Panel I: International Law’s “Innocence Gap”
November 2, 10:30 AM-12:00 PM (Eastern Time) *Note the time change
About this panel:
Over the last decade, a growing number of countries have adopted new laws and other mechanisms to address a gap in national criminal legal systems: the absence of meaningful procedures to raise post-conviction claims of factual innocence. These legal and policy reforms have responded to a global surge of exonerations facilitated by the growth of national innocence organizations that increasingly collaborate across borders. These developments have occurred with little direct help from international law. Although many treaties recognize extensive fair trial and appeal rights, no international human rights instrument—in its text, existing interpretation, or implementation—explicitly and fully recognizes the right to assert a claim of factual innocence. This omission is international law’s innocence gap. This panel will present its analysis of the gap and discuss ways to address it.
About the speakers:
Moderator
Avv. Luca Lupária
Luca Lupária is full professor of criminal procedure at the University of Milan (Italy). He serves as director of the Italy Innocence Project and president of the European Innocence Network. He has written monographs on core issues of criminal justice and several international scientific publications. He is a visiting professor at multiple American and European universities. He is also a criminal lawyer admitted to the Italian Supreme Court and Court of Cassation.
Panelists
Brandon L. Garrett
Brandon L. Garrett is the L. Neil Williams Professor of Law at Duke University School of Law, where he has taught since 2018, and where he founded and directs the Wilson Center for Science and Justice. His research and teaching interests include criminal procedure, wrongful convictions, habeas corpus, corporate crime, scientific evidence, civil rights, and constitutional law. Garrett’s work, including six books, has been widely cited by courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, lower federal courts, state supreme courts, and courts in other countries. Garrett attended Columbia Law School, where he was an articles editor of the Columbia Law Review and a Kent Scholar. After graduating, he clerked for the Hon. Pierre N. Leval of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He then worked as an associate at Neufeld, Scheck & Brustin LLP in New York City. Beginning in 2020, Garrett serves as the court-appointed monitor for the federal misdemeanor bail reform consent decree in Harris County, Texas.
Laurence R. Helfer
Laurence R. Helfer is the Harry R. Chadwick, Sr. Professor of Law and co-director of the Center for International and Comparative Law at Duke University. He is a permanent visiting professor at iCourts: Center of Excellence for International Courts at the University of Copenhagen, which awarded him an honorary doctorate in 2014. Helfer has authored more than 100 scholarly publications, including four co-authored books, two edited volumes, and numerous articles in peer review law and political science journals. He has lectured widely on his diverse research interests, which include international law and institutions, human rights (including LGBT rights), and international adjudication and dispute settlement. Helfer was nominated by the United States and elected as a member of the UN Human Rights Committee for 2023 to 2026. He recently completed a four-year term as co-editor-in-chief of the American Journal of International Law.
Jayne Huckerby
Jayne Huckerby is clinical professor of law and the inaugural director of the International Human Rights Clinic at Duke University School of Law. Huckerby focuses on fact-finding, research, and advocacy in the areas of gender and human rights, gender and national security, human trafficking, and human rights in U.S. foreign policy. She frequently serves as a human rights law expert to international and regional governmental organizations and NGOs, particularly on gender, human rights, and national security, and the nexus between trafficking and terrorism. She has written and co-authored numerous articles, book chapters, and human rights reports and she is editor with Margaret L. Satterthwaite, of Gender, National Security, and Counter-Terrorism: Human Rights Perspectives and of the Research Handbook on Gender Issues and Human Rights (forthcoming).
