2018 New Zealand Law Foundation Distinguished Visiting Fellow Professor Tim McCormack
As the Syrian catastrophe lurches into its 8th year, the international community watches recurrent egregious atrocities unfold before our collective eyes. Apart from lethal force deployed against ISIS targets in Syria, the international community has been precluded from undertaking any substantive action against the Assad Regime – except in response to allegations of the use of chemical weapons.
What is it about chemical weapons that has evoked such outrage and facilitated US-Russian co-operation against Assad? Is it a particularly visceral reaction to the use of chemicals to kill or the manner in which people die? Is it a long-standing taboo against the use of chemicals as weapons of war? Or is there some more cynical explanation that has nothing to do with humanitarian concerns?
Time: 6.00pm, pre-lecture drinks from 5.30pm
Venue: Te Whare Tapere Iti, Gallagher Academy of Performing Arts, University of Waikato
Please RSVP by 5 July 2018 for catering purposes.
Professor Tim McCormack
Professor Tim McCormack is Dean of the University of Tasmania Law School and a Professorial Fellow at the Melbourne Law School. He is also the Special Adviser on International Humanitarian Law to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague and a Director of World Vision Australia.
Tim has held a number of significant appointments including as: Fulbright Senior Fellow to take up the positions of James Barr Ames Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School (January 2016) and as Charles H Stockton Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence at the US Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island (2015-16); International Observer (with Lord David Trimble) of Phase II of the Government of Israel's Turkel Commission of Enquiry into Israel's Mechanisms for Investigating Alleged Violations of the Law of Armed Conflict, Jerusalem (2011-2013); Foundation Australian Red Cross Professor of International Humanitarian Law at Melbourne Law School (1996-2010); Law of War Expert Adviser to the Defence Team for David Hicks, US Military Commissions, Guantanamo Bay (2004-2007); and Amicus Curiae on International Law issues for the Trial of Slobodan Milosevic, International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, The Hague (2002-2006).
