Antonio Cassese Prize for International Criminal Law Studies

The Journal of International Criminal Justice has announced the establishment of a prize in honour of Antonio Cassese. According to the announcement of the prize in the Journal of International Criminal Justice (see here)

This biennial prize will award €10,000 (ten thousand euro) to the author of the most original and innovative paper published in the Journal in the two years preceding the award. The aim is to enable the winner to undertake a research or publication project, or further studies in the field of international criminal law (including aspects relating to human rights, humanitarian law issues, as well as substantive and procedural law matters).

The prize is a fitting tribute to Judge Cassese who is one of the leading international lawyers of our generation and who has made an outstanding contribution to international criminal law. In addition to being a Professor of International law for most of his career, he was the first President of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. Last month, the United Nations announced that Professor Cassese would be the President of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon which was established by the UN Security Council to prosecute those responsible for political killings in Lebanon, in particular the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in 2005. He was also the Chair of the International Commission of Inquiry into Darfur, whose report was a precursor  the UN Security Council referring the situation in Darfur to the International Criminal Court.