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Professor Leila Nadya Sadat is the Henry H. Oberschelp Professor of Law at Washington University School of Law and the Director of the Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute. She will be the Alexis de Tocqueville Distinguished Fulbright Chair at the University of Cergy-Pontoise, in Paris, France in Spring 2011. She is also the Director of the Crimes Against Humanity Initiative, a three-year project to study the problem of crimes against humanity and draft a comprehensive convention addressing their punishment and prevention.

She is an internationally recognized authority in international criminal law and human rights and a prolific scholar, publishing in leading journals in the United States and abroad. She is the author of The International Criminal Court and the Transformation of International Law: Justice for the New Millennium, published in 2002 and awarded the “Outstanding Book of the Year” by the International Association of Penal Law (American Branch). Her most recent articles on the Court include: A Rawlsian Approach to International Criminal Justice and the International Criminal Court; On the Shores of Lake Victoria: Africa and the International Criminal Court; Understanding the Complexities of International Criminal Tribunal Jurisdiction; and The Nuremberg Paradox.

Trained in both the French and American legal systems, Sadat brings a cosmopolitan perspective to her work. She is particularly well known for her expertise on the International Criminal Court. She was a delegate to the U.N. Preparatory Committee and to the 1998 Diplomatic Conference in Rome which established the ICC, represented the government of Timor-Leste at the 8th Session of the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute of the ICC, and served as a delegate for the International Law Association, American Branch at the 2010 ICC Review Conference in Kampala, Uganda. She currently serves Vice-President of the International Law Association (American Branch) and the International Association of Penal Law (AIDP), and is a member of the American Law Institute. She has also served as a member of the Executive Council, Executive Committee, Program Committee and Awards Committee for the American Society of International Law.

She received her B.A. from Douglass College, her J.D. from Tulane Law School (summa cum laude) and holds graduate degrees from Columbia University School of Law (LLM, summa cum laude) and the University of Paris I – Sorbonne (diplôme d’études approfondies).