The Inamori International Center for Ethics and Excellence at Case Western Reserve University awarded Judge Silvia Alejandra Fernández de Gurmendi, a leading figure in international justice, humanitarian law, and human rights and the first woman to serve as president of the International Criminal Court (ICC), with the 2020 Inamori Ethics Prize on September 23, 2021. Case Western Reserve has awarded the Inamori Ethics Prize annually since 2008 to individuals who have made significant and lasting contributions as global ethical leaders.
Judge Fernández is the first Latinx Inamori Ethics Prize recipient and the first from South America. She played a central role in the creation of the ICC and has worked tirelessly to see that those who commit war crimes and crimes against humanity are held accountable for their actions. Before joining the ICC, Judge Fernández was director general for human rights at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Argentina. She also represented Argentina before other human-rights bodies and advised on transitional-justice issues related to the prevention of genocide and other international crimes.
Judge Fernández was a professor of international criminal law at the University of Buenos Aires and a visiting professor at American University’s Washington College of Law’s Academy on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law. She holds a law degree from the University of Cordoba, Argentina, an LLM from the University of Limoges, France, and a PhD of Law from the University of Buenos Aires. She is currently chair-elect of the Global Action against Mass Atrocity Crimes.
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Conversations on JUSTICE with Inamori Ethics Prize Winners
Silvia Fernández de Gurmendi, LeVar Burton, Farouk El-Baz, and Marian Wright Edelman - 10/23/2020 - Event Transcript -
On April 30, 2021, CWRU students in GELS (Global Ethical Leaders Society) hosted 2020 Inamori Ethics Prize Winner, Judge Silvia Fernández de Gurmendi, for a GELS meeting to discuss the Uighur attempted genocide in China and the starvation crisis in Yemen.