resources assessment and mining exploration programs through assignments in Northern Europe, Africa and, particularly, Latin America. He also worked for 2 years as an artisanal gold miner in Argentina in the late 1980s. He holds a Doctorate in Earth Sciences from the University of Geneva, Switzerland.
Professor, Bristol University
Professor Celia Wells has been appointed as Head of the Law School of Bristol University, with effect from 1 August 2010.
Celia graduated from Warwick University in 1971 and took a Masters in Law at London University in 1973. After 20 years at Cardiff University, she worked at Durham University from 2006-8, joining Bristol as Professor of Criminal Law in January 2009. Awarded the OBE for services to legal education in 2006, Celia was also President of the Society of Legal Scholars of Great Britain and Ireland in 2006-7. She was Chair of the Law sub-panel for RAE 2008 (Research Assessment Exercise) and is a member of the Bar Standards Board Education and Training Committee.
Celia has actively promoted equality and diversity in legal education, founding the Women’s Law Professors’ Network in 1998, and in 2001 appointed PriceWaterhouseCoopers Legal Visiting Professor in Women and Law, University of Sydney. She was joint editor of the SLS flagship journal, Legal Studies 1999-2005, and is a long serving member of the Criminal Law Review Editorial Board.
Celia researches and writes mainly in criminal law with a particular specialism in corporate criminal liability. She is the author of Corporations and Criminal Responsibility (2nd edition OUP 2001) and of Reconstructing Criminal Law (with Nicola Lacey and Oliver Quick, 4th edition, Cambridge University Press, 2010). Her work has been influential in the development of an organisational theory of corporate criminal liability and she provided expert advice on corporate criminal responsibility to a number of national and international bodies including: OECD Bribery Convention Working Group; the CPS in relation to the Ladbroke Grove rail crash; Specialist Adviser to the House of Commons Select Committee Inquiry into the Draft Corporate Manslaughter Bill (2005); and the International Commission of Jurists’ Expert Legal Panel on Corporate Complicity in International Crimes (2006).
Professor, King’s College London
Leif Wenar holds the Chair of Ethics in the School of Law at King’s College London.
After earning his Bachelor’s degree from Stanford, he went to Harvard to study with John Rawls, and wrote his doctoral thesis on property rights with Robert Nozick and T.M. Scanlon.
He has been a Visiting Professor and a Fellow at the Princeton University Center for Human Values, a Fellow of the Center for Ethics and Public Affairs at The Murphy Institute of Political Economy, and a Fellow of the Program on Justice and the World Economy at The Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs. For 2010-11 he is a Visiting Professor at the Stanford Center for Ethics in Society, and at the Princeton Department of Politics.