David J. Scheffer (18 September 1953 -) born in Oklahoma, received B.A.s from Harvard and Oxford University, and an LL.M. from Georgetown University Law Center. He began his legal career at the international law firm Coudert Brothers. He also served as counsel to the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs. During Clinton's first term, he was initially the senior advisor to Madeleine Albright, who then served as ambassador to the United Nations.

Scheffer then sat on the Deputies Committee of the National Security Council from 1993 until 1996, and then became the first Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues during President Bill Clinton’s second term in office.

As ambassador, Scheffer participated in the creation of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, the Special Court for Sierra Leone, and the Khmer Rouge tribunal. He also led the U.S. negotiating team in United Nations talks on the International Criminal Court. Though Scheffer signed the Rome Statute that established the ICC on behalf of the U.S. in 2000, he was a highly vocal critic of many aspects of the court and the negotiation process.

He is the Mayer Brown/Robert A. Helman Professor of Law at Northwestern University School of Law. In his capacity as director of the Center for International Human Rights and afterwards, Scheffer runs the Cambodia Tribunal Monitor website, the primary source for accessing news, information, and video of trial proceedings from the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia.

Interviews

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