Announcing: ILW 2025 Organizing Committee
ABILA is thrilled to announce the full International Law Weekend 2025 Organizing Committee.
William Aceves has served on the ABILA Board for many years and was recently elected a Vice-President of the organization. He teaches at California Western School of Law in San Diego, where he also serves as the Chief Justice Roger Traynor Professor of Law. Aceves works at the intersection of civil rights and human rights and has published extensively in these fields. He has also represented several human rights and civil liberties organizations as amicus curiae counsel in cases before the federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court.
Amity Boye is a longstanding board member of ABILA. She is President-Elect and has also served as Secretary and Vice-President. Amity operates at the crossroads of the non-profit and private sectors, advising global institutions on their strategic and mission-driven endeavors. For thirteen years, she served as Chief of Staff to the Chair of global law firm White & Case. She also has an active pro bono practice in the areas of criminal justice and international law.
Jess Peake is the Director of the International and Comparative Law Program at UCLA School of Law. Jess teaches courses on Human Rights and War Crimes, Digital Investigations and the Law of War, and the War on Terror. She launched UCLA Law’s Digital Investigations Lab and co-founded the University of California Digital Investigations Network. Jess serves on the Board of Directors of the International Law Students Association and has served on several committees of the American Society of International Law.
Christine Carpenter is an international lawyer and PhD Candidate in International Relations & Politics at the University of Cambridge, where her research focuses on reproductive surveillance and the State. Previously, she has practiced international arbitration and complex litigation at Dechert LLP.
Perpétua B. Chéry is an Associate in the Litigation Department at a leading global law firm, but is joining the Organizing Committee in her personal capacity. From 2020 to 2021, she served as a Judicial Fellow to H.E. Judge Mohamed Bennouna at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands. Prior to law school, Chéry worked extensively with governments and non-State actors throughout West and Central Africa on issues related to peace and security, governance, and human rights.
Megan Corrarino is Managing Editor of Just Security and a Research Scholar at New York University School of Law. She was previously an associate at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, where her practice focused on complex commercial litigation, international dispute resolution, and human rights; and a Robert L. Bernstein International Human Rights Fellow at Human Rights First.
Julia K. Eppard serves as Counsel with Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP. Julia’s practice focuses on trade remedy cases, representing companies, trade associations and foreign governments in antidumping and countervailing duty investigations, administrative reviews, sunset reviews, court appeals, binational panel reviews and global safeguard proceedings.
M. Imad Khan is a Partner with Winston & Strawn LLP’s Houston office. He is an international disputes lawyer who represents and advises sovereigns, multinational companies, state-owned entities, and intergovernmental organizations through all aspects of international dispute resolution. He is particularly experienced in investment treaty and international commercial arbitration under all major arbitral rules, including the ICC, ICDR, AAA, HKIAC, LCIA, ICSID, and UNCITRAL.
Konstantine Kopaliani is an Associate for White & Case LLP in the International Arbitration Group in Paris. He represents and advises clients in complex construction, commercial, and investment treaty arbitrations, as well as in matters of public international law. Prior to joining White & Case, Konstantine worked with the Codification Division of the UN Office of Legal Affairs.
Brady Mabe is a legal adviser with the International Committee of the Red Cross in the delegation to the United Nations, in New York, and also acts in his personal capacity as an independent consultant on international humanitarian law for the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, with previous field- and US-based experience in international human rights law.
S. Priya Morley is the Director of NYU Law School’s Racial Justice Initiative and a Bernstein Institute for Human Rights Project Advisor for the Global Justice Clinic. Before joining the Bernstein Institute, Priya was on the faculty at UCLA Law as Director of the International Human Rights Clinic and Racial Justice Policy Counsel at the Promise Institute for Human Rights, where she led academic, advocacy, and policy initiatives at the intersection of racial justice and critical approaches to human rights.
Douglas Pivnichny is a Legal Officer with the United Nations’ Codification Division. He previously served as an Associate Legal Officer at the International Court of Justice and at the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Lisa Reinsberg is the Executive Director of the International Justice Resource Center (IJRC), an organization she founded with the goal of making human rights protections more accessible and transparent for advocates and victims. Lisa has diverse experience in human rights advocacy, litigation, and research. Prior to founding IJRC, she was an attorney with Prisoners’ Legal Services of Massachusetts.
Christine Ryan directs legal strategies for reproductive rights and gender justice at the Human Rights Institute, Columbia University. Christine is also an Associate Fellow at Essex University, UK, where she advises on human rights approaches to countering hate. Her previous roles include serving as Legal Director of the Global Justice Center, Senior Advisor to the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, Acting Director of Impact Iran, and as Human Rights Advisor to the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs.
Alveena Shah is an Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Law. Professor Alveena Shah’s research focuses on economic law, including colonial legacies in international market structures and international economic law. Her work explores financial markets and related legal regimes through lenses of critical race theory, third world approaches to international law, and feminist political economy.
Milena Sterio is the Charles R. Emrick Jr – Calfee, Halter & Griswold Endowed Professor of Law and Director of the LL.M Program at Cleveland State University College of Law. Her research interests are in the field of international law, international criminal law, international human rights, law of the seas, and in particular maritime piracy, as well as private international law. Before joining the Cleveland-Marshall faculty, she was an associate in the New York City firm of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton and an Adjunct Law Professor at Cornell, where she taught in the International War Crimes Clinic.
Peter Tzeng is a Partner at Foley Hoag LLP, where he exclusively advises and represents sovereign States on matters of international law and international organizations. He regularly litigates cases before the International Court of Justice, and also represents States in inter-State and investor-State arbitration.
Elisabeth Wickeri is Executive Director of the Leitner Center for International Law and Justice at Fordham Law School and Adjunct Professor of Law. Elisabeth teaches courses in public international law, comparative legal frameworks, and carries out fieldwork, research, and writing on legal developments in Asia.
Freya Doughty-Wagner is ABILA’s Chief Communications/Content Officer, the Regional Director for North America for the Global Network for Human Rights and the Environment, and a climate justice consultant.
Rekha Rangachari is ABILA’s Chief Operating Officer and serves as Executive Director of the New York International Arbitration Center (NYIAC), where she collaborates with stakeholders and thought leaders in the space to advance global scholarship and best practices in addition to operating world-class hearing facilities in Manhattan.
Leila N. Sadat is ABILA’s Chair, the James Carr Professor of International Criminal Law and longtime Director (2007-2021) of the Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute at Washington University Law School. She served as Special Adviser on Crimes Against Humanity to two International Criminal Court Prosecutors, Fatou Bensouda and Karim A.A. Khan, K.C, from 2012-2023.
Michael P. Scharf is ABILA’s President, Associate Dean for Global Legal Studies at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, the Joseph C. Hostetler—BakerHostetler Professor of Law and serves as Managing Director of the Public International Law & Policy Group, a Nobel Peace Prize-nominated NGO.
