Speaker: William J. Fenrick 

Chair: Dr Rachel Kerr

Bio: William Fenrick (BA, MA, LLB, LLM) is a Canadian international lawyer with decades of experience in war crimes investigation and prosecution. He was there at the birth of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, having been appointed by the Secretary General of the United Nations to a Commission of Experts tasked with investigating allegations of war crimes in the territory of the former Yugoslavia, and then served as a Senior Legal Advisor to the Chief Prosecutor of the ICTY from 1994-2004.  Prior to that, Mr Fenrick was a naval officer (1962-70) and a legal officer (1974-94) in the Canadian Forces. While in the Prosecutor’s Office, he was involved, among other tasks, in advising and arguing on issues such as jurisdiction, command responsibility, and combat offences such as unlawful sniping and unlawful shelling. In 2013, Mr Fenrick was awarded the 2013 Weldon Award for Unselfish Public Service in recognition of his lifetime of work in international humanitarian law and excellence in the legal profession. He has a distinguished career of over 40 years and is widely recognized as a leading expert in international humanitarian law.

The War Crimes Research Group (WCRG) conducts research and teaching on war crimes – understood in the broadest sense – and war. The Group is based in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London and led by Professor James Gow and Dr Rachel Kerr. You can follow them on Twitter @WarCrimesKCL.