In 2004, the Special Court of Sierra Leone observed that there was a ‘crystallising international norm that a government cannot grant amnesty for serious violations of crimes under international law’.  This Lecture will examine whether, two decades years later, this international norm has indeed crystallised into a binding rule of customary international law.  It will explore how we can identify if a purported norm is a customary international law rule and it will present evidence drawn from Professor Mallinder’s newly updated Amnesties, Conflict and Peace Agreement Database, to document how states have engaged with this norm.  This empirical data will demonstrate that there is little evidence that the anti-amnesty norm has attracted sufficiently widespread state support to be viewed as a customary international law norm.  The Lecture will then ask what does this enduring gap within the international legal framework mean for politicians, peace mediators, and civil society groups seeking to ensure peaceful and stable transitions from mass violence.

Louise Mallinder researches the intersections between law and peace and is a recognized international expert on amnesties.  She is the author of Amnesties, Political Transitions and Human Rights (Hart 2009) and Lawyers in Conflict and Peace (with K. McEvoy and A. Bryson, CUP 2022).  She is currently co-editing the Encyclopedia of Law and Peace (with R. Killean and L. Dempster, Elgar 2025) and is writing a monograph entitled The Future of Amnesties: The Legality and Limits of the Anti-Amnesty Norm in International Law.

Louise is the Deputy Director of the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice, and a Professor of Law.  She was appointed as the 2024 Pozen Professor of Human Rights at the University of Chicago.  This is a Visiting Professor appointment that is awarded annually to 'distinguished human rights scholars or practitioners'.  She continues to be a Faculty Affiliate of the Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts at the University of Chicago.  She has been elected as a Member of the Royal Irish Academy and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences.  In addition, she is a member of the Institute for Integrated Transitions Law and Peace Practice Group.