3-6 December 2014, Courtroom 600, Nuremberg, Germany
On 3-6 Decemeber 2014, the International Nuremberg Principles Academy and the Wayamo Foundation hosted a two-day conference and concurrent four-day journalism workshop featuring international prosecutors, war crimes and crimes against humanity investigators, academics, journalists, and representatives of civil society. See the CONFERENCE PROGRAMME and WORKSHOP PROGRAMME.
The United Nations Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide Adama Dieng provided the keynote speech at the conference. Also appearing was the 2014 winner of Human Rights Watch’s Alison Des Forges Award Father Bernard Kinvi, the Hospital Director at the Roman Catholic Mission in Bossemptele, Central African Republic.
The conference and workshop were held in Courtroom 600 at the Palace of Justice, the location of the historic Nuremberg Trials in Nuremberg, Germany.
The conference sessions were organised in panel-discussion format to encourage open debate, and included expert speakers that formed interdisciplinary panels.
The panel debates focused on:
- Challenges in implementing the genocide convention: Prevention and accountability
- Genocide and mass crimes in the courtroom: Judicial investigations and prosecutions
- Protecting populations from atrocity crimes
- Syria and Iraq: Challenges of preventing impunity and promoting accountability
- Preventing and responding to incitement to violence
The days before and after the conference were devoted to an international media workshop with 12 senior journalists from European, Asian, African, and Arab countries. The workshop focued on reporting on genocide and mass atrocities, focusing on the role of journalists before, during and after mass violence.
The journalism workshop focused on:
- Conflict prevention, peace building and reconciliation: Instead of fanning political violence – how can media calm it?
- Categorising atrocities: perpetrators, victims, and the language and politics of mass violence and genocide
- The aftermath of genocide and mass violence: covering war crimes trials
- Information flows in times of crisis: crisis mapping and verification
- Online safety and security
- Freedom of speech versus hate speech
Conference speakers, panellists and moderators:
- Adama Dieng, Special Adviser to the UN Secretary General on the Prevention of Genocide
- Bernd Borchardt, Founding Director, International Nuremberg Principles Academy
- Margit Hellwig-Bötte, Head of Division (Conceptual Issues and R2P), UN Department, Federal Foreign Office, Germany
- Peter Bouckaert, Director, Emergencies, Human Rights Watch
- Agnès Callamard, Director, Global Freedom of Expression & Information
- Special Adviser to the President, Columbia University, New York
- Thierry Cruvellier, Veteran international journalist and author of The Master of Confessions: The Making of a Khmer Rouge Torturer
- Paola Gaeta, Professor of International Criminal Law at the Law Faculty of the University of Geneva and Adjunct Professor of International Criminal Law at the Graduate Institute for International and Development Studies
- Gregory S. Gordon, Associate Professor and Director/ Assistant Dean for the PhD-MPhil Programme at the Chinese University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law
- Hadi Habal, The Syrian Archive
- Rainer Huhle, Political Scientist, Member of the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances
- Michelle Jarvis, Principal Legal Counsel, Office of the Prosecutor, ICTY
- Joan Kagezi, Prosecutor, International Crimes Division Uganda
- Mark Kersten, Researcher at the London School of Economics and SOAS, author of Justice in Conflict
- Father Bernard Kinvi, Hospital Director, Roman Catholic Mission in Bossemptele, Central African Republic
- Krzysztof Kotarski, Project Manager, Wayamo Foundation
- Timothy Mackin, Assistant Director for War Crimes and Genocide Sub-Directorate, INTERPOL
- Vahidin Omanović, Co-founder and Co-Director of the Centre for Peacebuilding, Bosnia
- Falk Pingel, The Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research
- Joseph Roberts-Mensah, Africa Director, Wayamo Foundation
- Stephen Starr, Irish journalist and author, founder and editor in chief of Near East Quarterly
- Uğur Ümit Üngör, Associate Professor at the Department of History at Utrecht University and at the NIOD: Institute for War, Holocaust, and Genocide Studies in Amsterdam
- Daudi Were, Project Director, Ushahidi
- Alex Whiting, Professor, Harvard Law School
- William H. Wiley, Commission for International Justice and Accountability;
- Jamie A. Williamson, Legal Advisor, International Committee of the Red Cross, Geneva
- Davide Zaru, Associate Political Affairs Officer at the UN Office on the Prevention of Genocide and the Responsibility to Protect
Photos by Kris Kotarski, Wayamo.
