University of North Dakota law professor Gregory Gordon heads to the Hague next week to an international law conference to present his article “Complementarity and Alternative Justice”. The article was selected from a large number of submissions from around the world for presentation on September 16 at the “The International Criminal Court (ICC) and Complementarity – From Theory to Practice” conference.

The conference will include presentations from Gordon and several other renowned international criminal law experts, including Luis Moreno Ocampo, ICC chief prosecutor; Christopher Hall, senior legal adviser for Amnesty International; and David Tolbert, registrar of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. 

The conference is being organized by the Grotius Center for International Legal Studies of Leiden University in the Hague. It will take place at the Peace Palace, home of the International Court of Justice and the Permanent Court of Arbitration, and at the Leiden University campus.

Gordon’s article on complementarity proposes a new test for admission of cases to the ICC when domestic jurisdictions seek to use alternative justice mechanisms, such as truth commissions and tribal rituals, in lieu of traditional criminal investigation and prosecution.  Complementarity is the principle which awards primacy of jurisdiction to a country's domestic courts unless the ICC determines the state unwilling or unable genuinely to prosecute. Gordon also will present the article at the University of Missouri next month and has been invited to present it next year at Manchester University, United Kingdom.  It has been accepted for publication in the Oregon Law Review next spring.

Gordon, a former prosecutor with the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the U.S. Department of Justice, has written extensively on international criminal law and procedures.  His article “Toward an International Criminal Procedure: Due Process Aspirations and Limitations” appeared in the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law and has been used by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia as training material for incoming prosecutors, investigators, and interns.  

At the end of October, Gordon is slated to deliver a lecture in Rwanda, Africa on the subject of universal jurisdiction in atrocity cases.

Contact:
Gregory Gordon, assistant professor
University of North Dakota School of Law
(701) 777-2262 gordon@law.und.edu

Juan Pedraza, Office of University Relations
(701) 777-6571 juanpedraza@mail.und.edu