Professor William A. Schabas is professor of international law at Middlesex University in London. He also has appointments at the National University of Ireland Galway, where he is professor of human rights law and chairman of the Irish Centre for Human Rights, at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, in Beijing, as honorary professor, Kellogg College of the University of Oxford, where he is a visiting fellow, and at the Université du Québec à Montréal, as professeur associé. Prof. Schabas is a ‘door tenant’ at the chambers of 9 Bedford Row, in London

Professor Schabas is editor-in-chief of Criminal Law Forum, the quarterly journal of the International Society for the Reform of Criminal Law. He is President of the Irish Branch of the International Law Association and chair of the International Institute for Criminal Investigation. From 2002 to 2004 he served as one of three international members of the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Professor Schabas has worked as a consultant on capital punishment for the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, and drafted the 2010 report of the Secretary-General on the status of the death penalty (UN Doc. E/2010/10).

Professor Schabas was named an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2006. He was elected a member of the Royal Irish Academy in 2007 and in 2011 he received its Gold Medal in the Social Sciences. He has been awarded the Vespasian V. Pella Medal for International Criminal Justice of the Association internationale de droit pénal.

B.A., history, University of Toronto, 1972 (‘honours history’)

M.A., history (international relations), University of Toronto, 1973 (thesis: ‘Anglo-Soviet relations, 1917-1934’)

LL.B., University of Montréal, 1983

LL.M., University of Montréal, 1990 (thesis: ‘Use of international human rights law before the Canadian courts’)

LL.D., University of Montréal, 1992 (thesis: ‘The abolition of the death penalty in international

LL.D. honoris causa, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada, 25 May 2007.

LL.D. honoris causa, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, 17 May 2009.

LL.D. honoris causa, Northwestern University, Chicago, 17 June 2011.

Human rights law

International criminal law

International Criminal Court

Transitional justice

Capital punishment

Supervision of doctoral students

Professor William A. Schabas is professor of international law at Middlesex University in London. He also has appointments at the National University of Ireland Galway, where he is professor of human rights law and chairman of the Irish Centre for Human Rights, at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, in Beijing, as honorary professor, Kellogg College of the University of Oxford, where he is a visiting fellow, and at the Université du Québec à Montréal, as professeur associé. Prof. Schabas is a ‘door tenant’ at the chambers of 9 Bedford Row, in London

Professor Schabas is editor-in-chief of Criminal Law Forum, the quarterly journal of the International Society for the Reform of Criminal Law. He is President of the Irish Branch of the International Law Association and chair of the International Institute for Criminal Investigation. From 2002 to 2004 he served as one of three international members of the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Professor Schabas has worked as a consultant on capital punishment for the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, and drafted the 2010 report of the Secretary-General on the status of the death penalty (UN Doc. E/2010/10).

Professor Schabas was named an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2006. He was elected a member of the Royal Irish Academy in 2007 and in 2011 he received its Gold Medal in the Social Sciences. He has been awarded the Vespasian V. Pella Medal for International Criminal Justice of the Association internationale de droit pénal.

He is the author of more than twenty books dealing in whole or in part with international human rights law, including The International Criminal Court: A Commentary on the Rome Statute(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), Introduction to the International Criminal Court (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011, 4th ed.), Genocide in International Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2nd ed., 2009) and The Abolition of the Death Penalty in International Law (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003, 3rd ed.). He has also published more than 300 articles in academic journals, principally in the field of international human rights law and international criminal law. His writings have been translated into Russian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Nepali and Albanian.

See blog: humanrights doctorate.blogspot.com

A link to the full c.v. is available on the blog.

Languages spoken

French