Expert Roundtable:

The International Criminal Court

20th Session of the Assembly of States Parties

Key Takeaways from the PILPG Team

Event Description

PILPG held an expert roundtable on the International Criminal Court's 20th Session of the Assembly of States Parties on December 17 from 12 pm to 1 pm ET.

The Assembly of States Parties functions as the management oversight and legislative body of the ICC. It is composed of representatives of States Parties that have ratified or acceded to the Rome Statute. Currently, it is has 123 ICC states parties.

With the 20th session of the Assembly of States Parties currently taking place in the Hague, the Netherlands, from December 6 to December 11, PILPG has been actively following and reporting on the key decisions and discussions being held at the Assembly. During this roundtable event, our PILPG team members will be sharing their key takeaways from the Assembly and discuss the current big topics on the ICC's agenda.

This event was part of the PILPG Thought Leadership Initiative. The Initiative focuses on prominent international law and international affairs topics and organizes monthly expert roundtables to share expertise and reflections from our work on peace negotiations, post-conflict constitution drafting, and war crimes prosecution.

You can also read PILPG's reports from the 20th session of the Assembly of States Parties to the International Criminal Court on our Lawyering Justice blog.

Event Recording

SpeakerS

**Dr. Brianne McGonigle Leyh**
Dr. Brianne McGonigle Leyh is a Senior Legal Advisor with PILPG. She is also an Associate Professor at Utrecht University specializing in human rights law and global justice, with a focus on victims’ rights, transitional justice, social justice, and the documentation of serious crimes. She is a member of the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights (SIM), the Montaigne Centre for Rule of Law and Administration of Justice, and the research platform Contesting Governance. She is also an executive editor of the Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights and coordinates the education program of the Utrecht Centre for Global Challenges (UGlobe), which is a centre supporting and encouraging study and research on international issues across the humanities and law at Utrecht University. Since 2017 she has been a member of the Utrecht Young Academy. The Utrecht Young Academy is a platform for the exchange of critical perspectives on academia, policy, and society. In 2020, together with Dr. Tessa Diphoorn from Cultural Anthropology, she launched a Podcast “Travelling Concepts on Air” to address issues of interdisciplinarity in scholarship. Her teaching focuses on human rights and transitional justice, with a strong emphasis on community engaged learning through the honors program legal clinic and inter-faculty courses like the Da Vinci Project.
In addition to her academic work, she sits on the advisory boards of the Netherlands Helsinki Committee and Pro Bono Connect. She received her Bachelors degree (BA) from Boston University, graduating magna cum laude with a self-crafted major in the study of international law and human rights, her Law degree (JD) from American University’s Washington College of Law, graduating cum laude, and her Masters (MA) in International Affairs from American University’s School of International Service. In 2011 she obtained her PhD from Utrecht University’s Netherlands Institute of Human Rights (SIM) where she wrote her award-winning dissertation on victim participation in international criminal proceedings.

**Jennifer Trahan**

Jennifer Trahan is Clinical Professor at NYU's Center for Global Affairs where she directs the Concentration in International Law and Human Rights and teaches: International Law; Human Rights in Theory & Practice; International Justice; Transitional Justice; U.S. Use of Force & the “Global War on Terror”; and leads a field intensive to The Hague, Bosnia and Serbia, and one to Rwanda. She has published scores of law review articles and book chapters including on the International Criminal Court’s crime of aggression. Her book, “Legal Limits to Security Council Veto Power in the Face of Atrocity Crimes” (Cambridge University Press 2020) was awarded the “2020 ABILA Book of the Year Award” by
the American Branch of the International Law Association. She has additionally authored: “Genocide, War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity: A Digest of the Case Law of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda” (HRW 2010) and “Genocide, War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity: A Topical
Digest of the Case Law of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia” (HRW 2006). She serves as one of the US representatives to the Use of Force Committee of the International Law Association and holds various positions with the American Branch of the International Law
Association, including as co-Chair of their Committee on the International Criminal Court. She additionally served as an amicus curiae to the International Criminal Court on the appeal of the situation regarding Afghanistan and served on the Council of Advisers on the Application of the Rome Statute to Cyberwarfare. Most recently she is pleased to have joined the PILPG team in their amicus brief on
the Ongwen appeal, and has become Convenor of the Global Institute for the Prevention of Aggression.

**Owiso Owiso**
Owiso Owiso is a Lecturer in Public International Law at the University of Groningen, Faculty of Law, and a Doctoral Researcher at the University of Luxembourg.

**Jackline Nasiwa**
Jackline Nasiwa is a Senior Peace Fellow with PILPG. Ms. Nasiwa is an experienced lawyer and rule of law specialist based in Juba, South Sudan. She currently serves as the National Director for the Centre for Inclusive Governance, Peace and Justice. As part of PILPG’s work in South Sudan through the SUCCESS Consortium, Ms. Nasiwa provided technical assistance to South Sudanese civil society actors to more effectively engage in both formal and informal peace processes, including matters of transitional justice, traditional justice, constitutional development, and civic education. She also supported women's participation in political processes including the peace process and constitutional development. Prior to joining PILPG, Ms. Nasiwa worked with the National Democratic Institute as the Senior Manager on Constitutional Development. She also has previous experience with the South Sudan Referendum Bureau, the International Development Law Organization, and the United Nations Development Program.
Ms. Nasiwa is member of the Technical Committee appointed by the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs to facilitate public consultations in the process to develop legislation for the constitution of the Commission of Truth Healing and Reconciliation. Together with other CSOs, Ms. Nasiwa shall provide technical support to the committee given her expertise in public consultation, civic education material development and dialogues on transitional justice issues. Jackline is the Chairperson of the National Alliance of Women Lawyers of South Sudan and has a long history of facilitating TOTs to CSO, academia and women groups on understanding transitional justice and human rights. Ms Jackline is winner of the Every Girl Win in 2021 and was awarded the South Sudanese Women Achievers for Peace for Human Rights Defender in 2021 by the South Sudanese Women Intellectuals Forum.

**Emma Bakkum**
Emma Bakkum is Assistant Counsel at PILPG. She has worked for PILPG’s Netherlands Office since 2016, on questions related to human rights, international criminal law, and the domestic prosecution of international crimes. In addition, Ms. Bakkum coordinates the International Law Clinic at the Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam. She has previous experience as a researcher at the University of Amsterdam and as an intern with the United Nations Assistance to the Khmer Rouge Trials and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Ms. Bakkum holds an LLB with a minor in conflict studies from Utrecht University, and an LLM in Law and Politics of International Security from the VU Amsterdam.

MODERATOR

Milena Sterio, the Charles R. Emrick Jr. - Calfee Halter & Griswold Professor of Law at Cleveland State University’s Cleveland-Marshall College of Law and Managing Director at PILPG is a leading expert on international law, international criminal law and human rights. Sterio is one of six permanent editors of the prestigious IntLawGrrls blog, and a frequent contributor to the blog focused on international law, policy and practice. In the spring of 2013, Sterio was selected as a Fulbright Scholar, spending the semester in Baku, Azerbaijan, at Baku State University. While in Baku, she had the opportunity to teach and conduct research on secession issues under international law related to the province of Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh. Serving as a maritime piracy law expert, she has participated in meetings of the United Nations Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia as well as in the work of the United Nations Global Counterterrorism Forum. Sterio has also assisted piracy prosecutions in Mauritius, Kenya and the Seychelles Islands. Sterio is a graduate of Cornell Law School and the University of Paris I, and was an associate in the New York City firm of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton before joining the ranks of academia full time. She has published seven books and numerous law review articles. Her latest book, “The Syrian Conflict’s Impact on International Law,” (co-authored with Paul Williams and Michael Scharf) was published by Cambridge University Press in 2020.