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Center for International and Comparative Law hosts distinguished speaker series

Emory University School of Law |
The Center for International and Comparative Law speakers
Judge Navanethem Pillay & Ambassador Pierre-Richard Prosper

The Center for International and Comparative Law of Emory University School of Law is pleased to present two distinguished speakers in a summit of ground-breaking international law jurists during the fall of 2016.

Judge Navanethem Pillay (South Africa) will be the series’ first speaker at 12:00 p.m. on October 17.  Judge Pillay was formerly the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. She previously served as judge on the International Criminal Court and was once on the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Her lecture will be titled Reflections on the International Human Rights System and will be delivered in Tull Auditorium, Gambrell Hall at 1301 Clifton Road, Atlanta. Please RSVP to Eadie Bridges at EIBRIDG@emory.edu

Navanethem ‘Navi’ Pillay, a South African of Indian Tamil origin, was born in the poor neighborhood of Durban, Natal Province, South Africa, on September 23, 1941. As a non-white lawyer under the apartheid regime, her color prevented her from being allowed to enter a judge’s chambers. “The first time I entered a judge’s chambers was when I entered my own,” Pillay said, referring to her appointment as judge in the High Court of South Africa on the nomination of President Nelson Mandela in 1994.

Ambassador Pierre-Richard Prosper, the series’ second speaker, will appear at two events on November 14.  At 12:00 p.m., he will deliver a lecture is titled, From Genocide to Justice: Rwanda and the Rule of Law, in Tull Auditorium. Ambassador Prosper will speak again at 7:00 p.m. in Tull Auditorium in conjunction with a screening of the documentary film The Uncondemned, an award-winning documentary that tells the story of a group of young international lawyers and activists who fought to make rape a war crime. Please RSVP here »

Ambassador Prosper served as ambassador-at-large in charge of the Secretary of State’s Office of War Crimes Issues from 2001 through 2005.  From 1996 through 1998, he was lead trial attorney for the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.  Ambassador Prosper has been a federal and state prosecutor in the United States and currently is a partner at the law firm Arent Fox. 

The two speakers are linked by their important roles in the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, particularly in the case of Jean-Paul Akayesu (September 2, 1998). Judge Pillay participated as a judge in the decision of this case and Ambassador Prosper was lead prospector in the same case. 

Receptions will follow both speaking events.

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