1. William Schabas is professor of international law at Middlesex University in the United Kingdom, professor of international human law and human rights at Leiden University in the Netherlands, and an internationally respected expert on human rights law, genocide and the death penalty.
William Schabas is a member of the board of trustees of the United Nations Voluntary Fund for Technical Cooperation in the Field of Human Rights.
William Schabas served as one of seven commissioners on the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and as one of six commissioners on the Iran Tribunal Truth Commission from 18 to 22 June 2012.
The appointment was criticized by Canada's Foreign Minister, John Baird, and the Geneva-based advocacy NGO UN Watch, on the basis of allegations that William Schabas was anti-Israel, a charge he denied.
William Schabas had been hired as a consultant to provide a legal analysis regarding the Palestinian bid for non-member observer status at the United Nations.
In late 2019, William Schabas defended the nation of Myanmar at the International Court of Justice in The Hague against charges of genocide towards its Rohingya population, brought by the republic of Gambia.
William Schabas was born in Cleveland, Ohio to an Ashkenazi Jewish father.
William Schabas's family name, which is a variation of the Yiddish word for "Sabbath", which has been interpreted as perhaps suggesting a Sephardic connection.
William Schabas's mother, Ann, was born in Canada and served as dean of the Faculty of Library and Information Sciences at the University of Toronto.
William Schabas's father, Ezra Schabas, is an American-born Canadian musician and author.
William Schabas's maternal grandparents were Barker Fairley, an English-born painter and scholar, and Margaret Fairley, a writer and educator born in England.
William Schabas has been awarded honorary doctorates by Dalhousie University, Halifax, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland and Northwestern University, Chicago.
William Schabas was suspended from the university for four years, later reduced to two.
William Schabas has taught as a visiting or adjunct professor at several other institutions, including McGill University, Queen's University Belfast, LUISS University in Rome, Cardoza Law School, Pantheon-Assas University and the National University of Rwanda.
William Schabas moved to Ireland in 2000, serving as the director of the Irish Centre for Human Rights at the National University of Ireland, Galway, until 2011.
William Schabas is the recipient of the Vespasian V Pellat Medal for International Criminal Justice of the Association international de droit penal and the gold medal in the Social Sciences of the Royal Irish Academy.
William Schabas was called to the Quebec bar in 1985 and practised law in Montreal for many years.
William Schabas has practised at the international level, appearing before the International Court of Justice, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights and the International Criminal Court.
William Schabas was invited by the Special Court for Sierra Leone to serve as an amicus curiae.
William Schabas has written over 18 monographs and 200 articles.
William Schabas is an Officer of the Order of Canada and a Member of the Royal Irish Academy, as well as holding a position on the board of directors of the International Institute for Criminal Investigation and Rene Cassin, a non-government organisation that presents a Jewish voice on human rights.
William Schabas has delivered lectures or conference papers in more than fifty countries.
William Schabas's writings have been cited in judgments, decisions and opinions of: International Court of Justice, International Criminal Court, International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, Special Court for Sierra Leone, European Court of Human Rights, Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Supreme Court of Canada, United States Supreme Court, Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, High Court of Tanzania and Supreme Court of Israel.
William Schabas has participated on several human rights fact-finding missions on behalf of international non-governmental organisations, such as Amnesty International and the International Federation of Human Rights, to such countries as Rwanda, Burundi, Sudan, South Africa and Russia.
In 2011, William Schabas attended a conference in Iran with the Tehran-based Non-Aligned Movement Center for Human Rights and Cultural Diversity where he was a keynote speaker.
William Schabas attended the conference together with US film producer Sandra Schulberg in order to present a documentary film about the Nuremberg Trial to Iranians, which was welcomed by the audience, and spoke to them about the Holocaust and Nazi atrocities.
William Schabas has been very active in the movement for worldwide abolition of capital punishment.
William Schabas is the Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the International Academic Network Against the Death Penalty and for a Universal Moratorium on Capital Punishment, and Advisor to the International Centre for Death Penalty Research at Beijing Normal University.
William Schabas argues that the legal term "genocide" is a loaded one that should not be used to describe every atrocity involving mass killings.
William Schabas argues that, in the strict legal sense, the only true "genocides" in recent history were the Armenian genocide, the Jewish and Gypsy Holocaust, and the Rwandan genocide.
In March 1993, William Schabas co-authored the Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Human Rights Violations in Rwanda.
From 10 to 12 December 2019, William Schabas acted for the Myanmar government who were accused of committing genocide against the Rohingya Muslim minority at the International Court of Justice hearing in The Hague.
William Schabas's appearance drew criticism from individuals and organizations involved in human rights protection.
William Schabas is wrong about the law: this was a genocide.
In 2012, in regard to the Iranian nuclear program, William Schabas wrote that Iran "very arguably has a claim to require nuclear weapons for defensive purposes".
William Schabas has accused Israel of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and aggression committed "on the territory of Palestine since 2002", while acknowledging that "much of [his] effort" is focused on bringing about the prosecution of Israelis at the ICC.
William Schabas was appointed the head of a three-member commission, together with Amal Clooney who declined the nomination, and Doudou Diene.
William Schabas's appointment was criticized by Canada's Foreign Minister, John Baird, and the Geneva-based advocacy NGO UN Watch.
William Schabas said at the time that there was some merit in comments by critics that Israel was being singled out by the UN for human rights violations, but added that double standards and bias in the UN works both ways, at times to Israel's advantage, citing the fact that the United States almost invariably vetoes resolutions critical of Israel in the Security Council.
In February 2015 William Schabas resigned after an Israeli complaint that he had billed the Palestine Liberation Organization for $US1,300 in 2012 for legal advice he gave them at their request, a precedent which might constitute evidence of a conflict of interest with his position as head of the investigative committee.
William Schabas stated that he did not want the controversy to overshadow the work of the Gaza inquiry.
William Schabas has written or edited twenty-one books dealing in whole or in part with international human rights law, including:.
William Schabas has published more than three hundred articles in academic journals, primarily in the fields of international human rights law and international criminal law.