ABILA is thrilled to announce the International Law Weekend 2024 Co-Chairs: Professor Warren Binford of the University of Colorado, Madaline George of White & Case, and Professor Frédéric Sourgens of Tulane University.

Warren Binford is the Co-Chair of our International Human Rights Law Committee and a long-standing member of ABILA. She is an international children’s rights scholar and advocate whose research and writing largely focuses on 21st century forms of childhood harms. She has published a wide variety of 80+ works and given hundreds of presentations worldwide. Media appearances on children’s issues include CNN, BBC, NBC, NPR, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Newsweek, Washington Post, New Yorker, Atlantic, and many others. In 2020, Professor Binford became the inaugural W.H. Lea Endowed Chair for Justice in Pediatric Law, Policy and Ethics at the University of Colorado where she is a Professor of Pediatrics (tenured), Professor of Law (by courtesy), and a core faculty member in the Center for Bioethics and the Humanities at the CU School of Medicine. She serves as the Director of Law, Policy and Ethics at CU’s Kempe Center on the Prevention and Treatment of Child Abuse and Neglect. 2024 will be a century since the first Child Rights Declaration, so her insight will be invaluable. Binford says: “International Law Weekend has always been one of my favorite events of the year because of the powerful and relevant exchanges that happen when you bring together hundreds of international law students, professionals, and academics to rigorously address the most difficult problems we face as a global community. The fact that I was asked to serve in this role in 2024—the 100^th anniversary of the League of Nations 1924 Declaration of the Rights of the Child—is especially exciting because the occasion reminds us of the impact that international norms and laws have played, and can continue to play, in changing the course of history for current and future generations.”

Madaline George has been the ears and eyes of ABILA for many years, only recently having left her position as ABILA COO to join White & Case as their Global Citizenship Manager. George was the Senior Fellow at the Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute, working alongside our Chair Leila Nadya Sadat, before becoming ABILA’s Membership Officer, International Law Weekend Coordinator, and finally Chief Operating Officer. She says: “Having worked on ILW over the past decade, I am thrilled and honored to step into this new role as an ILW 2024 co-chair, alongside my distinguished colleagues. I have seen first hand the unique environment that ILW provides for students, practitioners, academics, diplomats and more from across the globe to discuss some of the most pressing issues affecting the international community. This year’s Organizing Committee and theme emphasize the importance of bringing all voices to the table, and we look forward to deepening these conversions in the fall.”

Frédéric Sourgens is on ABILA’s Board of Directors and is a regular feature at ILW, having presented on several environmental and energy-based panels with his quintessential enthusiasm. Additionally, his book Good Faith in Transnational Law, A Pluralist Account (Brill Nijhoff, 2022) was voted ABILA’s Book of the Year 2023. Sourgens is the James McCulloch Chair in Energy Law at Tulane Law School and Director of the Tulane Center for Energy Law and previously served as the Senator Robert J. Dole Distinguished Professor of Law at Washburn University School of Law. He holds a wide array of additional titles and positions, including the Chair of the Southwest Institute for International and Comparative Law and is on the American Society of International Law executive council. Regarding being an ILW Co-Chair, Sourgens says: “I look forward to the vibrant exchange particularly with the next generation of international lawyers.  Engaging with them on the role of international lawyers in a world that increasingly challenges the very idea of an international rule of law is going to be instrumental in returning us to a path where law is again a powerful force in guiding and constraining global action that can hope to solve our shared and existential problems.”

Look out for the ILW 2024 theme and call for proposals soon.