About the Event

Appointed as the first Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in June 2003, Argentinean Luis Moreno-Ocampo has investigated atrocities around the globe and led the nascent institution through its formative years. Since taking office, he has brought cases involving genocide in Darfur, sexual enslavement and the abduction of child soldiers by the Lords Resistance Army in Uganda, and the incitement of election violence and crimes against humanity in Kenya. He has secured arrest warrants for two sitting heads of state, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya and President Omar Al Bashir of Sudan, won the confidence of the United Nations Security Council who most recently turned to his office to respond to war crimes as they were unfolding in Libya, and made the Court a force in shaping events around the world. Few contemporary figures in international justice are of comparable global stature.

Join us on Sunday evening, November 6, as the Prosecutor engages in a conversation about ways in which cinema can be used to transform the global narrative and prevent mass crimes of the sort his office prosecutes - genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.  Mr. Moreno-Ocampo, one of the subjects of the 2007 Warner Brothers-Participant Media feature documentary Darfur Now, will speak with the writer-director of that film, USC School of Cinematic Arts Associate Professor Ted Braun, about cinema's possibilities and responsibilities as a global storytelling medium. This conversation - interspersed with film clips - will be followed by a panel discussion with Sid Sheinberg, former President and COO of Universal Pictures and currently Vice Chair of Human Rights Watch, Dr. Stephen Smith, Director of USC's Shoah Foundation and USC Alumnus Jedediah Jenkins of the documentary-based social action group Invisible Children. Hannah Garry, Director of the Human Rights Clinic at USC’s Gould School of Law, will open the evening with a presentation on the transformative role of the ICC in international justice. After the discussion, the Prosecutor will take questions from the audience in the hope of stimulating the next generation of filmmakers to engage issues of international justice, social responsibility and our shared humanity.

This special event is sponsored by USC’s School of Cinematic Arts and The Gould School of Law.

About the Participants

LUIS MORENO-OCAMPO, Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court

On 21 April 2003, 78 states from all over the world unanimously appointed Luis Moreno-Ocampo as the first Prosecutor of the first permanent International Criminal Court. Those states party to the Rome Statute gave the Prosecutor the mandate to end impunity for the most serious crimes of concern to the international community, namely genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes and to contribute to the prevention of such crimes.

8 years later the system is in motion. The Prosecutor recruited 300 individuals from 80 different countries to build the office, started investigations in seven different countries, charged 25 individuals considered the most responsible for the most serious crimes, including Jean Pierre Bemba, Joseph Kony, President Bashir of Sudan and Moammar Gaddafi of Libya. Three trials are ongoing and the final decision in one of them is expected before the end of the year.

The Prosecutor is analysing a request by the Palestinian National Authority as well as alleged crimes committed in the territories of Honduras, Republic of Korea, Afghanistan and Nigeria; and checking if genuine national proceedings are being carried out in Guinea, Colombia and Georgia. The Court reduced the opposition to its existence and became a key actor in international relations; the number of state parties increased to 119 and on February 2011 the UN Security Council unanimously referred the Libya situation to the Court.

Mr. Moreno-Ocampo has previous experience prosecuting massive crimes in his home country, Argentina, during the "Junta trials’; the first case against individuals responsible for mass killings since the Nuremberg trials. Prior to being elected Prosecutor of the ICC, Mr. Moreno-Ocampo also served as a visiting professor at both Stanford and Harvard University. His tenure as ICC prosecutor will end on 16 of June 2012.

TED BRAUN, Writer/Director of Darfur Now, SCA Associate Professor and Moderator

Writer-director Ted Braun's critically acclaimed first feature film, Darfur Now, won the NAACP Image Award for best documentary of 2007 and was named one of 2007’s top five documentaries by the National Board of Review. For his work writing and directing the picture, the International Documentary Association awarded Braun their 2007 Emerging Filmmaker of the Year and Movie Maker Magazine named him, along with Errol Morris, Oliver Stone, Michael Moore and Robert Redford one of 25 filmmakers whose work has changed the world. Darfur Now was produced by the Academy Award-winning producer of Crash, Cathy Schulman, Don Cheadle and USC Distinguished Professor Mark Jonathan Harris. Warner Independent Pictures distributed Darfur Now worldwide and financed along with Participant Media, which spearheaded a global social action campaign.

Braun's currently writing and directing a feature film for New Line Cinema based on the life of Lopez Lomong, one of the Lost Boys of Sudan who became a US Olympian in track and field and led the American delegation into the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Games. He is also developing a feature documentary about Somali piracy with Brad Pitt's production company, Plan B Entertainment. Ted Braun taught screenwriting at Amherst College before joining the faculty at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts.

HANNAH GARRY, Clinical Assistant Professor of Law, Gould School of Law

Hannah Garry is director of USC Law's International Human Rights Clinic and specializes in international human rights law, international criminal law, international humanitarian law and international refugee law.

Prior to joining USC Law, Prof. Garry was visiting faculty at the University of Colorado School of Law where she taught public international law, international criminal law and international human rights law. She also taught an experiential learning course supervising students on cases involving Guantanamo detainee representation as well as Alien Tort Statute litigation.

Prof. Garry has been a research consultant with Oxford University, U.K., and Makerere University, Uganda, implementing a multi-year socio-legal research project on protection of refugee rights under international law in Uganda and Kenya. She has also been a visiting lecturer teaching European human rights law at Peking University Law School in Beijing, and a visiting scholar at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, where she published a study on the court's use of interim measures to stay deportation of refugees from Europe. In September 2008, Prof. Garry was invited to be a lecturer at the 4th Thematic Course on Refugee Law and Human Rights, at the International Institute of Humanitarian Law in San Remo, Italy. From 2009-2010, she was named an American Society of International Law Presidential Fellow.

Prior to entering academia, Prof. Garry was a legal officer for the Honorable Judge Fausto Pocar in the appeals chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda from 2004-07. During that time, she also served as Deputy Chef de Cabinet in the Office of the President. Prof. Garry has previously been a law clerk to the Honorable Judge Rosemary Barkett sitting on the U.S. Court of Appeals, 11th Circuit. She has also worked in the private sector as an associate in the international law firm, Freshfields, Bruckhaus, Deringer LLP, practicing in the international arbitration, dispute resolution and public international law groups.

Prof. Garry obtained her J.D. from Berkeley Law in 2002, her Master’s in International Affairs from Columbia University in 2001 and a graduate certificate in Forced Migration Studies with distinction from Oxford University, U.K. She is admitted to the New York Bar and is a member of the American Society of International Law where she is a corresponding editor for its International Legal Materials.

JEDIDIAH JENKINS, Directory of Ideolgy for Invisible Children

Jedidiah is Director of Ideology at Invisible Children. He is charged with developing and articulating the foundational philosophies, beliefs, and long term goals of the organization as it pursues international justice for Joseph Kony and his brutal rebel army in Central Africa. Invisible Children believes that why you're doing something is often more important than how or what. Ideology is crucial. He went to Pepperdine School for Law and University of Southern California.

For more information about Invisible Children, visit: http://www.invisiblechildren.com/

SID SHEINBERG, Former President and COO of Universal Pictures and currently Vice Chair of Human Rights Watch

Sid Sheinberg is Vice Chair of the Human Rights Watch International Board of Directors and co-chair of the California Committee South. He is presently a partner in The Bubble Factory.
 
In 1973, Sid was elected president and chief operating officer of MCA, Inc. During his tenure of some thirty six years, Universal Pictures, a division of MCA, Inc., released the highest-grossing film of the decade for three consecutive decades starting with Jaws, followed by E.T., and then Jurassic Park. Sid graduated from Columbia College and was both a Harlan Fiske Stone and a James Kent Scholar at Columbia Law School. He is co-founder of the Children's Action Network; serves as vice chairman emeritus of the Museum of Television and Radio; and is a member of the Board of Research to Prevent Blindness, and the Board of Trustees of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Most recently Sid was presented with the 2008 Human Rights Award by Death Penalty Focus and the Leadership Award by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. He was also honored by NBC Universal Studios with a building and street dedication in his name, in recognition for his decades long career and contributions to Universal/MCA. Among numerous awards, Sid is the recipient of Columbia College's John Jay Award for Distinguished Professional Achievement, the highest honor given by Columbia Law School, and the Chevalier De L'Ordre Des Arts et Des Lettres, bestowed by the French Government.

Dr. Stephen D. Smith is one of the world’s leading advocates of Holocaust education and genocide prevention. He was founding director of the UK Holocaust Centre—Britain’s first dedicated Holocaust memorial and education institution—and he was inaugural chair of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, the body that runs national Holocaust commemoration in the UK. He also founded the Aegis Trust, an agency that works globally to prevent genocide and crimes against humanity.
 
Stephen has been involved in memorial projects throughout the world, including the creation of the Kigali Memorial Centre in Rwanda, and he was a consultant to the Cape Town Holocaust Centre, which he now serves as a trustee. He has taught extensively in Lithuania and has been a member of the International Task Force for Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research since its inception in 1998.

Stephen became USC Shoah Foundation Institute Executive Director in August 2009, and is committed to making the testimony of survivors of the Holocaust and of other crimes against humanity a compelling voice for education and action. His leadership at the USC Shoah Foundation Institute is focused on finding strategies to optimize the effectiveness of the testimonies for education, research, and advocacy purposes.

For more information about the USC Shoah Foundation Institute, visit: http://dornsife.usc.edu/vhi/

Check & Reservations

This event is free of charge and open to the public, although RSVPs are required. Please bring a photo ID or print out of your reservation confirmation, which will automatically be sent to your e-mail account upon successfully making an RSVP through this website. Doors will open at 4:30 P.M.

Parking

The USC School of Cinematic Arts is located at 900 W. 34th St., Los Angeles, CA 90007. Parking passes may be purchased for $8.00 at USC Entrance Gate #5, located at the intersection of W. Jefferson Blvd. & McClintock Avenue. We recommend parking in outdoor Lot M or V, or Parking Structure D, at the far end of 34th Street. Please note that Parking Structure D cannot accommodate tall vehicles such as SUVs. Free street parking is also available along Jefferson Blvd.

Contact Information

Name: Brooke Wilkinson
Email: brookewi@usc.edu