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Zachary D. Kaufman | |
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Born | Zachary Daniel Coleman Kaufman February 17, 1979 Houston, Texas, U.S. |
Education | Yale University (B.A.) University of Oxford (M.Phil., D.Phil. / Ph.D.) Yale Law School (J.D.) |
Spouse | Elizabeth Katz (m. 2015) |
Children | 1 |
Website | www |
Zachary Daniel Coleman Kaufman (born February 17, 1979) is a law professor, political scientist, author, and social entrepreneur. [1] He is currently associate professor of Law and Political Science at the University of Houston Law Center, where he teaches Criminal Law, International Law, and International and Transitional Justice. [2] He also holds appointments at the university's Department of Political Science, Hobby School of Public Affairs, and Elizabeth D. Rockwell Center on Ethics and Leadership. [2] Kaufman specializes in criminal law, international law, international and transitional justice, international courts and tribunals, human rights, atrocity crimes (including genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity), atrocity prevention and response, legislation (including Bad Samaritan laws), bystanders and upstanders, U.S. foreign policy and national security, the United Nations, social entrepreneurship, and Africa (particularly Rwanda). [2]
Kaufman has received recognition for his academic and public service work, [23] including:
Kaufman is a graduate of Suncrest Middle School, Shady Side Academy, Yale University, the University of Oxford (where he was a Marshall Scholar), [27] [28] and Yale Law School.
In 2000, Kaufman received his Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree in political science from Yale University, where he was the student body president, [29] [30] [31] co-captain of the Yale Wrestling Team, [29] and an All-American and Runner-up National Champion in the National Collegiate Wrestling Association. [32]
In 2004, Kaufman received his M.Phil. (Master's) degree in International Relations from the University of Oxford, where he served on the executive committee of the Magdalen College Trust, his residential college's grant-making charity.
In 2009, Kaufman received his Juris Doctor (JD) degree from Yale Law School, where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Law & Policy Review . [33] [34]
In 2012, Kaufman received his D.Phil. (PhD) degree in International Relations from the University of Oxford. [35]
Kaufman is an author and lecturer.
To date, Kaufman has published three books. He is the author of United States Law and Policy on Transitional Justice: Principles, Politics, and Pragmatics. [36] He is the co-editor (with Dr. Phil Clark) and co-author of After Genocide: Transitional Justice, Post-Conflict Reconstruction, and Reconciliation in Rwanda and Beyond. [37] He is also the editor and co-author of Social Entrepreneurship in the Age of Atrocities: Changing Our World. [38]
Kaufman's research has been published by a variety of scholarly journals, including:
Kaufman's commentary has been published by a variety of popular outlets, including:
Kaufman has delivered speeches and lectures at a variety of institutions around the world, including at law schools, political science departments, public policy schools, and business schools in the United States (e.g., Harvard University, Yale University, Stanford University, Columbia University, New York University, Georgetown University, George Washington University, Dartmouth College, University of Michigan, Johns Hopkins University, United States Naval Academy, American University) and abroad (e.g., University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, London School of Economics and Political Science, King's College London, University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies).[ citation needed ]
Kaufman was instrumental in the founding of the Kigali Public Library (also known as Rwanda Library Services), [71] [72] [73] [74] which is Rwanda’s first public library. [75] The library became operational in April 2012, offering 12,000 books. [76] Kaufman is the founder, president, and chairman of the Board of Directors of the American Friends of the Kigali Public Library and an Honorary Member of the Rotary Club of Kigali-Virunga, Rwanda. [77]
Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people in whole or in part. In 1948, the United Nations Genocide Convention defined genocide as any of five "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group." These five acts were: killing members of the group, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children out of the group. Victims are targeted because of their real or perceived membership of a group, not randomly.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was a body of the United Nations that was established to prosecute the war crimes that had been committed during the Yugoslav Wars and to try their perpetrators. The tribunal was an ad hoc court located in The Hague, Netherlands.
Crimes against humanity are widespread or systemic criminal acts which are committed by or on behalf of a de facto authority, usually by or on behalf of a state, that grossly violate human rights. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity do not have to take place within the context of wars, and they apply to widespread practices rather than acts which are committed by individuals. Although crimes against humanity apply to acts which are committed by or on behalf of authorities, they do not need to be part of an official policy, and they only need to be tolerated by authorities. The first prosecution for crimes against humanity took place during the Nuremberg trials. Initially considered for legal use, widely in international law, following the Holocaust, a global standard of human rights was articulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). Political groups or states that violate or incite violations of human rights norms, as they are listed in the Declaration, are expressions of the political pathologies which are associated with crimes against humanity.
The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda was an international court established in November 1994 by the United Nations Security Council in Resolution 955 in order to judge people responsible for the Rwandan genocide and other serious violations of international law in Rwanda, or by Rwandan citizens in nearby states, between 1 January and 31 December 1994. The court eventually convicted 61 individuals and acquitted 14.
Victor's justice is a term which is used in reference to a distorted application of justice to the defeated party by the victorious party after an armed conflict. Victor's justice generally involves the excessive or unjustified punishment of defeated parties and the light punishment of or clemency for offenses which have been committed by victors. Victors' justice can be used in reference to manifestations of a difference in rules which can amount to hypocrisy and revenge or retributive justice leading to injustice. Victors' justice may also refer to a misrepresentation of historical recording of the events and actions of the losing party throughout or preceding the conflict.
The Gacaca courts were a system of community justice in Rwanda following the 1994 genocide. The term 'gacaca' can be translated as 'short grass' referring to the public space where neighborhood male elders (abagabo) used to meet to solve local problems. The name of this system was then adopted in 2001 as the title of the state's new criminal justice system "Gacaca Courts" to try those deemed responsible for the 1994 Rwandan genocide where over an estimated 500,000 people were killed, tortured and raped. In 1994, the United Nations Security Council created the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda to try high-ranking government and army officials accused of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The Gacaca Courts were established in law in 2001, began to operate on a trial basis in 2002 and eventually came to operate as trials throughout the country by early 2007.
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.
Transitional justice is a process which responds to massive human rights violations through judicial redress, political reforms in a region or country, and other measures in order to prevent the recurrence of human rights abuse. Transitional justice consists of judicial and non-judicial measures implemented in order to redress legacies of human rights abuses. Such mechanisms "include criminal prosecutions, truth commissions, reparations programs, and various kinds of institutional reforms" as well as memorials, apologies, and various art forms. Transitional justice is instituted at a point of political transition classically from war to positive peace, or more broadly from violence and repression to societal stability and it is informed by a society's desire to rebuild social trust, reestablish what is right from what is wrong, repair a fractured justice system, and build a democratic system of governance. The core value of transitional justice is the very notion of justice—which does not necessarily mean criminal justice. This notion and the political transformation, such as regime change or transition from conflict are thus linked to a more peaceful, certain, and democratic future.
Gregory H. Stanton is the former Research Professor in Genocide Studies and Prevention at the George Mason University in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States. He is best known for his work in the area of genocide studies. He is the founder and president of Genocide Watch, the founder and director of the Cambodian Genocide Project, and the Chair of the Alliance Against Genocide. From 2007 to 2009 he was the president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars.
Stephen J. Rapp is an American lawyer and the former United States Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues in the Office of Global Criminal Justice.
William Anthony Schabas, OC is a Canadian academic specialising in international criminal and human rights law. He is professor of international law at Middlesex University in the United Kingdom, professor of international human law and human rights at Leiden University in the Netherlands, and an internationally respected expert on human rights law, genocide and the death penalty. Schabas has been described as "the world expert on the law of genocide and international law."
Charles Ayodeji Adeogun-Phillips is a former United Nations genocide and war crimes prosecutor, international lawyer and founder of Charles Anthony (Lawyers) LLP.
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.
Incitement to genocide is a crime under international law which prohibits inciting (encouraging) the commission of genocide. An extreme form of hate speech, incitement to genocide is considered an inchoate offense and is theoretically subject to prosecution even if genocide does not occur, although charges have never been brought in an international court without mass violence having occurred. "Direct and public incitement to commit genocide" was forbidden by the Genocide Convention in 1948. Incitement to genocide is often cloaked in metaphor and euphemism and may take many forms beyond direct advocacy, including dehumanization and accusation in a mirror. Historically, incitement to genocide has played a significant role in the commission of genocide, including the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide.
Gregory S. Gordon is an American scholar of international law and a former genocide prosecutor during the Media Case at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Gordon is known for his advocacy of the criminalization under international law of a broader category of speech likely to cause mass atrocities, and his book Atrocity Speech Law in which he advances this argument.
Genocidal intent is the mens rea for the crime of genocide. "Intent to destroy" is one of the elements of the crime of genocide according to the 1948 Genocide Convention. There are some analytic differences between the concept of intent under national criminal law, where responsibility for a murder is ascribed to an individual based on their mental state, and international law. Under international law, responsibility falls upon individuals in their capacities as members of certain organizations or other official roles. The intent for genocide is less direct. An international court might look at whether the defendant participated in planning the genocidal acts, perhaps within the auspices of a certain organizational structure, or whether they acted with knowledge of such a preconceived plan.
Genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group. The term was coined in 1944 by Raphael Lemkin. It is defined in Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG) of 1948 as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group's conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."
Jennifer Trahan is an American legal scholar and academic. She is a Clinical Professor at New York University's Center for Global Affairs and directs their Concentration in International Law and Human Rights.
Asoka De Zoysa Gunawardana was a Sri Lankan judge of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) from 1999 to 2004. He was also a judge of the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) from 2001 to 2004.
Beth Van Schaack is an American attorney and academic who serves as the United States ambassador-at-large for global criminal justice.