Leila Nadya Sadat

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Leila Nadya Sadat (born 1960 in Newark, New Jersey) is the James Carr Professor of International Criminal Law at Washington University School of Law and the former Director of the Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute. [1] She has served as Special Advisor on Crimes Against Humanity to Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda of the International Criminal Court since December 12, 2012. [2] Sadat is the Director of The Crimes Against Humanity Initiative, a multi-year project to study the problem of crimes against humanity and draft a comprehensive convention addressing their punishment and prevention. [3] She has spearheaded the international effort to establish this new global convention. In 2012 Sadat was elected to membership in the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations, [4] and in 2018 was elected as the President of the American Branch of the International Law Association for a two-year term in October 2018. [5]

Contents

Education

Sadat received her B.A. from Douglass College, her J.D. from Tulane University Law School (summa cum laude) and holds graduate degrees from Columbia Law School (LLM, summa cum laude) and the University of Paris I – Sorbonne (diplôme d'études approfondies). She is bilingual in French and English.

Career

As a scholar, teacher, and author, Sadat has contributed to the establishment and study of the International Criminal Court (ICC). [6] She was a delegate to the U.N. Preparatory Committee and to the 1998 Diplomatic Conference in Rome which established the ICC, represented the government of Timor-Leste at the 8th Session of the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute of the ICC, and served as a delegate for the International Law Association, American Branch at the 2010 ICC Review Conference in Kampala, Uganda.

Sadat is known for her work in Public International Law and human rights. More recently, she has been invited to write on topics ranging from the U.S. use of drones, [7] the legal categorization of the conflict in Syria, [8] the U.S. war on terror and its classification of others as "unlawful enemy combatants," [9] "Global Trumpism," [10] the use of force, [11] and the law of crimes against humanity.

From 2001-2003 she served as a Commissioner on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. [12] She was nominated by then Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt and appointed by Congress. [13] The 9-member Commission was established by the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 to advise the President and the Department of State on Issues of International Religious Freedom, both generally and with regard to particular countries.

Sadat is the current President of the International Law Association (American Branch), [14] Vice-President of the International Association of Penal Law(AIDP), and is a member of the American Law Institute [15] and the Council on Foreign Relations. She has also served as a member of the Executive Council, Executive Committee, Program Committee and Awards Committee for the American Society of International Law and held leadership roles in the American Society of Comparative Law, including serving as the Book Review Editor for the American Journal of Comparative Law. [16]

Prior to entering law teaching, Sadat practiced law for five years in Paris, France, and clerked for Judge Albert Tate Jr. in the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. She was also a stagiaire at the Cour de Cassation and Conseil d'Etat.

Sadat has published more than 100 articles, essays, and books. She also has written many op-eds and is a regular contributor on ASIL Blog and Intlawgrrls Blog. She also authors the blog Windows on the World and contributes to the blog Lex lata, lex ferenda.

Work on Crimes Against Humanity

Sadat is widely considered one of the leading international legal experts' on crimes against humanity. Her first peer-review paper, which determined if she would get tenure, has become the definitive source on the case of Paul Touvier, a Nazi collaborator in Occupied France during World War II who, in 1994, became the first Frenchman to be convicted of crimes against humanity. [17] She is the Chairwoman of the Steering Committee of The Crimes Against Humanity Initiative, the first concerted effort to address the gap that exists in international criminal law by enumerating a comprehensive international convention on crimes against humanity. [18] In this role she spearheaded the drafting of the Proposed International Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes Against Humanity as her role as director of the Crimes Against Humanity Initiative, [19] a project that moved the UN International Law Commission to begin its own project with a view towards the development of a new UN convention on crimes against humanity. [20]

She has lectured widely on this topic, advocating for civil society and state governments to support a new global treaty, including at Misericordia University, [21] [22] [23] Wayne State University Law School, [24] John Burroughs High School, [25] the School of Human Rights Research in the Netherlands, [26] the 2013 NAFSA Annual Conference & Expo in St. Louis, [27] The American Foreign Law Association in New York, [28] Indiana University and University of Minnesota Law School. [29] In April 2015, Leila Sadat presented on the Crimes Against Humanity Initiative at the Universidade Católica Portuguesa. The presentation was attended by the President of the Portuguese Supreme Court, Justice António Henriques Gaspar, Justice Maria dos Prazeres Beleza, also from the Supreme Court of Justice, and Portugal's then-Attorney General Joana Marques Vidal. Prominent members of the Academy were also present, including the Dean of the Lisbon School of Law of the Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Professor Jorge Pereira da Silva, Professor Germano Marques da Silva, a former Dean of Lisbon School of Law, Professor Luís Barreto Xavier, the Dean of Católica Global School of Law and Professor Gonçalo Matias, Director of Católica Global's Transnational Law Program, and special adviser to Portuguese President Aníbal Cavaco Silva. [30]

Books

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">War crime</span> Individual act constituting a violation of the laws of war

A war crime is a violation of the laws of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility for actions by combatants in action, such as intentionally killing civilians or intentionally killing prisoners of war, torture, taking hostages, unnecessarily destroying civilian property, deception by perfidy, wartime sexual violence, pillaging, and for any individual that is part of the command structure who orders any attempt to committing mass killings including genocide or ethnic cleansing, the granting of no quarter despite surrender, the conscription of children in the military and flouting the legal distinctions of proportionality and military necessity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crimes against humanity</span> Concept in international law

Crimes against humanity are certain serious crimes committed as part of a large-scale attack against civilians. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity can be committed during both peace and war and against a state's own nationals as well as foreign nationals. Together with war crimes, genocide, and the crime of aggression, crimes against humanity are one of the core crimes of international criminal law, and like other crimes against international law have no temporal or jurisdictional limitations on prosecution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rome Statute</span> 1998 international treaty establishing the International Criminal Court

The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court is the treaty that established the International Criminal Court (ICC). It was adopted at a diplomatic conference in Rome, Italy on 17 July 1998 and it entered into force on 1 July 2002. As of February 2024, 124 states are party to the statute. Among other things, it establishes court function, jurisdiction and structure.

The crime of apartheid is defined by the 2002 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as inhumane acts of a character similar to other crimes against humanity "committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nuremberg principles</span> Guidelines for determining what constitutes a war crime

The Nuremberg principles are a set of guidelines for determining what constitutes a war crime. The document was created by the International Law Commission of the United Nations to codify the legal principles underlying the Nuremberg Trials of Nazi party members following World War II.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">War of aggression</span> Military conflict waged without the justification of self-defense

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">M. Cherif Bassiouni</span> Egyptian academic

Mahmoud Cherif Bassiouni was an Egyptian-American emeritus professor of law at DePaul University, where he taught from 1964 to 2012. He served in numerous United Nations positions and served as the consultant to the US Department of State and Justice on many projects. He was a founding member of the International Human Rights Law Institute at DePaul University which was established in 1990. He served as president from 1990 to 1997 and then as president emeritus. Bassiouni is often referred to by the media as "the Godfather of International Criminal Law" and a "war crimes expert". As such, he served on the Steering Committee for The Crimes Against Humanity Initiative, which was launched to study the need for a comprehensive convention on the prevention and punishment of crimes against humanity, and draft a proposed treaty. He spearheaded the drafting of the proposed convention, which as of 2014 is being debated at the International Law Commission.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">International criminal law</span> Public international law

International criminal law (ICL) is a body of public international law designed to prohibit certain categories of conduct commonly viewed as serious atrocities and to make perpetrators of such conduct criminally accountable for their perpetration. The core crimes under international law are genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Command responsibility</span> Doctrine of hierarchical accountability

In the practice of international law, command responsibility is the legal doctrine of hierarchical accountability for war crimes, whereby a commanding officer (military) and a superior officer (civil) is legally responsible for the war crimes and the crimes against humanity committed by his subordinates; thus, a commanding officer always is accountable for the acts of commission and the acts of omission of his soldiers.

Christine, Baroness Van den Wyngaert is a Belgian jurist and judge. She served as international and comparative criminal law expert from 2009 to 2018 as a judge on the International Criminal Court. She served in the Trial Division Chamber. On 8 July 2013, Van den Wyngaert was ennobled by King Albert II of Belgium as a baroness for her services as a judge. From 2003 to 2005 she was a Judge at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and from 2000 to 2002 an ad hoc judge on the International Court of Justice.

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An atrocity crime is a violation of international criminal law that falls under the historically three legally defined international crimes of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Ethnic cleansing is widely regarded as a fourth mass atrocity crime by legal scholars and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working in the field, despite not yet being recognized as an independent crime under international law.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute</span>

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The Crimes Against Humanity Initiative is a rule of law research and advocacy project of the Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute. Started in 2008 by Professor Leila Nadya Sadat, the Initiative has as its goals the study of the need for a comprehensive international convention on the prevention and punishment of crimes against humanity, the analysis of the necessary elements of such a convention, and the drafting of a proposed treaty. To date, the Initiative has held several experts' meetings and conferences, published a Proposed Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes Against Humanity, and resulted in the publication of an edited volume, Forging a Convention for Crimes Against Humanity, by Cambridge University Press. The draft treaty is now available in seven languages. The UN International Law Commission produced its own, similar, set of Draft Articles on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes against Humanity, and a proposed treaty is now being debated by governments around the world.

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References

  1. ↑ "Washington University Law Faculty" . Retrieved 24 July 2012.
  2. ↑ "ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda Appoints Patricia Sellers, Leila Sadat and Dianne Marie Amann as Special Advisers".
  3. ↑ "Home | Crimes Against Humanity Initiative | Washington University in St. Louis". crimesagainsthumanity.wustl.edu.
  4. ↑ "Council on Foreign Relations, Membership Roster" . Retrieved 24 July 2012.
  5. ↑ "ABILA Leadership - American Branch of the International Law Association".
  6. ↑ "International Humanitarian Law Dialogs 2011". Robert H. Jackson Center. Retrieved 24 July 2012.
  7. ↑ "America's Drone Wars" Archived 2014-03-09 at the Wayback Machine Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law, Fall 2012
  8. ↑ "Genocide in Syria: International Legal Options, International Legal Limits, and the Serious Problem of Political Will" Impunity Watch
  9. ↑ "A Presumption of Guilt: The Unlawful Enemy Combatant and the US War on Terror" Journal of International Law and Policy, 2009
  10. ↑ "Global Trumpism, Week 35: Celebrating peace in the shadow of the mushroom cloud" the Source, 2017
  11. ↑ "Seeking Accountability for the Unlawful Use of Force" Cambridge University Press, 2018
  12. ↑ Former Commissioners"
  13. ↑ "Sadat, Gaer Appointed to Commission". United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. Retrieved 24 July 2012.
  14. ↑ "ABILA Officers". American Branch of the International Law Association. Archived from the original on 2010-08-28. Retrieved 2012-07-26.
  15. ↑ "Home". American Law Institute.
  16. ↑ "American Journal of International Law: Editorial Offices". Archived from the original on 2013-01-28.
  17. ↑ "Courting International Justice" Washington University in St. Louis Magazine, Fall 2001
  18. ↑ Evans, Gareth, "Crimes Against Humanity and the Responsibility to Protect" Archived 2015-01-05 at the Wayback Machine International Crisis Group
  19. ↑ "Syrian state responsibility" IntLawGrrls
  20. ↑ "Summaries of the Work of the International Law Commission - Crimes against humanity" United Nations International Law Commission
  21. ↑ Jayne Ann Bugda, "World-Wide Crimes Against Humanity Initiative at Misericordia University" Archived 2015-05-18 at the Wayback Machine
  22. ↑ "Misericordia to host lecture by Leila Nadya Sadat, director of the Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute" Archived 2015-05-18 at the Wayback Machine Times Leader
  23. ↑ Alexandria Smith, "Prof: Crimes Against Humanity Impact Us All" Archived 2015-05-18 at the Wayback Machine The Highlander
  24. ↑ "Human rights expert discusses crimes against humanity at Wayne Law" Archived 2015-10-07 at the Wayback Machine The Journal of Law in Society
  25. ↑ "Combating Crimes Against Humanity" Archived 2015-05-18 at the Wayback Machine John Burroughs School
  26. ↑ http://vkc.library.uu.nl/vkc/chr/Documents/presentation%20Leila%20Sadat%5B%5D[1].pdf School of Human Rights Research
  27. ↑ "Forging a Convention for Crimes Against Humanity" Archived 2015-05-18 at the Wayback Machine NAFSA
  28. ↑ "Forging a Convention for Crimes Against Humanity Presented by Leila Nadya Sadat" American Foreign Law Association
  29. ↑ "Recent Developments « Crimes Against Humanity Initiative". Archived from the original on 2015-05-18. Retrieved 2015-05-12.
  30. ↑ "Programs for International Lawyers/LLM for International Lawyers". 24 August 2018.
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