Former U.S. War Crimes Ambassador at Large to Speak at TJSL

January 6, 2012

Former Ambassador David Scheffer will speak to all faculty, staff and students at TJSL in on February 13, 2012, Room 325, at 11:30 a.m. This event is sponsored by the Center for Global Legal Studies and organized by the center’s director, Professor Susan Tiefenbrun.

The speaker, America’s first Ambassador at Large for War Crimes Issues, was a leading architect of the modern war crimes tribunals rendering justice for atrocities in the Balkans, Rwanda, Cambodia, and across Africa.  Ambassador Scheffer witnessed the carnage and spearheaded the American and global counterattack to defeat the evil of war crimes in our time.

Ambassador Scheffer is the author Of All The Missing Souls: A Personal History Of The War Crimes Tribunals (Princeton University Press, 2012).  In his presentation, he will talk about his book’s story of eight tumultuous years of mass atrocities, knife-edge negotiations to build international courts, and the pursuit of indicted war criminals.

About David Scheffer:

David Scheffer is the Mayer Brown/Robert A. Helman Professor of Law and Director of the Center for International Human Rights at Northwestern University School of Law.  He was the first US Ambassador at Large for War Crimes Issues (1997-2001) and senior adviser and counsel to the U.S.Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Madeleine Albright,  from 1993 to 1996.  Scheffer led the US delegation in UN talks on the International Criminal Court.  Scheffer was named a “Top Global Thinker of 2011” by Foreign Policy Magazine.  He has published widely  on international law and politics.