International Scholars

John Cerone and Janelle DillerJohn Cerone and Janelle Diller

Windsor Law is delighted to announce the appointment of our two Paul Martin Sr. Professors in International Affairs and Law. John Cerone also holds a faculty appointment at The Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy (Tufts University). During the 2014-15 academic year, he was the Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Human Rights & Humanitarian Law at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute and Visiting Chair in Public International Law at Lund University Faculty of Law. Professor Cerone joined us this month. 

Janelle Diller works at the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Geneva where she advises on international law and policy relating to human and labour rights, development, and migration, and negotiates agreements with governments, other international organizations, and the private sector.  She will join Windsor Law in January 2016. 

John Cerone

Professor Cerone holds a faculty appointment at The Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy (Tufts University). During the 2014-15 academic year, he was the Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Human Rights & Humanitarian Law at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute and Visiting Chair in Public International Law at Lund University Faculty of Law. In 2009, he was promoted to full professor and awarded tenure at the New England School of Law, where he also served as Director of New England’s Center for International Law & Policy.  He teaches Public International Law, International Human Rights Law, International Criminal Law, International Humanitarian Law / the Law of Armed Conflict, and International Organizations.

As a practicing international lawyer, Professor Cerone has worked for a number of different intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations, including the United Nations, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the International Secretariat of Amnesty International, and the International Crisis Group, and has served as a legal adviser to various international criminal courts and tribunals. He also has extensive field experience in conflict and post-conflict environments, such as Afghanistan, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, and East Timor. He has received the President’s Award of the Boston Bar Association for his legal work on Guantanamo Bay issues, which has included representing major international human rights organizations in detainee litigation before US courts and international human rights institutions.

He has been a fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law and a visiting scholar at the International Criminal Court. He holds a Fulbright Distinguished Chair, and has been a Fulbright scholar at both the Danish Institute for Human Rights and the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.

Professor Cerone is the U.S. Member of the International Law Association’s (ILA) International Human Rights Law Committee. He has served as Co-Chair of the Human Rights Interest Group of the American Society of International Law (ASIL), and as Chair of the International Human Rights Section of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS). He is accredited by the United Nations to represent the ASIL before various U.N. bodies. He is an elected member of the International Institute of Humanitarian Law and has served in the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Expert Group on the Law of Occupation. He also served as Special Adviser to the first U.S. delegation to the UN Human Rights Council.

He has lectured on human rights law, the law of armed conflict, and international criminal law at the International Institute of Humanitarian Law (Sanremo), the Inter-American Defense College, the Canadian Forces Staff College, the Swedish Defense University, NATO Headquarters, the Institut International des Droits de l'Homme, and in the ICRC Annual Course, and has been keynote speaker at the US Naval War College. He has taught in over 40 countries across all regions of the globe and is the author of dozens of articles and book chapters on international law, as well as the casebook Public International Law: Cases, Problems, and Texts (with Dinah Shelton and Stephen McCaffrey). You can view his website here.

Janelle Diller

Professor Diller is an international law scholar and counsel with experience in public and private international organizations. She works at the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Geneva where she advises on international law and policy relating to human and labour rights, development, and migration, and negotiates agreements with governments, other international organizations, and the private sector. Professor Diller recently designed and led a public-private scheme to compensate 3600 victims of a factory collapse in Bangladesh’s export sector (see www.ranaplaza-arrangement.org). She also helped conceptualize and draft the path-breaking Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, the ILO Declaration on Social Justice for a Fair Globalization, and the World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization’s report, A Fair Globalization

As legal director of an international human rights law NGO based in Washington D.C., Professor Diller represented human rights victims before UN and Inter-American fora and US Federal Courts. She conducted trial and election observations and fact-finding in detention centres; advised on constitutional and legal reforms in emerging democracies; and advocated for US ratification of two major UN human rights treaties by US Congress. As a consultant, Professor Diller drafted the now-famous complaint on forced labour in Myanmar that led to the first-ever ILO sanctions, and co-authored the UN analysis that led to the UN Guiding Principles on Internally Displaced Persons. Her Handbook on human rights in situations of conflict links human rights monitoring to early warning.  

Professor Diller teaches at the University of Bern, Switzerland (Law of International Organizations) and has taught international law subjects at Georgetown University, University of Virginia and other US law schools.  She has authored numerous books and publications on international human rights and labour law, international organizations law, and the role of transnational economic actors in international law.

Her selected recent works explore the legal responsibility of the United Nations for breaches of international obligations (Max Planck, 2015), the effects of globalized production systems on transnational labour regulation  (Elgar, 2015), specialized regimes in international social and economic law (Oxford 2013; Kluwer, 2012), and the legal responsibility of non-state actors for transnational privatized standards (Michigan Journal of International Law, 2012). Her book, Securing Dignity through Human Rights (Brill, 2012), links human rights theory and norms to the concept of social justice and explores the implementation of social justice through the international legal system.  

At Windsor Law, Professor Diller will teach Transnational Corporations and Human Rights, and lead a university-based research initiative. She will continue her research on the impact of international law and policy on social justice and human rights, and on the related responsibility of international organizations and transnational corporations.

Professor Diller welcomes students interested to participate in her work on the first global review of the impact of the ILO Declaration on Social Justice for a Fair Globalization.  Applications are invited from students with a demonstrated ability in research and analysis, and fluency in English; working knowledge of French or Spanish is also preferred.  A letter of introduction, C.V. and writing sample may be sent from September 2015 to janellemdiller@gmail.com.

Click here to view our Newsletter, Access Windsor Law, October 2015.