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Reconsidering International Criminal Law’s Future: Corporations, Climate Change, and AI
International criminal law has traditionally focused on prosecuting individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and aggression. This talk argues that the framework is increasingly ill-suited to address emerging global challenges such as climate change, pandemics, corporate power and artificial intelligence.

It explores how these threats challenge existing concepts of criminal responsibility and evidence, particularly as AI reshapes how truth is created, verified and contested. The presentation considers whether international law must evolve beyond traditional criminal justice models to better promote human rights, security and global well-being.

Mark A. Drumbl is the Class of 1975 Alumni Professor and Director, Transnational Law Institute, at Washington and Lee University. A Canadian national, he has held visiting appointments and has taught at law schools world-wide, including Queen’s University Belfast, Oxford University (University College), Free University of Amsterdam, University of Melbourne, University of Ottawa, Masaryk University (Czechia), and John Cabot University in Rome. His work has been relied upon by national and international courts; he has served as defense lawyer in Rwandan genocide trials; co-authored an amicus brief to the International Criminal Court in the Ongwen case; and has been an expert in litigation including on international terrorism, with the UN in matters involving child soldiers, and with the UN Human Rights Council in the drafting of a global convention to criminalize racist hate speech. His books include Atrocity, Punishment, and International Law (Cambridge 2007), Reimagining Child Soldiers in International Law and Policy (Oxford 2012), and Informers Up Close: Stories from Communist Prague (Oxford 2024, with Barbora Holá); and co-edited volumes Research Handbook of Child Soldiers (Elgar 2019, with Jastine Barrett),  Sights, Sounds, and Sensibilities of Atrocity Prosecutions (Brill 2024, with Caroline Fournet), Children and Violence (Routledge 2024, with Christelle Molima and Mohamed Kamara et al), The Character of International Law (Bloomsbury, 2025, with Emma Breeze and Gerry Simpson), and Reframing Transitional Justice (Routledge 2026, with Kirsten Fisher). He is Editor-in-Chief of the International Criminal Law Review.