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Last week, New College Essay Society hosted a remarkable evening, welcoming Judge Theodor Meron, one of the world’s foremost authorities on international criminal law and justice.

The evening began with a drinks reception in the Warden’s Lodgings, followed by a trio of engaging speeches. The centred on the term’s theme, ‘Code of Conduct’, offering a diverse range of perspectives on law, ethics, and resistance. The guest speaker, Theodor Meron, is discussing whether Shakespeare was a war criminal; Freddie Sugarman will debate the ethics of psychedelics legislation; and Henry Bunkall will outline how protest movements can form under repressive environments. 

Born in Poland in 1930, Meron has been a Judge and, between March 2012 and January 2019, was the President of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (Mechanism). He was also the President of the Appeals Chambers of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).

A leading scholar of international humanitarian law, human rights, and international criminal law, Judge Meron is the author of twelve books, mostly on international law and two on chivalry in Shakespeare. He has taught at NYU Law School, Harvard, Geneva, and Oxford. He has been honorary President of the American Society of International Law, Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of International Law, and Visiting Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford; he is Charles L. Denison Professor of Law Emeritus at NYU Law School and, since 2014, a Visiting Professor of Law at Oxford University. He was special adviser to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (2022-2025).

As child and teenager, he survived the Holocaust in ghettos and a labour camp. He was later smuggled out of Communist Poland and studied law at the Universities of Jerusalem, Harvard, and Cambridge. He has had distinguished and varied careers as a diplomat at the rank of Ambassador, Legal Adviser to the Foreign Ministry of Israel, Counsellor on International Law to the US State Department, and President of UN War Crimes Tribunals, as a leading professor of law, and now as a visiting professor of law in Oxford and Honorary Fellow of Trinity College.  He has written landmark decisions on genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. As a legal adviser in Israel, he authored a famous opinion in 1967 declaring the illegality of settlements in the West Bank. 

The event concluded with a lively Q&A session, in which attendees had the chance to engage with Judge Meron, the student speakers, and the topics explored.