As documented by the developments covered in the War Crimes Prosecution Watch (WCPW) e-newsletter, international criminal law has become one of the fastest growing and highest profile areas of law. Taught by leading experts in the field, the Case Western Reserve University LLM in International Criminal law will provide individuals who hold a degree in law with an in-depth knowledge of international criminal law and procedure, international humanitarian law, and national security law, and will equip them to practice international criminal law before international tribunals or national courts.
Now in its twelfth year, there are seven unique aspects of the Case Western Reserve International Criminal Law LLM, which I’d like to especially call to your attention:
First, Case Western Reserve is known around the world for the strength of its international criminal law program. Program faculty include a former State Department official, a former Senior Counsel at the IMF, the former head of the International Branch in the Navy Judge Advocate General’s International and Operational Law Division, a former counsel in the NSC, a former Senior Counsel for Human Rights First – Law and Security Program, a Senior Coast Guard lawyer, and the former Chief of Prosecutions of an international criminal tribunal. Reflecting the strength of our program, the Chief Prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone nominated our War Crimes Research initiative for the Nobel Peace Prize, and Case Western Reserve was the most recent American team to have won the World Championship round of the Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition. Based on a survey of international law professors, the 2020 rankings issue of US News and World Report ranked us among the top twenty international law programs in the nation, and International Jurist magazine recently ranked our LLM program as one of the best in the country.
Second, our International Criminal Law LLM Program is designed as an elite and intimate program, with enrollment limited to approximately five LLM students per year. We provide generous scholarships and one of those students may be a full-scholarship “Distinguished Visiting Jurist,” whose presence is designed to enhance the program and facilitate networking. Our last Distinguished Jurist was Duncan Gaswaga, who is currently a judge on Uganda’s High Court War Crimes Chamber.
Third, among the dozen international criminal law-related courses we offer, you can enroll in the War Crimes Research Lab, taught by former Chief Trial Attorney of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, Jim Johnson, in which students write research memoranda at the request of international war crimes tribunals, piracy courts, the Guantanamo Bay Military Commissions, and INTERPOL on cutting edge issues pending before those institutions.
Fourth, as part of the program, our International Criminal Law LLM students may receive a semester’s worth of credit by interning at one of the international war crimes tribunals, a Piracy Court, UNODC, the General Counsel’s Office of the U.S. Coast Guard, or INTERPOL in the spring semester.
Fifth, our international Criminal Law LLM students are invited to be editors of War Crimes Prosecution Watch, the e-newsletter that goes out every two weeks to war crimes prosecutors, judges, and more than 15,000 experts in the field. Our students are also invited to be Senior Researchers on our Yemen Accountability Project, which is mapping the atrocities that have been committed in the Yemen conflict and preparing model indictments for future international prosecution efforts.
Sixth, we host several major lectures and an annual international criminal law-related symposium, which bring dozens of leading experts in the field to the Law School each year. Recent speakers have included: Sean Murphy, ILC Special Rapporteur for the Convention on Crimes Against Humanity; Brenda Hollis, Chief Prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone; Stephen Rapp, US Ambassador at Large for War Crimes Issues; Hon. Christine Van den Wyngaert, Judge of the ICC; Sir Christopher Greenwood, UK Judge on the International Court of Justice; Prince Zeid Ra’ad Al-Hussein, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights; Robert Petit, Chief Prosecutor of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia; Richard Goldstone, former Chief Prosecutor of the ICTY and ICTR; William Schabas, Commissioner on the International Truth Commission for Sierra Leone; Fatua Bensuada , the Chief Prosecutor of the ICC; and the late Cherif Bassiouni who was known as “the father of international criminal law.”
Finally, we have placed more than 140 students in externships at the ICC and international war crimes tribunals, and our alumni include individuals who have served as a member of the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, a member of the Office of the Prosecutor of the Cambodia Tribunal; a Legal Adviser to the Chambers of the International Criminal Court; a member of the Office of the Prosecutor of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon; a prosecutor in the Office of Guantanamo Bay Military Commissions; a lawyer at INTERPOL; several distinguished law professors; the former Judge Advocate General of the US Navy Reserve; the Chief of Staff of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent; and the head of the Africa Bureau at the United Nations.
To apply for the International Criminal Law LLM Degree, click: http://law.case.edu/Academics/Degrees/LLM/LLM-in-International-Criminal-Law
To sample one of our International Criminal Law courses (offered free on demand by Coursera), click: https://www.coursera.org/learn/international-criminal-law
Thank you for passing this information on to those who might be interested in this program.
Sincerely,
Michael P. Scharf
Dean of Case Western Reserve University School of Law
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