Payam Akhavan

Payam Akhavan

Prof. Payam Akhavan, LLM SJD (Harvard) is Professor of International Law and Senior Fellow at Massey College, University of Toronto, Member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, and former Legal Advisor, Office of the Prosecutor, International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) (1994-2000). He has also served with the UN in Bosnia, Rwanda, Cambodia, Guatemala, and Timor Leste. He was previously Full Professor at McGill University Faculty of Law in Montreal and Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, with other appointments at Yale Law School, Leiden University, European University Institute, Oxford University, Université Paris Nanterre, and Sciences Po École de Droit. He has published extensively on international criminal law and in 2017, he delivered the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) Massey Lectures. Professor Akhavan is a member of the New York State Bar and the Law Society of Ontario and recipient of its 2021 Human Rights Award. He has appeared as counsel before the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice, the European Court of Human Rights, the Supreme Court of Canada, and the Supreme Court of the United States. He also serves as Senior Advisor to the Ministry of Global Affairs of Canada, is Senior Fellow and Canadian Co-Chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, and Co-Founder of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Centre.