Join us for an in-depth seminar examining the ICC Office of the Prosecutor's landmark Policy on Slavery Crimes. This session will explore the historical and legal background behind the policy's development, its most important features and innovations, and the pressing current issues and challenges surrounding its implementation in addressing slavery crimes under international law. The policy paper is available here.

About the speaker

Patricia Viseur Sellers is an international criminal lawyer. She teaches on the law faculty of the University of Oxford where she is a Visiting Fellow of Kellogg College and a Fellow at the Bonavero Center for Human Rights. She is the former Special Advisor for Slavery Crimes to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. She also served as the Special Advisor for Gender to the previous Prosecutor. From 1994-2007,

Prof Sellers was the Legal Advisor for Gender, the Acting Head of the Legal Advisory Section and an Acting Senior Tial Attorney at the Yugoslav Tribunal (ICTY). From 1995-2000, she was the Legal Advisor for Gender at the Rwanda Tribunal (ICTR).  At these ad hoc tribunals, she was on the trial teams of Akayesu, Furundzija, Kunarac, Nikolic, Oric and Stankovic where she developed the legal strategies that led to landmark jurisprudence regarding sexual violence as war crimes, as crimes against humanity, as genocide, as torture and as enslavement under international criminal law. 

Prof Sellers advises United Nations’ agencies, governments and civil society on matters concerning international criminal law.  She has lectured extensively and authored numerous articles, including, ‘Missing in Action: The International Crime of the Slave Trade’, 'Wartime Female Slavery: Enslavement?' and 'The International Crimes of Slavery and the Slave Trade: A Feminist Critique."   She has testified as an expert witness before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in the cases of J. v. Peru, Favela Nova Brasilia v. Brazil, Albarracín v. Ecuador and Lima and Others v. Colombia. She is the recipient of the prestigious Goler T. Butcher Medal and the Prominent Women in International Law Award by the American Society of International Law. She holds an Honorary Doctorate in Law from the City University of New York, as well as an Honorary Fellow for Lifetime Achievement from the Law School of the University of Pennsylvania, her alma mater. 

Chair

Dr Maria Varaki is a lecturer in international law at the Department of War Studies, King's College London. Before moving to London she held research positions with the Erik Castren Institute of International Law and Human Rights in Helsinki and the Law Faculty of Hebrew University in Jerusalem. She was also an Assistant Professor in International Law at Kadir Has University in Istanbul. Currently she is a Research Associate in 3 Generations of Digital Human Rights, ERC project, 2023-2028, Hebrew University, Faculty of Law.