Professor Claudio Grossman Awarded 2020 Goler T. Butcher Medal
Presented at 114th ASIL Annual Meeting, June 25-26, 2020
July 2, 2020
Professor and Dean Emeritus Claudia Grossman has been awarded the 2020 Goler T. Butcher Medal by the American Society of International Law (ASIL). The Medal was presented by ASIL President Catherine Amirfar in recognition of Grossman's outstanding contributions to the development and effective realization of international human rights law. The Medal was officially presented to Professor Grossman at the ASIL Annual Meeting on June 25, 2020.
The ASIL Honors Committee in its presentation of Professor and Dean Emeritus Claudio Grossman stated that:
"Professor Grossman has worked tirelessly to promote human rights and the rule of law in a variety of leadership capacities in both international and domestic organizations. Among many other contributions, he has served as both member and chairperson of the United Nations Committee against Torture (CAT), and as chair of the UN Human Rights Treaty Bodies. From 1993 to 2001, he served on the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights (IACHR), and was twice elected as that body’s President, in 1996 and again in 2001. He also served as the IACHR’s Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Women as well as its Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Populations. He also participated in a number of landmark human rights cases within the Inter-American legal system, such as Aloeboetoe et al v. Suriname, Velázquez-Rodríguez v. Honduras, and Awas Tingni v. Nicaragua.
Professor Grossman currently serves as President of the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights and as Chair of the United Nations International Law Commission (ILC) Drafting Committee, having been elected to the ILC in 2016. He has also been elected to L’Institut de Droit International (International Law Institute) and the American Law Institute. Among other recognitions for his work in international law and human rights, Professor Grossman has received the Chapultepec Grand Prize from the Inter-American Press Association, the Harry LeRoy Jones Award from the Washington Foreign Law Society, the René Cassin Award from B'nai B'rith International in Chile, the Simón Bolívar Award from the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, the Henry W. Edgerton Civil Liberties Award from the American Civil Liberties Union of the National Capital Area, and the Lifetime Leadership Award from the Hispanic National Bar Foundation.
Professor Grossman is also well known to the Society through his exemplary leadership of the Washington College of Law, which has generously sponsored numerous ASIL events, including most notably the Annual Grotius Lecture. In his twenty-one years as its Dean, Grossman presided over a remarkable expansion of WCL’s international offerings. Examples include the establishment of degree specializations in Gender and the Law, Free Trade Agreements and Regional Integration and Online Education, as well as specialized summer programs in human rights and humanitarian law, international commercial arbitration, international organizations, and law and diplomacy, among many others.”
Grossman is the Raymond Geraldson Scholar for International and Humanitarian Law at AUWCL, where he served as dean for 21 years. Throughout his academic career, Grossman has contributed to promoting the rule of law, human rights, and legal education in both international and domestic organizations.
Additionally, and as an educator, Grossman has developed programs in human rights law that have benefitted thousands of students including the Inter-American Moot Court Competition and the Academy on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at American University Washington College of Law.
To read more about the ASIL Annual Meeting visit: asil.org/annualmeeting.