ABILA is thrilled to announce the full International Law Weekend 2024 Organizing Committee.

Professor Warren Binford is the W.H. Lea for Justice Endowed Chair in Pediatric Law, Ethics & Policy, Director for Pediatric Law, Ethics & Policy at the Kempe Center at the University of Colorado. Professor Binford is an international children’s rights scholar and advocate whose research and writing largely focuses on 21st century forms of childhood harms.

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.

Professor Frédéric Sourgens is the James McCulloch Chair in Energy Law at Tulane Law School and Director of the Tulane Center for Energy Law. Prior to teaching at Tulane, Sourgens served as the Senator Robert J. Dole Distinguished Professor of Law at Washburn University School of Law.

Professor Diane Marie Amann is the Regents’ Professor of International Law and holds the Emily & Ernest Woodruff Chair in International Law at the University of Georgia School of Law. She has served since mid-2017 as a Faculty Co-Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center, a position she took up after completing a term as Associate Dean for International Programs & Strategic Initiatives.

Michael Garcia Bochenek is senior counsel to the Children’s Rights Division of Human Rights Watch, focusing on juvenile justice and refugee and migrant children. From 2006 to 2015, he was director of policy and then director of law and policy for Amnesty International’s secretariat in London, where he oversaw strategic litigation, among other responsibilities.

Chloe Baldwin is an Associate at Steptoe’s Washington DC Office. Baldwin focuses on international disputes and public international law, and in particular the resolution of international investment disputes. She currently advises sovereign and non-sovereign clients in international investment proceedings, binational proceedings, and matters arising under the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Christine Carpenter is an Associate at Dechert’s Philadelphia Office. Carpenter focuses her practice on cross-border litigation and international arbitration, and particularly on matters concerning elements of public international law or foreign law. She has represented clients including corporations, state entities, and individuals in civil disputes involving contract, Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act, Class Action Fairness Act, and Anti-Terrorism Act issues, among others.

Rez Gardi is co-founder of the Centre for Asia Pacific Refugee Studies and an Adjunct Research Fellow at the University of Auckland. She is the Co-Managing Director for Refugees Seeking Equal Access at the Table (R-SEAT), a global initiative seeking to solidify commitments from states to enshrine refugee participation in the global refugee regime.

Professor Preston Lim is an assistant professor of law at Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law. His teaching and research interests include public international law – particularly China’s relationship with the international legal system – and comparative constitutional law, with a focus on Canadian constitutional interpretation.

Professor Asaf Lubin is an Associate Professor of Law at Indiana University Maurer School of Law. He is additionally, a Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, an Affiliated Fellow at Yale Law School’s Information Society Project, and a Visiting Scholar at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Federmann Cyber Security Research Center.

Viren Mascarenhas is a partner in Milbank’s New York office and a member of the firm’s Litigation & Arbitration Group. Mr. Mascarenhas specializes in international arbitration (commercial, construction, and investment arbitration), public international law, and business and human rights.

Jessica Peake Assistant Director of the Promise Institute for Human Rights and the Director of International and Comparative Law Program at UCLA School of Law. She also oversees UCLA Law’s Visiting Scholars and Researchers Program. Peake teaches courses on Human Rights and War Crimes Digital Investigations and the Law of War and the War on Terror.

Douglas Pivnichny is an Associate Legal Officer at the United Nations. He previously served as an Associate Legal Officer at the International Court of Justice and at the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Hadley Rose Staley is the Executive Director for Friends of the Public-Private Partnership for Justice Reform in Afghanistan (FPJRA). For the past 15 years, she has worked on international development and rule of law projects. From June 2013 until August 2014, she was also the chair of the law department at the American University of Afghanistan, a not-for-profit liberal arts university that has since moved to operate remotely.

Professor Achinthi Vithanage is the Associate Director of Environmental Law Programs at Pace University. Previously, Vithanage was a Visiting Associate Professor of Law and the first Environmental and Energy Law Fellow with an international law background at the George Washington University Law School. She is an admitted solicitor of the state of New South Wales (NSW) in Australia.

Professor 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.

Naomi Rothenberg is a JD Candidate at Seattle University School of Law and Project Coordinator for the Kempe Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Child Abuse and Neglect at the University of Colorado. Rothenberg served as a 2022 ABILA Student Ambassador and will serve as our first Student Representative.

Freya Doughty-Wagner is ABILA’s Chief Content Officer, the Regional Director for North America for the Global Network for Human Rights and the Environment, and a climate justice consultant.

Julia Liston is ABILA’s Chief Operating Officer, Instructor, and LLM Program Fellow at Case Western Reserve University School of Law.

Professor Leila Nadya 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.

Professor Michael Scharf is ABILA’s President and has been Co-Dean of Case Western Reserve University School of Law since 2013. He is also 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.