Red Shirts ICC Application Supported by Leading US Human Rights Expert

In preparation for the Jan. 31 submission of an application to the International Criminal Court (ICC), the law firm Amsterdam & Peroff has assembled a large team of both Thai and international human rights law experts, including the highly regarded law professor Douglass Cassel.

Professor Cassel, who serves as Director of the Center for Civil and Human Rights at Norte Dame University and has been named as a Norte Dame Presidential Fellow, has been working alongside lawyers Robert Amsterdam and Alexander Geert-Jan Knoops, among others, since the beginning of the process in preparing the upcoming application before the ICC on behalf of victims of the April and May 2010 crackdown.

Professor Cassel has published scholarly articles in English and Spanish are published in the United States, Latin America and Europe, and has presented before numerous universities and conferences worldwide. He has filed several amicus curiae briefs in the United States Supreme Court on behalf of retired United States diplomats and leading experts on international law, involving the rights of prisoners at Guantanamo, and accountability for human rights violations under the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA). He has also represented victims of human rights violations in Colombia, Guatemala, Peru and Venezuela, in cases before the Inter-American Commission and Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

Professor Cassel has served as Legal Advisor to the United Nations Commission on the Truth for El Salvador; Executive Council member of the American Society of International Law; co-chair of the International Committee of the Board of Directors of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law; Chair of the Independent International Panel on Alleged Collusion in Sectarian Killings in Northern Ireland; and consultant to the Department of State, Department of Justice, Ford Foundation, the President of the American Bar Association, and non-governmental human rights organizations. In 2000 and again in 2003, he was nominated by the US Government, and elected by the Organization of American States, to serve on the Board of the Justice Studies Center of the Americas, of which he was elected President. Since 2000 he has been President of the Due Process of Law Foundation, based in Washington, D.C., which promotes judicial reform throughout the hemisphere.

Professor Cassel commented on the ICC application to be filed on Jan. 31: “Some observers have suggested that the ICC has no jurisdiction because Thailand has not joined the ICC. However, the ICC has other bases of jurisdiction. It is entirely possible for the ICC to have jurisdiction even when the country where the events took place is not a member of the ICC.”

“It’s a great pleasure to work with Professor Cassel on this historic case,” said Robert Amsterdam. “His experience in international human rights law is invaluable in assisting our ambitious goal of bringing an end to impunity in Thailand and revealing the truth about the April and May massacres, through any and all international legal fora available. Our expectations are measured, and everyone understands that we face a long, uphill battle. We must make every effort to break the ongoing, systemic political persecution of the Red Shirt movement.”

On Oct. 26, 2010, Amsterdam & Peroff filed a preliminary report to the ICC ahead of its official application.