The International Nuremberg Principles Academy and Northwestern Pritzker School of Law’s Center for International Human Rights (CIHR) hosted a one day symposium “Atrocity Crimes Litigation Bi-Annual Review Symposium” at Le Méridien Grand Hotel, Nuremberg, on Friday, 25 May 2018.
Leading experts, practitioners and academics participated in two sessions featuring detailed discussions and examined recent litigation and legal developments at the various courts and tribunals that address atrocity crimes (genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression). Dr. Viviane Dittrich, Deputy Director of the International Nuremberg Principles Academy, provided welcoming remarks opening the high-calibre event. Ambassador David Scheffer, Northwestern Law professor and Director of the CIHR, convened and moderated the panel discussions. As a former U.S. Ambassador at Large for War Crimes Issues, he has dedicated much of his career to the development of the legal standards and mechanisms for addressing atrocity crimes.
The event advanced this focus while covering the progress in terms of practice and jurisprudence since 2016, including novel issues such as the creation of a quasi-investigative mechanism for Syria by the UN General Assembly. Ambassador Scheffer attested that it has again proven to be an intensive day of discussions about the significant progress towards achieving some reasonable standard of accountability for and deterrence of atrocity crimes in a still violent world.
The participants included prosecutors, defence lawyers and academic experts, including Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda (International Criminal Court (ICC)), Principal Counsel Xavier-Jean Keïta (Office of Public Counsel for the Defence, ICC) as well as Ambassador Stephen Rapp (former U.S. Ambassador at Large for Global Criminal Justice), Catherine Marchi-Uhel (Head, International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism to Assist in the Investigation and Prosecution of Persons Responsible for the Most Serious Crimes under International Law Committed in the Syrian Arab Republic since March 2011), and Wolfgang Kaleck (General Secretary, European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights).
Please find the program here.
For more information and photos click here.