Sévane Garibian

Sévane Garibian

Professor in International Criminal Law and Transitional Justice at the University of Geneva and Adjunct Professor in Legal Philosophy at the University of Neuchâtel

Areas of expertise

International Human Rights Law  /  Transitional Justice  /  International Criminal Justice  /  Philosophy of Law  /  History of International Criminal Law  /  Genocide Denial  /  Mass Crimes Impunity  /  Right to Truth

Sévane Garibian is Professor in International Criminal Law and Transitional Justice at the University of Geneva and Adjunct Professor in Legal Philosophy at the University of Neuchâtel.

She is also an Associate Researcher at the Institut de recherche interdisciplinaire sur les enjeux sociaux (EHESS/CNRS, Paris) and a member of the scientific council of the Association Francophone de Justice Transitionnelle (AFJT). She was a member of the European Research Council research programme ‘Corpses of Mass Violence and Genocide’ (ERC Consolidator Grant 2012-2016).

Professor Garibian also led the SNSF-funded research programme Right to Truth, Truth(s) through Rights: Mass Crimes Impunity and Transitional Justice at the University of Geneva (2016-2022). She has also published numerous papers and contributions to anthologies, as well as books and co-edited volumes.

Her work focuses mainly on the forms, meanings and functions of law in relation to State-sponsored crimes, and explores plural justice mechanisms (traditional / alternative, judicial/extrajudicial, international/national). She is particularly interested in the relationship between law, history, science, memory and truth in the legal treatment of contemporary mass crimes and of their traces and legacies, their denial and their memorialization. She also initiates work on the legal status of human remains and the law of the dead. Since 2018, she has been associated, together with her team, with the ICRC Missing Persons Project as a scientific consultant for the drafting of Guiding Principles for the Dignified Management of the Dead in Humanitarian Emergencies and to Prevent them Becoming Missing Persons.

Prior to joining the University of Geneva, Professor Garibian was an SNSF post-doctoral research fellow and a visiting fellow at the University of Buenos Aires and Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona. She holds a PhD from the Universities of Paris X and Geneva.

Taught Courses

Munigi, North Kivu Province Congo: Launch of Community Violence Reduction (CVR), programme by DDRRR Unit of MONUSCO, Goma in Agriculture and other income generating activities for the youth of the Nyiragongo territory. Master in transitional justice - Course

Introduction to Transitional Justice

This course introduces the concept of transitional justice. It seeks to familiarize participants with the legal and ethical frameworks necessary for understanding, and critically engaging with, this ever-expanding field.

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Publications

Cover of the publication

The Death of the Perpetrator: Interdisciplinary Reflections on the Dead Body of Mass Criminals

2018

Sévane Garibian

Journal of Genocide Research 2/2018, p. 193-304

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Laying the Foundations for a Convention on Crimes Against Humanity

September 2018

Sévane Garibian, Claus Kress

Journal of International Criminal Justice, Volume 16, Issue 4

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Cover of On the Breaking of Consensus : the Perinçek Case, the Armenian Genocide and International Criminal Law

On the Breaking of Consensus : the Perinçek Case, the Armenian Genocide and International Criminal Law

February 2016

Sévane Garibian

Denialism and Human Rights, Intersentia

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Cover of Truth versus impunity: Post-transitional justice in Argentina and the ‘human rights turn’

Truth Versus Impunity : Post-transitional justice in Argentina and the ‘human rights turn’

June 2015

Sévane Garibian

African Yearbook of Rhetoric, vol. 6, n°1, 2015

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