Mark A. Drumbl

Biography

Mark Drumbl is the Class of 1975 Alumni Professor at Washington & Lee University, School of Law, where he also serves as Director of the University's Transnational Law Institute. He has held visiting appointments on the law faculties of Oxford University (University College), Université de Paris II (Panthéon-Assas), Vanderbilt University, University of Ottawa, Trinity College-Dublin, University of Western Ontario, and University of Illinois College of Law. In 2010, Professor Drumbl was appointed Visiting Scholar and Senior Fellow, at the University of Melbourne, Faculty of Law; Visiting Professor, Centre for Applied Philosophy and Ethics (Charles Sturt University/Australian National University) and Parsons Visitor, Faculty of Law, University of Sydney.

Professor Drumbl's research and teaching interests include public international law, global environmental governance, international criminal law, post-conflict justice, and transnational legal process. His work has been relied upon by the Supreme Court of Canada, the United Kingdom High Court, United States Federal Court, and the Supreme Court of New York in recent decisions.

In 2012, he published Reimagining Child Soldiers in International Law and Policy(Oxford University Press). This ground-breaking book challenges much of conventional wisdom when it comes to preventing child soldiering, meaningfully reintegrating child soldiers, and engaging with former child solders as vibrant contributors to post-conflict reconciliation.  Drumbl suggests a number of reforms to international law and policy on this most topical issue. To date, this book has been reviewed in several venues: European Journal of International Law, British Yearbook of International Law, Chinese Journal of International Law, Lawfare blog, and Think Africa Press.  Chapter 1 has been translated into German as Die Überwindung der Opferrolle. Zum Bild des Kindersoldaten im internationalen Recht, and appearing in Zeitschrift fuer Friedens- und Konfliktforschung 249-274 (2012).

Professor Drumbl's first book, Atrocity, Punishment, and International Law (Cambridge University Press, 2007) has received critical acclaim. It rethinks -- in theory and in practice -- how individuals who perpetrate genocide and crimes against humanity should be punished. Atrocity, Punishment, and International Law received the 2007 Book of the Year Award by the International Association of Criminal Law (U.S. national section). In 2009, the book was recognized by the American Society of International Law as first runner-up (honorable mention) for the prestigious Certificate of Merit for Outstanding Contribution to Creative Scholarship. Reviews of Atrocity, Punishment, and International Law appear in the legal literature, including in , Ethics, the Journal of Conflict & Security Law, the International Community Law Review, the Buffalo Law Review, Jura Gentium, Michigan Law Review, the Journal of International Criminal Justice, the American Journal of International Law, the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, the Chinese Journal of International Law, the International Journal on World Peace, the International Journal of Transitional Justice, the Leiden Journal of International Law, the Melbourne Journal of International Law, Peace and Change, Human Rights Quarterly, and the N.Y.U. J. Int'l L. & Pol.; H-Net Book Review; with briefer reviews in the human rights and political science literature.

Professor Drumbl's articles have appeared in the NYU, Michigan, Northwestern, George Washington, Tulane, and North Carolina law reviews, a number of peer-review journals, including Human Rights Quarterly, with shorter pieces in the American Journal of International Law and many other periodicals. Professor Drumbl also has authored chapters in edited volumes. He is a frequent presenter at academic symposia, conferences, invited endowed lectures, and workshops. His article Collective Violence and Individual Punishment: The Criminality of Mass Atrocity, 99 Nw. U. L. Rev. 539 (2005) received the Association of American Law Schools Outstanding Scholarly Papers Prize. His work on Rwanda has been reviewed as "exemplary" in its treatment of "the possibilities of the coexistence of victims and survivors within the same society after the event" by the Times Literary Supplement in its Learned Journals review.

Prior to entering law teaching, Professor Drumbl was judicial clerk to Justice Frank Iacobucci of the Supreme Court of Canada. His practice experience includes international arbitration, commercial litigation, and he was appointed co-counsel for the Canadian Chief-of-Defense-Staff before the Royal Commission investigating military wrongdoing in the UN Somalia Mission. In 2012, he was appointed to the Global Engagement Advisory Committee of the Association of American law Schools. Professor Drumbl has served as an expert in ATCA litigation in the U.S. federal courts (expert for the successful plaintiffs in Almog v. Arab Bank, 2007 WL 214433 (E.D.N.Y., 2007)) and in U.S. immigration court, as defense counsel in the Rwandan genocide trials, has consulted with various organizations, and has taught international law in Pakistan, Finland, Uganda, The Netherlands, Italy, and Brazil. Prior to joining Washington & Lee, he served on the faculties of Columbia University, School of Law, as Associate-in-Law, and the University of Arkansas-Little Rock.

Class of 1975 Alumni Professor of Law and Director, Transnational Law Institute, Washington & Lee University, 2007-- ; Visiting Professor, University of Illinois College of Law (February 2008); Professeur invité, Université de Paris II (Panthéon-Assas) (March 2008); Faculty, International Institute for Higher Studies in Criminal Sciences, Siracusa, Italy, 2007; Visiting Professor, University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law (January 2007); Professor of Law and Director, Transnational Law Institute, Washington & Lee University, 2006-2007; Associate Professor of Law (with tenure), Washington & Lee University, 2004-2006; Visiting Fellow, University College, Oxford University (Michaelmas Term 2005); Visiting Associate Professor, Vanderbilt University, School of Law (September 2005); Visiting Scholar, Trinity College, University of Dublin (May 2006); Assistant Professor of Law, Washington & Lee University, 2002-2004; Ethan Allen Faculty Fellow, 2003-2007; Visiting Professor of Law, Washington & Lee University, 2001.