USC Gould’s International Human Rights Clinic hosted Judge Fausto Pocar, who presided the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, for his lecture “Mass Atrocities, the International Criminal Court and the Future of International Criminal Justice” on March 2, 2015.
Since his appointment to the ICTY in 2000, Judge Pocar has served as a Judge in a Trial Chamber, where he sat on the first case concerned with rape as a crime against humanity, and in the Appeals Chamber of the Tribunal, where he is still sitting. As a Judge of the Appeals Chamber, he is also a Judge of the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). On appeal, he has participated in the adoption of the final judgments in several ICTY and ICTR cases, heard both at The Hague and in Arusha, Tanzania. Between November 2005 and November 2008 he served as President of the ICTY.
Judge Pocar is Professor of International Law at the Law Faculty of the University of Milan, where he has also served as the Dean of the Faculty of Political Sciences and as the Vice-Rector. He is the author of numerous publications on International Law, including Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, Private International Law and European Law.
Judge Pocar has a long standing experience in UN activities, in particular in the field of human rights and humanitarian law. He has served for 16 years (1984-2000) as a member of the Human Rights Committee under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and has been its Chairman (1991-92) and Rapporteur (1989-90). Further, he was appointed Special Representative of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights for visits to Chechnya and the Russian Federation during the 1995-6 conflict.
Co-sponsored by the USC Shoah Foundation Institute, the USC Levan Institute, the USC Gould Clerkship Committee and the USC Gould Iraqi Refugee Assistance Project.