An article by Professor Rachel López, “The (Re)collection of Memory After Mass Atrocity and the Dilemma for Transnational Justice,” takes center stage at an online symposium co-hosted by the New York University Journal of International Law and Politics and Opinio Juris on Nov. 11.

The journal chose López’s article as the sole subject of the annual symposium hosted by Opinio Juris, a forum for scholarly discussions on international law and relations that also partners with institutions such as Harvard Law School to promote informed online discussions of legal topics.

In the article, López explores collective memory in the context of mass atrocities such as genocide and argues that victims’ shared memories have a legitimate role in the pursuit of justice, despite judicial systems’ longstanding tendency to focus on individual claims.   

The symposium is being led by four distinguished scholars:

• Mark A. Drumbl, the Class of 1975 Alumni Professor of Law and director of the Transnational Law Institute, Washington & Lee University

• Naomi Roht-Arriza, Distinguished Professor of Law, the University of California, Hastings College of Law

• Ruti Teitel, the Ernst C. Stiefel Professor of Comparative Law, New York Law School

• Johan D. van der Vyer, the I.T. Cohen Professor of International Law and Human Rights, Emory University School of Law.

The director of the law school’s Community Lawyering Clinic, López previously represented victims of state-sanctioned massacres in Grand Ravine, Haiti and worked on a petition for a thematic hearing on the human rights consequences of the Iraq War before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. She is the co-author of a 2012 human rights report on medical repatriation, which is the extrajudicial deportation of sick and critically injured immigrants by U.S. hospitals.