Terrorism on Trial

Terrorism on Trial:
Insights from the French Bataclan Trial and Beyond

Wednesday 6 April 2022, 5:30pm – 7:00pm

Amphi Chapsal, 27 rue Saint-Guillaume

This seminar will explore how justice has been mobilized to combat terrorism from a national and global perspective.

>Dr Sharon Weill will discuss the Bataclan trial, which is currently taking place in Paris in the wake of the major terrorist attack of November 2015, considering what lessons can be learned for the prosecution of mass crimes. She has been observing French terrorism trials since 2017 as part of a research group financed by the French Ministry of Justice (Mission droit et Justice). Dr Anne Charbord, Senior Legal Advisor to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights while Countering Terrorism,  will situate this trial within the global legal architecture developed since 9/11. She will present the mandate of the Rapporteur and address the main concerns to human rights with reference to her own professional experience.

SPEAKERS:

Sharon Weill, Associate Professor of international law at the American University of Paris; Research Associate at CERI, Sciences Po; Faculty member at PSIA

Sharon Weill is an Associate Professor of international law at AUP and lectures a capstone course at PSIA. Her research focuses on the links between law, armed conflict/terrorism, and the role of judges, making use of socio-legal approaches. Since 2017, with a multidisciplinary research group, she has been examining the role of French judges as transnational actors in the "fight against terrorism" (project for the French Ministry of Justice/CNRS). She is the author of book The Role of National Courts in Applying International Humanitarian Law (Oxford University Press, 2014), co-editor The President on Trial Prosecuting Hissène Habré (Oxford University Press, 2020), and the report for the French Ministry of Justice (in French) “Djihadistes on Trial: An ethnographic of French courts (2017-2019).”

Anne Charbord, Senior legal advisor to the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights while countering terrorism; Faculty member at PSIA

Dr. Anne Charbord is an international human rights lawyer, focusing on human rights and security. She is currently senior legal advisor to the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights, while countering terrorism. She teaches human rights and counter-terrorism at Sciences Po's Paris School of International Affairs (PSIA) in Paris and was nominated by UNHCR to serve as a judge in the French asylum court. She has co-edited with Manfred Nowak « Using Human Rights to Counter Terrorism » (Edward Elgar Publishing, March 2018). Previously, she spent 8 years at OHCHR in Geneva and New York working on human rights and counter-terrorism issues, as well as four years in the OSCE's Balkans field missions.