Bio
Béatrice Le Fraper du Hellen
Béatrice Le Fraper du Hellen is the Head of the Jurisdiction Complementarity and Cooperation Division of the Office of The Prosecutor (OTP) at the International Criminal Court.
William R. Pace
Since 1994, William R. Pace has served as the Executive Director of the World Federalist Movement-Institute for Global Policy (WFM-IGP), a 59-year old peace movement dedicated to promoting international democracy, global justice and the rule of law. In 1995, Mr. Pace was asked to serve as the Convenor of the NGO Coalition for an International Criminal Court (CICC), an international network which has grown since that time to comprise more than 2,000 organizations from all regions of the world and all sectors of global civil society.
Over the past decade, the CICC has been nominated several times for the Nobel Peace Prize and has been widely acknowledged as the primary civil society force behind the historic successful adoption of the Rome Statute on the International Criminal Court on July 17, 1998 and in the creation of the Court itself in July 2002 with the 60th ratification of the ICC treaty, the Rome Statute. In 2001, Mr. Pace was awarded the William J. Butler Human Rights Medal from the Urban Morgan Institute for Human Rights for being one of the "cardinal figures in the creation of a Permanent International Criminal Court."
Stephen Rapp
Stephen J. Rapp of Iowa is Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues. Appointed by President Obama, he was confirmed by the Senate, and assumed his duties on September 8, 2009. Prior to his appointment, he served as Prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone beginning in January 2007, leading the prosecutions of former Liberian President Charles Taylor and other persons alleged to bear the greatest responsibility for the atrocities committed during the civil war in Sierra Leone. During his tenure, his office achieved the first convictions in history for sexual slavery and forced marriage as crimes against humanity, and for attacks on peacekeepers and for recruitment and use of child soldiers as violations of international humanitarian law.
Leila Sadat
Leila Nadya Sadat is the Henry H. Oberschelp Professor of Law at the Washington University School of Law and the Director of the Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute. 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.
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, and was a delegate to the 1998 diplomatic conference in Rome at which the Court was established. She has published a series of articles on the Court and an award-winning monograph, "The International Criminal Court and the Transformation of International Law" which was supported by the United States Institute of Peace.
Christian Wenaweser
Christian Wenaweser is a Liechtenstein diplomat.
Since 2002, Wenaweser has been the Permanent Representative of Lichtenstein to the United Nations. In 2008, Wenaweser was elected to a three-year term as the president of the Assembly of States Parties of the International Criminal Court. In this position, he succeeded Bruno Stagno Ugarte of Costa Rica. Since 2003, he has chaired the Special Working Group on the Crime of Aggression for the Assembly of States Parties.
Wenaweser was educated at the University of Zurich, the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, and the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Munich, Germany.
Encyclopædia Britannica Articles
- law
Discipline and profession concerned with the customs, practices, and rules of conduct that are recognized as binding by the community. Enforcement of the body of rules is through a controlling authority, such as a group of elders, a regent, a court, or a judiciary. Comparative law is the study of the differences, similarities, and interrelationships of different systems of law. Important areas in the study and practice of law include administrative law, antitrust law, business law, constitutional law, criminal law, environmental law, family law, health law, immigration law, intellectual property law, international law, labour law, maritime law, procedural law, property law, public interest law, tax law, trusts and estates, and torts. See also Anglo-Saxon law; canon law; civil law; common law; equity; Germanic law; Indian law; Islamic law (Shari'ah); Israeli law; Japanese law; jurisprudence; military law; Roman law; Scottish law; Soviet law.
- law on britannica.com
- International Criminal Court (ICC)
Permanent judicial body established by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (1998) to prosecute individuals accused of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The court commenced operations on July 1, 2002, after the requisite number of countries (60) ratified the Rome Statute (some 140 countries signed the agreement). The ICC was established as a court of last resort to prosecute the most heinous offenses in cases where national courts fail to act. It is headquartered in The Hague. By 2002 China, Russia, and the U.S. had declined to participate in the ICC, and the U.S. had campaigned actively to have its citizens exempted from the court's jurisdiction.
- International Criminal Court (ICC) on britannica.com
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