World Peace Through Justice Award Lecture

I am optimistic that even if the United States fails in the coming years to ratify the Rome Treaty, it will increasingly offer its support for prosecutions launched by the ICC that are consistent with Washington’s foreign policy. Then, there is the role of civil society in this and other democracies. The media, human rights organizations, and the faculty and students of so many universities have successfully pressured political leaders to take action in support of victims of atrocious crimes. It was, after all, public concern and pressure that led the United States and some of the European democracies to push the Security Council to establish the two ad hoc criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

This realization should spur further demands for positive support of the ICC. This Law School has been at the forefront of those efforts, and I know that it will continue to stay there. It is in this context that I am so proud to accept this award. Wash U