International Criminal Courts: Are They Serving the Needs of Victims and Their Families? Or Should they be?

PRIO welcomes you to a seminar about the International Criminal Courts and their relation to the needs of victims.

At the seminar, there will be presentations by Professor Eric Stover and Alexa Koenig, both from the Human Rights Centre of the UC Berkeley.

Welcoming remarks: Kristian Berg Harpviken, PRIO Director
Discussants: Greg Reichberg and Helga Malm Binningsbø, PRIO Researchers
Chair: Inger Skjelsbæk, PRIO Deputy Director

Eric Stover is Faculty Director of the Human Rights Center and Adjunct Professor of Law and Public Health at UC Berkeley. In the early 1990s, Stover took part in conducting the first research on the social and medical consequences of land mines in Cambodia and other post-war countries. During the wars in Croatia and Bosnia, he served on several medico-legal investigations as an "Expert on Mission" to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. He conducted a survey of mass graves throughout Rwanda for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in 1995. In the late 1990s, he did an inter-disciplinary research project on opinions and attitudes about the Yugoslav and Rwanda tribunals in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. His most recent books include Cut: My Neighbor, My Enemy: Justice and Community in the Aftermath of Mass Atrocity (edited, with Harvey Weinstein); The Guantanamo Effect: Exposing the Consequences of US Detention and Interrogation Practices; and The Witnesses: War Crimes and the Promise of Justice in The Hague.

Alexa Koenig is the Interim Executive Director of the Human Rights Center. She supports the qualitative and quantitative research design of the Center's various projects and is responsible for the Center's overall administration, including fundraising, communications and outreach. Prior to her appointment, she conducted significant legal and empirical research on civil and human rights-related topics. In addition to having taught at the University of San Francisco School of Law and U.C. Berkeley, she has co-authored numerous articles and reports on war crimes-related issues. Koenig holds a J.D. from the University of San Francisco School of Law, an M.A. from U.C. Berkeley, and is in the final stages of completing her Ph.D. in U.C. Berkeley's Jurisprudence and Social Policy program.