University of Southern Maine

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World Law Day Explores African Justice at University of Maine School of Law

April 28, 2005

The Maine Alliance for the International Criminal Court (MAICC) will present a program about "Africa and International Criminal Justice" at the School of Law on Sunday, May 1, from 1-4 p.m. The public is invited to attend this free forum which feature two multinational panels.

The keynote speaker and panel moderator is Adotei Akwei who hales from Ghana and is Campaigns Director for Amnesty International USA. Akwei meets regularly with policy-makers in U.S. and African governments and with African human rights groups from his base in Washington, D.C.

Other panelists include Desire Assogbavi, a lawyer from Togo, who is responsible for outreach and support to the International Criminal Court (ICC) campaigns in 53 Francophone and Anglophone countries in Africa; James Cockayne, from Australia, from the Institute for International Law and Justice at New York University, who has worked in Defense at the Special Court for Sierra Leone and in the Chambers of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda; and Wasana Punyasena, from Sri Lanka, who served as a law clerk at the Constitutional Court of South Africa, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and the ICC in The Hague, and is now deputy convener of the American Non-Governmental Organizations Coalition for the ICC (AMICC).

The program is co-sponsored by the Black Law Students Association, NAACP Portland Branch, and World Affairs Council of Maine.

For more information, contact thesis@midcoast.com or desmond.gilliard@maine.edu

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