PIL Discussion Group: Women Bearing Witness in the Nuremberg Trials Project

Abstract

It is a little-known fact that many hundreds of women professionals contributed to the post-World War II criminal trials at Nuremberg and elsewhere in Europe and Asia. Women’s roles included lawyer, interpreter, journalist, analyst, accused—nearly every role except judge. After providing a brief overview of her research on this topic, Professor Amann will focus on women who bore witness at the trials. Case studies will help illustrate the significance of women’s testimony, as well as the challenges they faced, within and outside the courtroom. The analysis may shed light on perennial questions of the international justice project: the role of live testimony versus other forms of evidence; witness reliability and risks of retraumatisation; and whether criminal trials can fulfil stated goals like establishing an official record and giving voice to the voiceless.

Speaker

This term, Diane Marie Amann has been in residence at the University of Oxford, as a Research Visitor at the Faculty of Law Bonavero Institute of Human Rights and Visiting Fellow at Exeter College; she also has served as a Visiting Research Scholar at Trinity College Dublin School of Law. At the University of Georgia School of Law, she is Regents’ Professor, the Emily & Ernest Woodruff Chair in International Law, and Faculty Co-Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center. She is widely published, with her current scholarship focusing on issues of international child law and on the roles of women at post-World War II international criminal trials. A life member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Amann served as International Criminal Court Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda’s Special Adviser on Children in & affected by Armed Conflict. She is a former Vice President and Counsellor of the American Society of International Law and former Coordinating Committee member of the European Society of International Law International Criminal Law Interest Group.

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The Public International Law (PIL) Discussion Group at the University of Oxford is a key focal point for PIL at Oxford and hosts a weekly speaker event. Topics involve contemporary and challenging issues in international law. Speakers include distinguished international law practitioners, academics, and legal advisers from around the world.

The Discussion Group's meetings are part of the programme of the British Branch of the International Law Association and are supported by the Law Faculty and Oxford University Press. 

The speaker will commence at 12:45pm UK time and speak for about forty minutes, allowing about twenty-five minutes for questions and discussion. The meeting should conclude before 2:00 pm UK time.

Practitioners, academics, and students from within and outside the University of Oxford are all welcome. 

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