Optimism about "Arcs of Global Justice" at London launch of our OUP essay collection honouring William A. Schabas

Professor Diane Marie Amann provided this guest post, which is cross-posted from her blog

LONDON – "Optimism" was the byword for Friday's magical conference launching Arcs of Global Justice: Essays in Honour of William A. Schabas, the just-published Oxford University Press collection coedited by Margaret M. deGuzman and myself.

The event took place in a Christmas-tree-lighted conference room at 9 Bedford Row, the London chambers where our honouree, Bill Schabas (above center), is a door tenant. Joining Bill and his wife, Penelope Soteriou, were several of the 35 women and men whose 29 contributions comprise the volume, many friends, colleagues, PhD students, and relatives.

Gillian Higgins (left), Head of the International Practice Group at 9 Bedford Row, opened with a warm message of welcome and congratulations. Then followed a celebration that combined lighthearted anecdotes with serious presentations of scholarship. Topics ranged as far and wide as Schabas' multifaceted career, which includes current appointments as Professor of International Law at Middlesex University, London, Professor of International Criminal Law and Human Rights at Leiden University, and Emeritus Professor of Human Rights Law and Honorary Chairman of the Irish Centre for Human Rights, National University of Ireland Galway; service as a member of the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission and as a consultant on capital punishment for the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime; and authorship of hundreds of books, chapters, and articles.

A sobering moment came in Birkbeck Lecturer Emma Sandon's discussion of Schabas' role as an organizer of and speaker at human rights film festivals. Sandon (above) concluded with a clip from Judgment at Nuremberg (1961). All fell silent while watching the characters in the video courtroom watch actual footage from the Allied liberations of concentration camps like Buchenwald.

Also moving was the memorial that Northwestern University Law Professor David Scheffer gave on behalf of contributor Cherif Bassiouni, who died at age 79 in September, not long after finishing his chapter, entitled "Human Rights and International Criminal Justice in the Twenty-First Century: The End of the Post-WWII Phase and the Beginning of an Uncertain New Era." (Bassiouni also penned a dedication for our conference programme, available in PDF here.) Scheffer described the essay in light of his own and Schabas' writings, and concluded on a optimistic note regarding the future of human rights.

That same note sounded in Schabas' own interventions throughout the day. On issues ranging from the International Criminal Court to abolition of the death penalty, he assured his audience that even in these times, when the day-to-day "weather" may seem grim, the overall "climate" offers much room for optimism.
Here's the order of the day (full PDF programme here; additional contributors in attendance included Middlesex Law Dean Joshua Castellino and Cambridge PhD candidate Bruno Gélinas-Gaucher):

Arcs of Global Justice:

Conference Launching Essay Collection in Honour of William A. Schabas

Friday, 8 December 2017, 9 Bedford Row, London

Opening
"Welcome" by Gillian Higgins, Head of the International Practice Group at 9 Bedford Row
"In Memoriam for Cherif Bassiouni" by David Scheffer, Mayer Brown/Robert A. Helman Professor of Law and Director of the Center for International Human Rights at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, Chicago
"Introduction to Arcs of Global Justice" by coeditors Diane Marie Amann and Margaret M. deGuzman
International Law & Criminal Justice
"The Principle of Legality at the Crossroads of Human Rights & International Criminal Law" by Shane Darcy, Senior Lecturer at the Irish Centre for Human Rights, National University of Ireland Galway
"Criminal Law Philosophy in William Schabas’s Scholarship" by Margaret M. deGuzman, Professor of Law at Temple University’s Beasley School of Law
"Perspectives on Cultural Genocide: From Criminal Law to Cultural Diversity" by Jérémie Gilbert, Professor of International and Comparative Law, University of East London
"Toward Greater Synergy between Courts & Truth Commissions in Post-Conflict Context: Lessons from Sierra Leone" by Charles Chernor Jalloh, Professor of Law, Florida International University, and a member of the International Law Commission
Moderator: Kathleen Cavanaugh, Senior Lecturer at the Irish Centre for Human Rights, National University of Ireland Galway
Justice / Scholarship / Culture / Practice
"Bill the Blogger" by Diane Marie Amann, Emily and Ernest Woodruff Chair in International Law and Faculty Co-Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center at the University of Georgia School of Law
"Advocates, Scholars & Maintaining the International Criminal Law Momentum" by Wayne Jordash QC, international human rights and humanitarian lawyer and founding partner of Global Rights Compliance
"Law & Film: Curating Rights Cinema" by Emma Sandon, Senior Lecturer in Film and Television at Birkbeck, University of London, and a Research Fellow to the Chair for Social Change, University of Johannesburg
Moderator: Michelle Farrell, Senior Lecturer in Law in the School of Law and Social Justice, University of Liverpool
Abolition of the Death Penalty
"International Law & the Death Penalty: A Toothless Tiger, or a Meaningful Force for Change?" by Sandra L. Babcock, Clinical Professor of Law at Cornell Law School and Faculty Director of the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide
The Right to Life & the Progressive Abolition of the Death Penalty by Thomas Probert, Research Associate, Centre of Governance & Human Rights, University of Cambridge (on behalf of himself & co-authors Christof Heyns & Tess Borden)
Moderator: Jon Yorke, Professor of Human Rights and Director of the Centre for Human Rights at Birmingham City School of Law
Closing
Introduction by John Louth, Editor-in-Chief of Academic Law at Oxford University Press
Remarks by William A. Schabas OC MRIA
Reception
With thanks to our host, 9 Bedford Row, & cosponsor, Oxford University Press

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Arcs of Justice: Essays in Honour of William A. Schabas (Margaret M. deGuzman and Diane Marie Amann, eds.) (OUP 2018) may be ordered via OUP or Amazon, and the book's also available on Kindle.