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Thursday November 11th, 2010

Consequences of Kampala: The United States and the International Criminal Court

Moderator:

Melina Sterio, Assistant Professor, Cleveland-Marshall College of Law Cleveland State University

Panelists:

Donald Ferencz, Executive Director, The Planethood Foundation

Michael Scharf, John Deaver Drinko—Baker & Hostetler Professor and Director, Frederick K. Cox International Law Center Case Western Reserve University School of Law

Thursday November 11, 2010, 12:00 p.m.-1:00 p.m.

Sponsored by the Frederick K. Cox International Law Center at Case Western Reserve University School of Law

Donald Ferencz, executive director of the Planethood Foundation, and Case Western Reserve University School of Law Professor Michael Scharf participated as NGO (non-governmental organization) delegates at the International Criminal Court Assembly of States Parties Review Conference in Kampala, Uganda in June 2010. At the Review Conference in Kampala, the 3,000 delegates agreed to a complicated formula to amend the International Court’s Statute to add the crime of aggression to its jurisdiction. The formula had its origins in part in a 2008 Experts Meeting that Mr. Ferencz and Prof. Scharf co-sponsored at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, “The ICC and the Crime of Aggression.” At the November 11, 2010 program, Mr. Ferencz and Prof. Scharf will explain the negotiating history and meaning of the “Crime of Aggression” Amendment to the ICC’s Statute, and describe its likely consequences for the United States and its allies.

Additional Information About Our Guests…

Milena Sterio teaches International Law and the International War Crimes seminar. She has published extensively in the areas of international law, international criminal law, and the law of the seas (piracy), and her latest articles will be published by the American University Law Review, the Fordham Journal of International Law, and the Minnesota Journal of International Law. She has lectured on these topics at various law schools in the United States, as well as larger conferences, such as the American Society of International Law Annual Meeting and the AALS Annual Meeting. Prior to becoming a law professor, Milena Sterio was an associate at the
international law firm of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP, in its New York and Paris offices, where she practiced international litigation and arbitration. She was also an adjunct professor at Cornell Law School, where she taught the International War Crimes seminar.

Milena Sterio holds a J.D., magna cum laude, from Cornell Law School, as well as a French law degree (“maitrise en droit”) from the University of Paris I-Sorbonne. Milena Sterio also holds a master’s degree in private international law (“D.E.A.”) from the University of Paris I-Sorbonne. She obtained her B.A. in French Literature and Political Science from Rutgers University, summa cum laude.

Donald Ferencz graduated from Colgate University with a B.A. in Peace Studies, after which he pursued a Masters Degree in Education, and taught elementary school for five years. He subsequently pursued a combined J.D. and M.B.A. and undertook a commercial career as an in-house senior corporate tax executive working for U.S.–based multinational corporations. In 1996, Mr. Ferencz and his father, Ben Ferencz, founded The Planethood Foundation to help educate people about issues pertaining to the establishment of a permanent international criminal court. Mr. Ferencz is the Director of this small, private foundation. During 2007 to 2008, he was Board Chair of the Citizens for Global Solutions Education Fund, a Washington-based non-profit organization dedicated to education and advocacy around broad U.S. engagement in solving issues of global concern. Mr. Ferencz has been an adjunct professor of law at Pace Law School, in White Plains, New York and is a current member of the Steering Committees of the Peace and Security Funders Group as well as the American Bar Association International Law Section’s Committee on International Courts. For the past three years, he has been a participating member of representatives from the NGO community who, under the
auspices of the Coalition for the International Criminal Court, have been participating in and advising at sessions of the Working Group on the Crime of Aggression. That Working Group is the subgroup of the Assembly of States Parties charged with developing a definition of the crime of aggression for possible inclusion in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

Michael Scharf directs the Henry T. King, Jr. War Crimes Research Office and the Summer Institute for Global Justice in The Netherlands, and serves as U.S. director of the Canada-U.S. Law Institute. In February 2005, Prof. Scharf and the Public International Law and Policy Group, a Non-Governmental Organization that he co-founded and directs, were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by six governments and the Prosecutor of an International Criminal Tribunal for the work they have done to help in the prosecution of major war criminals, such as Slobodan Milosevic, Charles Taylor, and Saddam Hussein. During the first Bush and Clinton Administrations, Prof. Scharf served in the Office of the Legal Adviser of the U.S. Department of State, where he held the positions of Attorney-Adviser for Law Enforcement and Intelligence, Attorney-Adviser for U.N. Affairs, and delegate to the U.N. Human Rights Commission. Judicial clerk to Judge Gerald Bard Tjoflat on the Eleventh Circuit Federal Court of Appeals, Prof. Scharf has testified before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee
and the House Armed Services Committee and is the author of over 70 scholarly articles and 13 books, including three that have won national book of the year honors. Recipient of the Case Western Reserve University School of Law Alumni Association’s 2005 “Distinguished Teacher Award” and Ohio Magazine’s 2007 “Excellence in Education Award,” Prof. Scharf teaches International Law, International Criminal Law, the Law of International Organizations, and the War Crimes Research Lab. During a sabbatical in
2008, he served as Special Assistant to the Prosecutor of the Cambodia Genocide Tribunal. He received his B.A. (1985), Order of the Coif, and his J.D. (1988) from Duke University.