Geopolitical Crises and International Law: The Responsibilities of the UN

The International Balzan Prize Foundation and Università della Svizzera italiana organize, on Wednesday, May 30 at 6PM at the Lugano campus Auditorium, a round table event featuring Dame Rosalyn Higgins, former Judge and President of the International Court of Justice in The Hague and Balzan Prize 2007 for International Law after 1945. 

Participants in the round table will include, in addition to Thomas Cottier (Professor Emeritus of European and International Economic Law at the University of Bern), Philippa Webb (King’s College London), Dapo Akande (Oxford University) and Sandesh Sivakumaran (University of Nottingham) – the three researchers who, under the direction of Rosalyn Higgins, edited Oppenheim’s International Law - United Nations (Oxford University Press, 2017). This book will be presented by Ilaria Espa, professor at the USI Institute of Law, who will also introduce the event. 

The round table will be moderated by Fausto Pocar, President of the International Institute of Humanitarian Law at the University of Milan (Università degli Studi di Milano) and former President of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

Biography

Dame Rosalyn Higgins was Judge (1995 to 2006) and President (2006 to 2009) of the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Professor of International Law at the University of Kent at Canterbury (1978-1981) and at the University of London (1981-1995), and member of the UN Human Rights Committee (1984-1995). Among the many honours conferred: Dame Commander of the British Empire (1995), Chevalier d’Ordre des Palmes Académiques (1988) and Balzan Prize winner (2007) “For her outstanding contributions to the development of international law since the Second World War and her role as an academic, judge and Court President; for her clear, constructive as well as innovative and groundbreaking books, writings, articles and court decisions in defence of the rule of law and human rights; for her leading role in strengthening and enlarging modern international law”. Dame Higgins has recently published the two volumes Oppenheim’s International Law – United Nations, edited together with Philippa Webb, Dapo Akande, Sandesh Sivakumaran and James Sloan, thanks to half of the Balzan Prize 2007 devoted to research projects. An authoritative and complete work on the legal practice of the United Nations, in direct continuity with the 1905-1906 editions of the historic and fundamental treaty on international law by Lassa Oppenheim, International Law: A Treatise.

For information on the Internazional Balzan Prize Foundation: www.balzan.org
For information on the USI Institute of Law: www.idusi.eco.usi.ch/istituto.htm