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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Patricia Coen (609) 258-5764
Date: November 14, 1996
Prosecution of War Crimes to be Topic
of Princeton Lecture
Princeton, N.J. -- Payam Akhavan, the legal adviser to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda in the Hague, will speak on "The U.N. War Crimes Tribunal on Trial: The Rhetoric and Reality of International Criminal Justice" at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs on Wednesday, November 20, at 4:30 p.m. in Bowl 6, Robertson Hall.
Akhavan, a candidate for the Doctor of Science of Jurisprudence (S.J.D.) degree at Harvard Law School, is on currently on leave from Harvard on a research grant from the U.S. Institute of Peace in order to complete an article on "Justice in the Periphery, Peace in the Distance," a study and commentary on the role of the Tribunal in post-conflict peace-building in the former Yugoslavia.
Before working with the Tribunal, Akhavan was stationed in the former Yugoslavia and in Geneva as special assistant to the U.N. human rights rapporteur, former Polish Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki, for whom he conducted on-site investigations in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia. He has published books and journal articles on various human rights issues, including humanitarian intervention, self-determination, ethnic conflict, Islamic law, the international politics of morality, and the development of enforcement mechanisms in response to genocide and other massive violations of human rights. He recently provided intensive training in the prosecution of crimes against humanity for Cambodian government officials in Phnom Penh, as part of the activities mandated by the U.S. Congress under the Cambodian Genocide Justice Act.
His lecture is being sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson School.