<span class="vcard">Leila Nadya Sadat</span>

Leila Nadya Sadat

Guest Author

Leila Nadya Sadat is the James Carr Professor of International Criminal Law and longtime Director of the Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute at Washington University School of Law. She currently serves as the Special Adviser on Crimes Against Humanity to the International Court Prosecutor (since 2012), and was a member of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom from 2001 to 2003. She is also a Fellow at the Schell Center for International Human Rights at Yale Law School. She spent Fall 2021 as a Senior Research Scholar at Yale Law School.

Sadat is one of the world’s foremost authorities in the fields of public international law, international criminal law, human rights, and foreign affairs, and has published more than 160 books and articles in leading journals, academic presses, and media outlets throughout the world. She was the first woman selected to hold the Alexis de Tocqueville Distinguished Fulbright Chair in Paris, France (2011) and received an Honorary Doctorate from Northwestern University as well as the Arthur Holly Compton Faculty Achievement Award from Washington University in 2017.

Sadat directs the Crimes Against Humanity Initiative, a ground-breaking project launched in 2008 to write the world’s first global treaty on crimes against humanity. Sadat is the current President of the International Law Association (American Branch), Chair of the American Association of Law Schools Section on International Law, and a member of the American Law Institute and the US Council on Foreign Relations.

Sadat holds law degrees from Columbia Law School, Tulane Law School, and the University of Paris I – Sorbonne. She is also on LinkedIn.

Articles by this author:

Various countries' flags in front of UN building and fence with UN symbol
The episode title appears with sound waves behind it.
General Assembly Hall of United Nations
The defendant is holding a file folder over his face as he sites in a row of seats in front of microphones apparently for testimony in a wood-paneled courtroom.
Flags from all countries outside of the UN building in Manhattan.
Venezuelan Gregorio Chinchilla shows a portrait of his late son Anrry Gregorio Chinchilla, 30, during an interview with AFP in the Coche neighborhood of Caracas, on March 11, 2023. The investigation at the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity in Venezuela was at a crucial moment: prosecutor Karim Khan had asked to keep the case open, arguing that there is a "reasonable basis" to believe that there were "systematic" human rights violations in the country. (Photo by MIGUEL ZAMBRANO/AFP via Getty Images)
Putin sits across Maria Lvova-Belova
Putin sits across Maria Lvova-Belova
This photo taken on September 16, 2022, shows the tree used to beat children to death in the former Khmer Rouge prison camp at the Choeung Ek killing fields memorial in Phnom Penh. Mementos such as beads and candles hang from the tree and surround the base, and a sign at the base of the tree says, “Killing tree against which executioners beat children.” Cambodia's UN-backed court set up to try Khmer Rouge leaders ends its work on September 22, but with just three convictions after 16 years' work the tribunal has brought only limited solace to survivors of the genocidal regime. (Photo by TANG CHHIN SOTHY/AFP via Getty Images)
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