Genocide, the crime of crimes
William Schabas, University of Middlesex
Notes & Changes
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Abstract
The crime of genocide has suddenly found itself at the centre of international legal debates. Four cases are currently pending at the International Court of Justice concerning the situations in Myanmar, Ukraine and Palestine. In addition to the eight States that are parties to the cases, more than forty other States have now filed interventions in the proceedings. This unprecedented situation manifests an enormous vitality of the Convention and significant pressure for a more liberal and expansive interpretation of the crime than what has prevailed in the 75 years since the Genocide Convention was adopted. The speaker is the author of an important monograph on the Convention and a participant as counsel in several of the genocide cases at the International Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights.
Bio:
Professor William A. Schabas is Professor of International Law at Middlesex University in London. Professor Schabas is also Emeritus Professor at Leiden University and the University of Galway, Honorary Chairman of the Irish Centre for Human Rights, and Invited Visiting Scholar at the Paris School of International Affairs (Sciences Po). Prof. Schabas is an ‘Associate Tenant’ at the Chambers of 9BR, in London.
He has appeared as counsel before several international and national courts and tribunals including the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights and the Supreme Court of Canada. Professor Schabas was named an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2006. He was elected a member of the Royal Irish Academy in 2007. He has been awarded the Vespasian V. Pella Medal for International Criminal Justice of the Association internationale de droit pénal, the Gold Medal in the Social Sciences of the Royal Irish Academy, and he holds several honorary doctorates.
He is the author of important monographs on such subjects as the Genocide Convention, the International Criminal Court, capital punishment and the European Convention on Human Rights
Professor Schabas served as one of the commissioners of the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission, from 2002 to 2004. In 2014, he was appointed by the president of the United Nations Human Rights Council as chairman of the International commission of inquiry to investigate all violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law in the the Occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip, in the context of the military operations conducted since 13 June 2014. From 2009 to 2011, he was Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the United Nations Voluntary Fund for Technical Cooperation in the Field of Human Rights.
Professor Schabas has prepared the quinquennial reports of the Secretary-General of the United Nations on the status of capital punishment for 2010, 2015, 2020 and 2025.