Event Description
Join PILPG and Debevoise & Plimpton LLP on December 15 from 12 pm to 1 pm ET for a conversation with Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) Special Advisers regarding the Crime of Gender Persecution, Sexual Violence in Conflict, and Crimes Against Children. In this conversation, we will focus on gender persecution as it relates to the updated policies on sexual violence and crimes against and affecting children, which will be presented to the Assembly of States Parties (ASP) to the ICC in December in New York.
Over the past years, the Office of the Prosecutor has been actively working on updating and developing thematic policies to improve the understanding and application of the crimes falling under the jurisdiction of the ICC. During the 21st session of the ASP in December 2022, the ICC Prosecutor presented the Policy on the Crime of Gender Persecution. During the 22nd session of the ASP, which is taking place from 4 to 14 December in New York, the Office of the Prosecutor will be presenting the updated Policy Papers on Sexual Violence in Conflict and Crimes Against and Affecting Children. In this context, this event will discuss how these policy papers interact and, specifically, their connection with the crime of persecution.
The panelists will include all three Special Advisers: Professor Lisa Davis, Professor Kim Thuy Seelinger, and Ms. Véronique Aubert. The event will be moderated by PILPG Managing Director Professor Milena Sterio.
This will be the fifth event of the series on the Policy on the Crime of Gender Persecution. Click here to view the other discussions in this series.
This is 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.
Speakers
Ms. Véronique Aubert
Ms Véronique Aubert is a senior human rights expert with over 20 years of experience in fact-finding missions investigating gross violations against children in conflict settings, and promoting governments and armed actors’ compliance with international law standards. She is the Lead on Children and Armed Conflict at Save the Children UK where she provides policy analysis and child rights expertise, and lead talks with senior government officials and donors. She recently co-authored with Oxford University the report, Advancing Justice for Children (March 2021), that explores the barriers—and potential solutions—regarding accountability for crimes and violations against children in conflict. She also serves as Co-Chair of the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack (GCPEA), and is actively involved in advocacy around the development and implementation of the Safe Schools Declaration, while also involved in the publication of the Education under Attack flagship report.
Ms Aubert regularly serves as a child rights expert for Justice Rapid Response to investigate international crimes against children and as a member of Technical Advisory Panel for the Global Fund for Survivors of Conflict-Related Sexual Violence. She was awarded an OBE in 2021 as a reward for her contribution to protecting children in armed conflict.
Prior to joining Save the Children UK in 2012, Ms Aubert worked at Amnesty International’s International Secretariat for 11 years, first as a Researcher on the Democratic Republic of the Congo (2000- 2007) and then, Deputy Director of the Africa Programme (2007- 2011). During that time, she conducted and coordinated fact-finding investigations and supervised publications on a range of issues relating to crimes against or involving children in situations of armed conflict.
She was also appointed Trustee on the Board of Child Soldiers International (2016-2019), a non- governmental organisation that worked to prevent the recruitment, use and exploitation of children by armed forces and groups. She also served as an Expert in the process convened 2013-2016) by the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative (PSVI) UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office team that developed the International Protocol on the Documentation and Investigation of Sexual Violence in Conflict.
Ms Aubert holds a Master’s in Law and Diplomacy from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy (1998).
Professor Lisa Davis
Prof. Lisa Davis is an Associate Professor of Law and Co- Director of the Human Rights and Gender Justice Clinic (formerly named International Women’s Human Rights Clinic). Prof. Davis has written and reported extensively on international human rights and gender issues including women’s rights and LGBTQI+ rights, with a focus on peace building and security issues in conflict and disaster settings. Professor Davis has provided expert remarks before the UN Security Council, U.S. Congress, U.K. Parliament, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and various international human rights bodies and is also a member of the JRR-UN Women SGBV Justice Experts Roster.In the case of Karen Atala and Daughters v. Chile, Prof. Davis co-authored the only amicus curiae brief to argue that sexual orientation and gender identity are protected classes under international law. In 2012, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights issued a ground- breaking decision, providing for an explicit prohibition of discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. In 2010, Prof. Davis served as lead counsel for the Inter- American Commission petition on behalf of displaced Haitian women and girls, which resulted in the Commission’s first-ever precautionary measures decision recognising State responsibility to prevent third-party gender-based violence. Prof. Davis was subsequently awarded the 2011 People’s Choice Gavel Award by their peers for the decision.
Professor Kim Thuy Seelinger
Prof. Kim Thuy Seelinger is an expert on sexual violence in the context of armed conflict and forced displacement. Prof. Seelinger’s teaching and scholarship focus on the complexities of providing protection from, and accountability for, conflict-related sexual violence. Drawing from her legal and social science research in over a dozen countries, Prof. Seelinger provides technical assistance to international and national actors working on war crimes trials, legislative reform, and support services for survivors. At the policy level, she served as an inaugural member of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees’ Advisory Group on Gender, Forced Displacement, and Protection and an expert commentator on the International Protocol on the Documentation and Investigation of Sexual Violence in Conflict (2014, 2017).
She co-founded the Missing Peace Initiative, which connects academics, policymakers, and practitioners focused on conflict-related sexual violence. Prof. Seelinger chairs the Board of Civitas Maxima, a Geneva-based organization that conducts war crimes investigations in partnership with African human rights defenders, and serves as technical advisor to the Global Survivors’ Fund, established by 2018 Nobel Peace Prize winners Dr Denis Mukwege and Ms Nadia Murad.
Seelinger is currently faculty at Washington University, where she is a Research Associate Professor at the Brown School of Social Work, Public Health and Social Policy and a Visiting Professor at the School of Law. She also directs the Center for Human Rights, Gender, and Migration at the Institute for Public Health. Prior to joining Washington University in 2019, she spent nearly a decade at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, where she directed the award-winning Sexual Violence Program at the Human Rights Center from 2010-2019. She is a member of the New York State Bar.
MODERATOR
Professor Milena Sterio
Milena Sterio is the Managing Director of PILPG and the Charles R. Emrick Jr. - Calfee Halter & Griswold Professor of Law at Cleveland State University’s Cleveland-Marshall College of Law. She is a leading expert on international law, international criminal law and human rights. Sterio leads PILPG’s Thought Leadership Initiative.
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.