Professor Leila Nadya Sadat is the James Carr Professor of International Criminal Law at Washington University and was a visitor at Yale Law School from 2021-2024. She served as Special Adviser on Crimes Against Humanity to the ICC Prosecutor from 2013-2023 and is on the registered list of experts for the Moscow Mechanism of the OSCE. A devoted teacher and prolific scholar, she is recognized for her expertise in international law, human rights, and international criminal law, publishing over 180 articles and books in leading journals, academic presses, and media outlets throughout the world. Sadat was the first woman to receive the Alexis de Tocqueville Distinguished Fulbright Chair (2011) and has received many awards for her work including an Honorary Doctorate from Northwestern University, the Arthur Holly Compton Faculty Achievement Award from Washington University, the Klatsky Humanitarian Award from Case Western Reserve School of Law, the Charles M. English Award from the American Bar Association Criminal Justice Section, and the Goler T. Butcher Medal from the American Society of International Law. In 2008, Sadat launched the Crimes Against Humanity Initiative to write the world’s first global treaty on crimes against humanity and continues to spearhead its negotiation and adoption at the UN. Closer to home, she has been working on gun violence as a human rights crisis, recently publishing Torture in our Schools? with the Harvard Law Review, addressing mass school shootings in America. She is Chair of the International Law Association (American Branch), a member of the American Law Institute and the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations and has held leadership positions in many other learned societies including the American Society of International Law. Sadat holds law degrees from Columbia and Tulane Law Schools, and the University of Paris I – Sorbonne. Prior to entering the academy, she clerked for U.S. Appeals Judge Albert Tate, Jr., at the French Cour de Cassation and Conseil d’état, and practiced international commercial law in Paris, France for several years.

This event is sponsored by The University of Chicago Law School's International Programs, International Law Society, and Human Rights Law Society.

Lunch will be provided. Please submit dietary requests eight business days prior to the program to Aican Nguyen at aican@uchicago.edu. Although we will try to accommodate dietary needs, it is not guaranteed.