The Founders: Four Pioneering Individuals Who Launched the First Modern-era International Criminal Tribunals

David M. Crane is the first American to be named the Chief Prosecutor of an international war crimes tribunal since Justice Robert Jackson at Nuremberg in 1945. He is one of the most recognizable international criminal lawyers in the world, renowned as the person who took down the most powerful warlord in Africa, President Charles Taylor of Liberia – the only person to have taken down a sitting head of state for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the modern era. Crane is now leading the international effort to hold President Assad of Syria and his henchmen accountable.

Leila Sadat is the James Carr Professor of International Criminal Law at Washington University and Director of the Harris World Law Institute. Since 2012 she has served as Special Adviser on Crimes Against Humanity to the ICC Prosecutor, and in 2008 launched the Crimes Against Humanity Initiative to address the scourge of global atrocity crimes and draft a treaty on their punishment and prevention. Sadat is an award-winning scholar who recently received an Honorary Doctorate from Northwestern University, Illinois. She is incoming President of the International Law Association (American Branch) and a member of the US Council on Foreign Relations.

Michael P. Scharf is Dean of Case Western Reserve University School of Law. Scharf is the author of eighteen books, including three that have won national book of the year honors. During the elder Bush and Clinton Administrations, he served as Attorney-Adviser for UN Affairs in the Office of the Legal Adviser of the US Department of State. He is the Co-Founder of the Nobel Peace Prize-nominated Public International Law and Policy Group.