Hon. Patricia Whalen
Hon. Patricia Whalen has been a judge for more than 20 years, having presided over proceedings in the U.S. and serving for 5 years (2007 -2012) as an international judge in the War Crimes Chamber of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In this capacity she served on both the First Instance and Appellate Court. She is the founding member of the Afghan Judicial Education Program, facilitating cross-cultural judicial learning in both the U.S. and Afghanistan. Whalen was an official expert representative of the International Association of Women Judges at The Hague Conference on Private International Law. She holds specializations in areas including human rights, war crimes, gender violence in conflict, genocide and crimes against humanity, as well as family law. Judge Whalen served as a Special Advisor to the Court in Bosnia and Herzegovina (2012-2014), focusing on judicial education in international law, judicial management systems, trial management, designing judicial education programs, hybrid legal systems, judicial trial skills particularly in regards to war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity and gender-based violence. She currently serves as a consultant and advisor to the Center for Peacebuilding in Sanski Most, Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Cohen Center for Genocide and Holocaust Studies in Keene, New Hampshire. In 2019, The Cohen Center awarded her the Susan J. Herman Award for Leadership in Holocaust and Genocide Awareness. Judge Whalen received the Vermont Law School Distinguished Alumni Award in June, 2019.