Retreat Speakers

M. Cherif Bassiouni
M. Cherif Bassiouni is a distinguished research professor of law emeritus at DePaul University College of Law and president emeritus of the law school’s International Human Rights Law Institute. He also is president of the International Institute of Higher Studies in Criminal Sciences in Siracusa, Italy, and honorary president of the International Association of Penal Law in Paris, France.

Bassiouni has served the United Nations in a number of capacities, including as co-chair of the Committee of Experts to draft the Convention on the Prevention and Suppression of Torture (1977); member, then chairman, of the Security Council's Commission to Investigate War Crimes in the Former Yugoslavia (1992-1994); vice-chairman of the General Assembly's Ad Hoc and Preparatory Committees on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court (1995 and 1998); chairman of the Drafting Committee of the 1998 Diplomatic Conference on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court; independent expert for the Commission on Human Rights on The Rights to Restitution, Compensation and Rehabilitation for Victims of Grave Violations of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (1998-2000); and independent expert for the Commission on Human Rights on the Situation of Human Rights in Afghanistan (2004-2006).

In 1999, Bassiouni was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in the field of international criminal justice and for his contribution to the creation of the International Criminal Court.

John Washburn
Mr. Washburn has had an extensive career in diplomacy and international governmental and non-governmental organizations. He is currently Convener of the American Non-Governmental Organizations Coalition for the International Criminal Court (AMICC), co-chair of the Washington Working Group on the International Criminal Court (WICC), and a past president of the Unitarian Universalist United Nations Office.

In association with the international NGO Coalition for the International Criminal Court (CICC), he attended most of the United Nations Negotiations on the International Criminal Court since 1994, including all of the 1998 diplomatic conference in Rome.

Mr. Washburn was a member of the Foreign Service of the United States from 1963 to 1987. He was a director in the Executive Office of the Secretary-General of the United Nations between January 1988 and April 1993. Thereafter, he was a director in the Department of Political Affairs at the United Nations until March 1994.

He received a special commendation from the Secretary of State for his service and has also been awarded the State Department’s Meritorious Honor Award and Superior Honor Award.

Bartram Brown
Bartram Brown, professor of Law and Co-Director, Program in International and Comparative Law at the Chicago-Kent College of Law, is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and serves on the Board of Directors of Amnesty International, USA. He also is a member of the Advisory Board of the American Bar Association's Central and Eastern European Law Initiative (CEELI).

He served as a law clerk at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and participated in the 1998 Rome Diplomatic Conference on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court as Legal Advisor to the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. In 1999 and 2000, he was a public member of the United States Delegation to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva, Switzerland.

He has recently led or participated in human rights fact-finding missions to several countries including Haiti, Bahrain and Malawi.

Dan Thomann
Dan Thomann is a Chicago attorney who graduated from The University of Missouri-Columbia School of Law. He has volunteered with Lawyers Without Borders and The Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. Mr. Thomann also started the Chicago Alliance for the ICC (CAICC).

David Scheffer
David Scheffer holds an endowed professorship and serves as the Director of the Center for International Human Rights at Northwestern Law. He teaches International Human Rights Law, International Criminal Law, and Corporate Human Rights Responsibility. Scheffer was previously the U.S. Ambassador at Large for War Crimes Issues (1997-2001) and led the U.S. delegation in U.N. talks establishing the International Criminal Court.

During his ambassadorship, he negotiated and coordinated U.S. support for the establishment and operation of international and hybrid criminal tribunals and U.S. responses to atrocities anywhere in the world. Scheffer also headed the Atrocities Prevention Inter-Agency Working Group.

During the first term of the Clinton Administration, he served as senior adviser and counsel to the U.S. Representative to the United Nations, Dr. Madeleine Albright, and served from 1993 through 1996 on the Deputies Committee of the National Security Council.

Major General William Nash
William L. Nash is a retired U.S. Army Major General who commanded the 1st Armored Division of the United States Army when it went to Bosnia in 1995 for a year as a peacekeeping operation. He served in the Army for 34 years, and is a veteran of Vietnam and Operation Desert Storm.

Since his retirement in 1998, Nash has been a Fellow and Visiting Lecturer at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, and Director of Civil-Military Programs at the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs.

In addition to his duties at the Council on Foreign Relations, General Nash is an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University. He joined the U.N. fact-finding team to develop accurate information regarding events in the Jenin refugee camp. Nash is Director of the Council’s Center for Preventive Action, which seeks ways to prevent ethnic and civil conflicts from escalating into deadly violence.