Speaker: Professor Payam Akhavan

While controversial accusations of genocide abound in numerous conflicts and judicial proceedings, a closer examination of its elements of gravity and scale demonstrates considerable indeterminacy and consequent wide margin of appreciation in its application. How should international courts and tribunals choose between expansive and strict interpretations of this "ultimate crime"?

About the speaker

Professor Payam Akhavan SJD LLD OOnt FRSC is a Barrister at Twenty Essex in London, Human Rights Chair at Massey College, University of Toronto, and Associate Member of the Institut de droit international. He was formerly Special Advisor on Genocide to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and served as the first Legal Advisor to the Prosecutor's Office of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda in The Hague (1994-2000). Among his many publications, he is author of "Reducing Genocide to Law" (Cambridge, 2012).

Chair

Dr Maria Varaki is a Lecturer in International Law in the War Studies Department at King's College London. Before moving to London, she held research positions at the Erik Castrén Institute of International Law and Human Rights in Helsinki and at the Law Faculty of Hebrew University in Jerusalem. She was also an Assistant Professor of International Law at Kadir Has University in Istanbul. She is currently a Research Associate on the Three Generations of Digital Human Rights ERC project (2023-2028) at Hebrew University’s Faculty of Law.