The shaping of international criminal law began with the Nuremberg Trials after World War II and continued with the creation of ad hoc international criminal tribunals in the 1990s to address atrocity crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, and Cambodia. It culminated in the creation of the International Criminal Court, a permanent court in The Hague to try war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in conflicts around the world. In a session titled “International Criminal Law from Nuremberg to the ICC and Beyond,” individuals who have all played important roles in creating and shaping this field discussed both the power and limits of the law to counter impunity and achieve justice for mass crimes. Hosted by Professor of Practice at Harvard Law School Alex Whiting, the panel included Peggy Kuo ‘88, magistrate judge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York; Judge O-Gon Kwon LL.M. ‘85, former judge of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and president of the International Law Institute; Theodor Meron LL.M. ‘55 S.J.D. ‘57, current President of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals and past president of the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia; Raul C. Pangalangan LL.M. ‘86 S.J.D. ‘90, currently a judge of the International Criminal Court; Kenneth Scott ‘79, UN Commissioner on Human Rights, South Sudan; and Sang Hyun Song, president, UNICEF/Korea.
Their talk was part of the HLS in the World bicentennial summit which took place at Harvard Law School on Friday, October 27, 2017. Read more: 200.hls.harvard.edu/