Northwestern University Journal of International Human Rights

The launch of the Atrocity Crimes Litigation Year-in-Review Issue is coupled with the 2008 launch of an annual conference at Northwestern University School of Law bearing the same name.  Also in an effort to better understand in real-time the rapid developments in atrocity crimes law, the first annual Atrocity Crimes Litigation Year-in-Review Conference was presented in January 2008 by the Journal and Northwestern’s Center for International Human Rights led by David Scheffer .

The inspiration for the launch of the Year-in-Review Conference and annual issue is the pace and vigor with which atrocity crimes law is evolving.  The significant decisions and judgments produced by the international and hybrid criminal tribunals in recent years have been so voluminous and impressive that we believe they merit an annual scholarly review.  Indeed, it has become quite difficult for any scholar or practitioner of the tribunals, much less the general public, to keep track of the developments—both substantive and procedural—that emerge from the jurisprudence of the International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, the Special Court for Sierra Leone, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, and the permanent International Criminal Court—to name only the most prominent of the international and hybrid tribunals.  The Year-in-Review Issue thus seeks to provide elaboration and critique of the most significant developments of the previous year by scholars and experts in the field from across the globe.

Please check the Journal website or the Center for International Human Rights website later this year for information regarding the 2009 Year-in-Review Conference. 

Readers can read the Journal of International Human Right's Year in Review here.  This information has been published here with the permission of Professor David Scheffer.  Professor Scheffer is a Mayer Brown/Robert A. Helman Professor of Law at Northwestern University School of Law and the Director of the Center for International Human Rights.