Alex Batesmith and Dr Ilaria Zavoli visit the Universities of Copenhagen and Tilburg

They used the visit to develop papers for a special issue of the Journal of International Criminal Justice.

Legal Professionals Research Group members Alex Batesmith and Dr Ilaria Zavoli recently visited the Faculty of Law at the University of Copenhagen and the Law School at the University of Tilburg to develop their research project on Professionals and Professionalism(s) in International Criminal Justice.

The project was initially launched at an international workshop of scholars and practitioners at the School of Law at the University of Leeds in July 2023.

Following the workshop selected participants gathered at an author’s workshop hosted and generously funded by the University of Copenhagen’s Faculty of Law on 3 and 4 June 2024 to develop papers for a special issue of the Journal of International Criminal Justice, guest-edited by Mr Batesmith and Dr Zavoli alongside Dr Nora Stappert from the University of Copenhagen.

Ten days later, Mr Batesmith and Dr Zavoli were invited by former Leeds colleague Professor Elies van Sliedregt (now at the Tilburg Law School) to give a presentation to the Joined-up Justice international conference ‘The ICC as Justice Hub, Pragmatic Complementarity and Domestic ICL Enforcement’, hosted by Tilburg University on 13-14 June 2024.

Mr Batesmith and Dr Zavoli outlined their proposal for the creation of an international and interdisciplinary network of scholars and practitioners to share ideas and knowledge about the concepts of professionals and professionalism within the discipline of international criminal justice through co-created academic publications and other impact-oriented outputs including guiding principles and policy recommendations.

The network’s aims will be realised by annual coordination and co-creation meetings hosted by a different University each year, based on the members’ affiliations, with the first meeting in The Hague, The Netherlands, in 2025.

Further details of the project can be found on the research project website.