Bio:

Michael Scharf has been Co-Dean of the Case Western Reserve University School of Law since 2013. He is also the Joseph C. Hostetler—BakerHostetler Professor of Law and serves as Managing Director of the Public International Law and Policy Group, a Nobel Peace Prize-nominated NGO. He has led USAID-funded transitional justice projects in Uganda, Cote d’Ivoire, Libya, and Turkey (for Syria), and maritime piracy projects in Kenya, Mauritius, and The Seychelles.

In 2004, Scharf trained the judges for the trial of Saddam Hussein and during a sabbatical in 2008, he served as Special Assistant to the Prosecutor of the Cambodia Genocide Tribunal, and during the elder Bush and Clinton Administrations, he served in the Office of the Legal Adviser of the U.S. Department of State, where he held the positions of Attorney-Adviser for Law Enforcement and Intelligence, Attorney-Adviser for United Nations Affairs, and delegate to the United Nations Human Rights Commission. In February 2022, Scharf presented an Amicus Argument before the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Court in the Hague on the question of who has the burden of proof on the insanity defense in a case involving a former child soldier. A graduate of Duke University School of Law (Order of the Coif and High Honors), and judicial clerk to Judge Gerald Bard Tjoflat on the Eleventh Circuit Federal Court of Appeals, Scharf is the author of over 100 scholarly articles and 20 books, five of which have won national book of the year honors.