Leila Nadya Sadat

Leila Nadya Sadat (born 1960 in Newark, New Jersey) is the James Carr Professor of International Criminal Law at Washington University School of Law and the Director of the Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute.^[1] She has served as Special Advisor on Crimes Against Humanity to Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda of the International Criminal Court since December 12, 2012.^[2] Sadat is the Director of The Crimes Against Humanity Initiative, a multi-year project to study the problem of crimes against humanity and draft a comprehensive convention addressing their punishment and prevention.^[3] She has spearheaded the international effort to establish this new global convention. Sadat was recently elected to membership in the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations.^[4]

Education

Sadat received her B.A. from Douglass College, her J.D. from Tulane Law School (summa cum laude) and holds graduate degrees from Columbia University School of Law (LLM, summa cum laude) and the University of Paris I – Sorbonne (diplôme d’études approfondies). She is bilingual in French and English.

Career

As a scholar, teacher, and author, Sadat has contributed to the establishment and study of the International Criminal Court (ICC).^[5] She was a delegate to the U.N. Preparatory Committee and to the 1998 Diplomatic Conference in Rome which established the ICC, represented the government of Timor-Leste at the 8th Session of the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute of the ICC, and served as a delegate for the International Law Association, American Branch at the 2010 ICC Review Conference in Kampala, Uganda.

Sadat is known for her work in Public International Law and human rights. More recently, she has been invited to write on topics ranging from the U.S. use of drones,^[6] the legal categorization of the conflict in Syria,^[7] the U.S. war on terror and its classification of others as "unlawful enemy combatants,"^[8] "Global Trumpism," ^[9] the use of force,^[10] and the law of crimes against humanity.

From 2001-2003 she served as a Commissioner on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.^[11] She was nominated by then Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt and appointed by Congress.^[12] The 9-member Commission was established by the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 to advise the President and the Department of State on Issues of International Religious Freedom, both generally and with regard to particular countries.

Sadat is the upcoming President of the International Law Association(American Branch),^[13] Vice-President of the International Association of Penal Law(AIDP), and is a member of the American Law Institute^[14] and the Council on Foreign Relations. She has also served as a member of the Executive Council, Executive Committee, Program Committee and Awards Committee for the American Society of International Law and held leadership roles in the American Society of Comparative Law, including serving as the Book Review Editor for the American Journal of Comparative Law.^[15]

Prior to entering law teaching, Sadat practiced law for five years in Paris, France, and clerked for Judge Albert Tate Jr. in the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. She was also a stagiaire at the Cour de Cassation and Conseil d’Etat.

Sadat has published more than 100 articles, essays, and books. She also has written many op-eds and is a regular contributor on ASIL Blog and Intlawgrrls Blog. She also authors the blog Windows on the World and contributes to the blog Lex lata, lex ferenda.

Awards and honors

• YWCA Women’s Leadership Academy Award (2017)
• Arthur Holly Compton Distinguished Faculty Award, Washington University (2017)^[30]
• Honorary Doctor of Laws, Northwestern University (June 2017)^[31]
• International Women’s Day Award, Washington University School of Law, Women’s Law Caucus (2017)
• Alexis de Tocqueville Distinguished Fulbright Chair, University of Cergy-Pontoise (Paris), Spring 2011
• Outstanding Article of the Year Award (2014), "Crimes Against Humanity in the Modern Age," International Association of Penal Law (American Branch)
• Outstanding Book of the Year Award (2011), Forging a Convention for Crimes Against Humanity, International Association of Penal Law (American Branch)^[32]
• Outstanding Article of the Year Award (2010), "The Nuremberg Paradox," International Association of Penal Law (American Branch)
• Outstanding Article of the Year Award (2006), "Exile, Amnesty and International Law," International Association of Penal Law (American Branch)
• Outstanding Book of the Year (2003), The International Criminal Court and the Transformation of International Law, International Association of Penal Law (American Branch)
• Israel Treiman Faculty Fellow, Spring 1999, 2003-2004, 2014-2015
• United States Institute of Peace Grant Recipient, 2000-2001
• Israel Treiman Faculty Fellow, Spring 1999

Books

The International Criminal Court (West Nutshell, 2018) (forthcoming)

• Seeking Accountability for the Unlawful Use of Force (Leila Nadya Sadat, ed., Cambridge, 2018)
• The Founders(David M. Crane, Leila Nadya Sadat and Michael P. Scharf, eds, Cambridge, 2018)
• Forging a Convention for Crimes Against Humanity (Leila Nadya Sadat, ed., Cambridge 2011)
• The Theory and Practice of International Criminal Law: Essays in Honor of M. Cherif Bassiouni (Leila N. Sadat, Michael P. Scharf, eds., Martinus Nijhoff 2008)
• International Criminal Law: Cases and Materials (3rd ed., Carolina, 2006) (with Bassiouni, Paust, et al.)
• The International Criminal Court and the Transformation of International Law: Justice for the New Millennium (Transnational, 2002)
• International Criminal Law: Cases and Materials (2nd ed., Carolina, 2000) (with Bassiouni, Paust, et al.)
• Model Draft Statute for the International Criminal Court Based on the Preparatory Committee's Text to the Diplomatic Conference, Rome, June 15-July 17, 1998, 13ter Nouvelles Études Pénales (Leila Sadat Wexler, special ed. 1998)

Articles and essays

• "A Contextual & Historical Analysis of the International Law Commission’s 2017 Draft Articles for a New Global Treaty on Crimes Against Humanity," Journal of International Criminal Justice (2018) (forthcoming)
• "Whither Human Rights in the Era of Trump," 35 Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights 2 (2017)
• "Washington University School of Law’s Global Trajectory," 53 Washington University Journal of Law and Policy 35 (2017) (150th Anniversary Essay)
• "Putting Peacetime First: Crimes Against Humanity and the Civilian Population Requirement," 31 Emory International Law Review 197 (2017) (cited by the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia)
• "The Proposed Restatement Fourth of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States: Treaties - Some Serious Procedural and Substantive Concerns," 2015 B.Y.U. Law Review 1673 (2016)
• "Genocide in Syria: International Legal Options, International Legal Limits, and the Serious Problem of Political Will," 5 Impunity Watch Law Journal 1 (2015)
• "Can the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugosliavia Šainović and Perišić Cases Be Reconciled?" 108 American Journal of International Law 475 (2014)
• "Seven Canons of ICC Treaty Interpretation: Making Sense of Article 25’s Rorschach Blot," 27 Leiden Journal of International Law 755 (2014) (cited by the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Court in the Lubanga appeals judgement)
• "Crimes Against Humanity in the Modern Age," 107 American Journal of International Law 334 (2013)
• "America’s Drone Wars," 45 Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law 215 (2013)
• "The Legacy of the Nuremberg Trials: Seventy Years Later" in the Lecture Series of the United Nations Audiovisual Library of International Law
• "Avoiding the Creation of a Gender Ghetto in International Criminal Law," 11 International Criminal Law Review 655 (2011) (symposium in honor of Judge Patricia Wald)
• "Beyond Kampala: Complementarity and the International Criminal Court: The Next Steps for U.S. Engagement," ASIL Discussion Paper Series (November 2010)
• "On Legal Subterfuge and the So-Called 'Lawfare' Debate," 43 Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law 153 (2011)
• "A Rawlsian Approach to International Criminal Justice and the International Criminal Court," 19 Tulane Journal of International & Comparative Law 261 (2010) (Eberhard P. Deutsch Distinguished Lecture on International Law)
• "On the Shores of Lake Victoria: Africa and the Review Conference for the International Criminal Court," Africa Legal Aid Quarterly (March 2010)
• "The Nuremberg Paradox," 58 American Journal of Comparative Law 151 (2010) (Selected for the Princeton/Illinois Workshop in Comparative Law (2009))
• "Transjudicial Dialogue and the Rwandan Genocide: Aspects of Antagonism and Complementarity," 22 Leiden Journal of International Law 543 (2009) reprinted in Proceedings of the Second International Humanitarian Law Dialogs 123 (ASIL 2009)
• "A Presumption of Guilt: The Unlawful Enemy Combatant and the U.S. War on Terror," 37 Denver J. Int'l L. 539 (2009) (The 2008 Henry & Mary Bryan Lecture)
• "Shattering the Nuremberg Consensus: U.S. Rendition Policy and International Criminal Law," 3 Yale Journal of International Affairs 65 (2008)
• "Extraordinary Rendition, Torture and Other Nightmares from the War on Terror," 75 George Washington University Law Review 1200 (2007) (distributed as part of the "basic materials" to every team (~ 600 worldwide) in the 2007 Philip C. Jessup International Moot Court Competition)
• "Ghost Prisoners and Black Sites: Extraordinary Rendition under International Law," 37 Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law 309 (2006), reprinted in part in 15 ILSA Law Quarterly 9 (2007)
• "Exile, Amnesty and International Law," 81 Notre Dame Law Review 955 (2006) (reprinted in part in Louis Henkin, Laurence Helfer, et al., Human Rights, (2d ed. 2008))
• "An American Vision for Global Justice: Taking the Rule of (International) Law Seriously," 4 Washington University Global Studies Law Review 1 (2005)
• "Summer in Rome, Spring in The Hague, Winter in Washington? U.S. Policy Towards the International Criminal Court," 21 Wisconsin International Law Journal 557 (2004)
• "Do All Arabs Really Look Alike?," 50 Wayne State Law Review 69 (2004) (symposium honoring Edward M. Wise)
• "Terrorism and the Rule of Law," 3 Washington University Global Studies Law Review 135 (2004) (reprinted with updates in The International Humanitarian Law Dialogs, August 29, 2007: Celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the Hague Rules of 1907 (American Society of International Law 2008))
• "The Least Dangerous Branch: Six Letters from Publius to Cato in Support of the International Criminal Court," 35 Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law 339 (2003)
• "International Criminal Law and Alternative Modes of Redress," Proceedings, Kiel Symposium on International Law (Summer 2002)
• "Redefining Universal Jurisdiction," 35 New England Law Review 241 (2001) (lead symposium article) (reprinted in Paul Schiff Berman, The Globalization of International Law 241 (2006))
• "The New International Criminal Court: An Uneasy Revolution," 88 Georgetown Law Journal 381 (2000) (with S. Richard Carden) (reprinted in part in Mark Janis & John Noyes, International Law, Cases and Commentary 418 (3rd ed. 2006))
• "Custom, Codification and Some Thoughts About the Relationship Between the Two: Article 10 of the ICC Statute," 35 DePaul Law Review (2000) (festschrift for M. Cherif Bassiouni).
• "Observations on the Consolidated ICC Text Before the Final Session of the Preparatory Committee," 13bis Nouvelles Études Pénales (Leila Sadat Wexler, special ed. 1998)
• "Prosecutions for Crimes Against Humanity in French Municipal Law: International Implications," American Society of International Law, Proceedings of the 91st Annual Meeting 270 (1997)
• "International Law Association (American Branch) First Committee Report on Jurisdiction, Definition of Crimes and Complementarity," 13 Nouvelles Études Pénales 159 (Spring 1997) (also published in 25 Denver Journal of International Law & Politics 211)
• "The Proposed Permanent International Criminal Court: An Appraisal," 29 Cornell International Law Journal 665 (1996)
• "Official English, Nationalism and Linguistic Terror: A French Lesson," 71 Washington Law Review 285 (1996)
• "Reflections on the Trial of Vichy Collaborator Paul Touvier for Crimes against Humanity in France," 20 JOURNAL OF LAW & SOCIAL INQUIRY 191 (1995)
• "The Interpretation of the Nuremberg Principles by the French Court of Cassation: From Touvier to Barbie and Back Again," 32 Columbia Journal of Transnational Law 289 (1994) (reprinted in Bassiouni, Paust, et al., International Criminal Law, 1st, 2nd, & 3rd editions)

References