David J. Scheffer is Professor of Practice in the School of Politics and Global Studies at Arizona State University. He was the Mayer Brown/Robert A. Helman Professor of Law at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law (2006-2020) and is Director Emeritus of the Center for International Human Rights. He was the International Francqui Professor at KU Leuven in 2022. Scheffer was the first U.S. Ambassador at Large for War Crimes Issues (1997-2001) and negotiated the creation of five war crimes tribunals. He was the U.N. Secretary-General's Special Expert for U.N. Assistance to the Khmer Rouge Trials (2012-2018) and was Senior Adviser and Counsel to Dr. Madeleine Albright during her tenure as the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations, when he also represented the U.S. Mission to the United Nations on the National Security Council's Deputies Committee (1993-1997). Scheffer was Vice President of the American Society of International Law (2020-2022).Mark S. Ellis is the Executive Director of the International Bar Association (IBA). Previously, he directed the ABA’s Central European and Eurasian Law Initiative (CEELI). Mark served as Legal Advisor to the Independent International Commission on Kosovo and was appointed by the OSCE to advise on creating Serbia’s War Crimes Tribunal. He was actively involved with the ICTY Tadic case and the Iraqi High Tribunal and acted as legal consultant to the defense team of Nuon Chea at the Cambodian War Crimes Tribunal (ECCC). Ellis previously served as Chair of the ICTY Advisory Panel and the UN-created Advisory Panel on Matters Relating to Defence Counsel of the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals. Ellis is presently an adjunct Professor at Florida State University College of Law. Twice a Fulbright Scholar at the Economic Institute in Zagreb, Croatia, he earned his J.D. and B.S. (Economics) degrees from Florida State University and his PhD in Law from King’s College, London. He has published extensively on international humanitarian law, war crimes tribunals, and the development of the rule of law. Among his honors, Ellis is the recipient of the ABA’s World Order Under Law Award, Florida State University’s Distinguished Graduate Award and Torch Award, the University’s College of Social Sciences & Public Policy Distinguished Alumni Award, the College of Law’s Distinguished Alumni Award and the International Impact Award from King’s College London. In 2024, Ellis was made a Fellow of Kings College.
