Cécile Aptel

Professor Cécile Aptel is an international expert in international criminal law, international justice, transitional justice and child rights. She has over 20 years of experience managing judicial, legal and policy matters for several international jurisdictions, the UN, think tanks and NGOs.

Professor Aptel contributed to establishing the United Nations (UN) international tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda, where she worked for 10 years in different legal and policy roles and drafted several of the first key judgments, including the first on genocide. She also directly participated in the establishment of the State Court of Bosnia-Herzegovina’s War Crimes Chamber (2005), the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (2006), and directed the establishment of the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism on Syria (2017). She has led and participated in various international efforts to foster criminal accountability for international crimes, gross human rights violations and terrorism, notably at the UN International Independent Investigation Commission in Lebanon, where she directed the legal services, and at the UN Office of Internal Oversight. She has served as the top senior legal advisor to successive UN High Commissioners for Human Rights, led the UN OHCHR global work on rule of law and democracy, and has advised on criminal accountability and judicial reform in several countries.

Professor Aptel has taught international law, focusing on international criminal law, international humanitarian law, human rights law, and transitional justice at the Fletcher School, Harvard, Pretoria University and Oxford University. She was awarded the 2010 Jennings Randolph Senior Fellowship by the United States Institute of Peace. She currently serves as the Deputy Director of the UN Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR).

She has authored over 30 publications: her recent work focuses on international criminal law and children, including a forthcoming book entitled ‘International Criminal Courts, Atrocity Crimes and Children’. She holds a PhD in law from the University of Geneva and master’s degrees from the College of Europe in Bruges and Trinity College Dublin.