CWRU’s War Crimes Research Office organizes an annual conference in August known as the International Humanitarian Law Roundtable at the Robert H. Jackson Center on the shores of Lake Chautauqua, about 90 minutes from Cleveland. The intimate conference doubles as an annual retreat for the world’s international prosecutors and other war crimes experts.
The 2026 Roundtable was the eighteenth iteration of this unique gathering. The tenth annual Roundtable was held in Nuremberg, Germany and the 20th will be held in The Hague in 2028. The Chair of the 18th Roundtable was Michael Cooper, the Executive Director of the American Society of International Law.
This year’s Roundtable kicked off on August 30, 2026, with a panel of current and former international prosecutors. It was the largest number of participating international prosecutors in the history of the Roundtable. The prosecutors included David Crane (founding chief prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone and co-founder of the Global Accountability Network), Andrew Caley (former Chief International Co-Prosecutor of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia and Principal Trial Lawyer at the International Criminal Court), Norm Farrel (former Deputy Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia and Chief Prosecutor of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, Hassan Jallo (Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda), Jim Johnson (Chief Prosecutor of the Residual Special Court for Sierra Leone and Director of the Henry King War Crimes Research Office at Case Western Reserve University School of Law), Nick Kumjian (former International Co-Prosecutor of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia and currently Head of the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar), Mathias Marcussen (Officer-in-Charge of the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Residual Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals), Valerie Oosterveld (Associate Vice President for Research at Western University in Canada and formerly Special Adviser to the International Criminal Court’s Prosecutor on Crimes Against Humanity), Robert Petit (former International Co-Prosecutor of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia and currently Head of the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism Investigating Serious Crimes in Syria), Stephen Rapp (former Chief Prosecutor of the SCSL and Ambassador at Large for War Crimes Issues at the U.S. Department of State), and Kim West Chief Prosecutor of the Kosovo Specialist Chamber in The Hague).
The Prosecutors’ panel, which provided both an update on developments at several international tribunals and the international justice-related work of the former prosecutors, was moderated by CWRU Law Professor Michael Scharf who is also the President of the American Branch of the International Law Association.
On the second day (August 31), the Roundtable featured three 90-minute discussions of salient issues in international criminal law: Roundtable 1: “Unilateral Use of Force and the Fraying UN Charter Paradigm” moderated by Professors Paul Williams (AU) and Jennifer Trahan (NYU); Roundtable 2: “Positive Activities, Trends, and Developments” moderated by Professor Valerie Oosterveld (Western Ontario) and Phoebe Juel (a CWRU Law alum who serves as Executive Director of the Global Accountability Network); and Roundtable III: “Wavering Commitment to International Humanitarian Law in Contemporary Conflicts,” moderated by Justine Stefanelli (ASIL).
Four CWRU students, who are officers of the Law School’s Middle East Accountability Project, served as the Rapporteurs of the IHL Roundtable. They were:
- Pilar Sofia Corso, 3L, Founding Executive Director of MEAP
- Melinda Burgun, 2L, Editor in Chief of MEAP
- Danielle Shoemake, 2L, Chief of Investigations & Intelligence of MEAP
- Mitchell O'Brien, 2L, Task Force Lead for the Levant Monitoring Task Force in MEAP
The summaries of the discussions that the student Rapporteurs prepare will be published in an annual volume by the American Society of International Law.