The Steering Committee consists of:
- Professor Leila Sadat
- Professor M. Cherif Bassiouni
- Ambassador Hans Corell
- Justice Richard Goldstone
- Professor Juan Méndez
- Professor William Schabas
- Judge Christine Van Den Wyngaert
Please scroll down to view biographies of the committee.
Leila Nadya Sadat
Leila Nadya Sadat is the James Carr Professor of International Criminal Law and Director of the Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute. She currently serves as Special Adviser on Crimes Against Humanity to the ICC Prosecutor and served as the Alexis de Tocqueville Distinguished Fulbright Chair at the University of Cergy-Pontoise in Paris, France in Spring 2011.
Sadat is an internationally recognized authority and prolific scholar. She is the author of the award-winning The International Criminal Court and the Transformation of International Law: Justice for the New Millennium (Transnational, 2002) and Forging a Convention for Crimes Against Humanity (Leila Nadya Sadat, ed., Cambridge 2011). Her most recent articles include: Crimes Against Humanity in the Modern Age, A Rawlsian Approach to International Criminal Justice; On the Shores of Lake Victoria: Africa and the International Criminal Court; Understanding the Complexities of International Criminal Tribunal Jurisdiction; and The Nuremberg Paradox.
Sadat was a delegate to the 1998 Rome Diplomatic Conference and the 2010 ICC Review Conference in Kampala, Uganda. She has held leadership positions in many organizations and is a member of the American Law Institute.
Hans Corell
Hans Corell served as Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs and Legal Counsel of the United Nations from March 1994 to March 2004. He was the Secretary-General´s representative at the Rome Conference on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court.
From 1962 to 1972, Corell served in the Swedish judiciary. In 1972, he joined the Ministry of Justice where he became Director of the Division for Administrative and Constitutional Law in 1979. In 1981, he was appointed Chief Legal Officer of the Ministry. He was Ambassador and Under-Secretary for Legal and Consular Affairs in the Foreign Ministry from 1984 to 1994.
In 2004 Corell retired from public service and is now engaged inter alia as legal adviser, lecturer, and member of different boards and committees, including in the International Bar Association. He is Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at Lund University, Sweden.
Richard Goldstone
Richard Goldstone was the first Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. He has also served on the Constitutional Court of South Africa and the UN Independent International Committee which investigated the Iraq Oil for Food program (the Volcker Committee). Goldstone chaired the South African Commission of Inquiry Regarding the Prevention of Public Violence and Intimidation (the Goldstone Commission) and the International Independent Inquiry on Kosovo. In 2009 he led the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on Gaza.
In January 2008, Goldstone received the World Peace through Law Award from the Whitney R. Harris Institute. In May 2009, he also received the prestigious MacArthur Award for International Justice from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Goldstone is a foreign member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and an honorary member of the Association of the Bar of New York City.
Juan E. Méndez
Juan E. Méndez is Professor of Human Rights Law in Residence, Washington College of Law, American University. From 2004 to 2009 Méndez was the President of the International Center for Transitional Justice. He also served as the executive director of the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights in Costa Rica (1996-1999) and as a member and President of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States (2000-2003). From 2004 to 2007, Méndez was appointed the UN Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide.
Additionally, Méndez worked with Human Rights Watch for 15 years, concentrating his efforts on human rights issues in the western hemisphere. In 1994, he became General Counsel of Human Rights Watch, in which capacity he was responsible for the organization’s litigation and standard-setting activities.
On October 1, 2010, the UN Human Rights Council appointed Mendez the Special Rapporteur on Torture and CID Treatment or Punishment.
William A. Schabas
William A. Schabas is the Professor of International Law at Middlesex University, London. He has published extensively on international human rights law, and his work has been cited by many of the world’s national and international courts, including the United States Supreme Court, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the International Court of Justice, the European Court of Human Rights, and others. Schabas currently holds the Vespasian V. Pella Medal for International Criminal Justice of the Association Internationale de Droit Penal.
Schabas has participated in international human rights missions on behalf of nongovernmental organizations, and from 2002 to 2004 he served on the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He was also an NGO delegate to the Rome Conference on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court in July 1998 and the Kampala Review Conference in June 2010.
Dr. Christine Van Den Wyngaert
Christine Van den Wyngaert is a specialist in international criminal law, criminal procedure, and comparative criminal law. In January 2009, she was elected a judge on the International Criminal Court. Van den Wyngaert has also served as a judge at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and a judge ad hoc at the International Court of Justice in the Arrest Warrant case (2000-2002).
As a professor at the University of Antwerp, a researcher, and the author of many books, Van den Wyngaert has made a considerable contribution to the development of international criminal law. She was also a rapporteur for the International Law Association on extradition and human rights and a general reporter for the Association Internationale de Droit Pénal in Budapest relating to international cooperation to combat organized crime. Van den Wyngaert has been awarded doctorates honoris causa by the University of Uppsala (2001) and the University of Brussels (2009).
In Memoriam
M. Cherif Bassiouni
M. Cherif Bassiouni was a Distinguished Research Professor of Law Emeritus, and founder and President Emeritus of the International Human Rights Law Institute, DePaul University College of Law. Bassiouni spearheaded the drafting of a new global treaty on crimes against humanity as part of the Crimes Against Humanity Initiative. He previously served as Member, then Chairman, of the Security Council’s Commission to investigate war crimes in the former Yugoslavia (1992-93); Commission on Human Rights’ Independent Expert on The Rights to Restitution, Compensation and Rehabilitation for Victims of Grave Violations of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (1998-2000); Vice-Chairman of the General Assembly’s Ad Hoc Committee on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court (1995); and Chairman of the Drafting Committee of the 1998 Diplomatic Conference on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court.
In 1999, Bassiouni was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his contributions to international criminal justice and the creation of the International Criminal Court. He has received numerous medals and awards for his service to the international community, including the 2010 World Peace Through Law Award bestowed upon him by the Harris Institute.