Gregory S. Gordon
Assistant Professor of Law
gordon@law.und.edu
Professor Gordon is Director of the Center for Human Rights and Genocide Studies, and teaches in the areas of criminal law, criminal procedure, international law and international human rights law. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree (summa cum laude) and Juris Doctor at the University of California at Berkeley. He then served as law clerk to U. S. District Court Judge Martin Pence (D. Haw.). After a stint as a litigator in San Francisco, he worked with the Office of the Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, where he served as Legal Officer and Deputy Team Leader for the landmark "media" cases, the first international post-Nuremberg prosecutions of radio and print media executives for incitement to genocide. For this work, Professor Gordon received a commendation from Attorney General Janet Reno for "Service to the United States and International Justice." After his experience at ICTR, he became a white-collar criminal prosecutor with the U.S. Department of Justice, Tax Division. Following a detail as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, he was appointed as the Tax Division's Liaison to the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (Pacific Region) for which he helped prosecute large narcotics trafficking rings. Also during this time, he was detailed to Sierra Leone to conduct a post-civil war justice assessment for DOJ's Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development, Assistance, and Training. In 2003, he joined the Criminal Division's Office of Special Investigations, where he helped investigate and prosecute Nazi war criminals and modern human rights violators.
Professor Gordon has been featured on C-SPAN, NPR and Radio France Internationale as an expert on war crimes prosecution and has lectured on that subject at the U.S. Army J.A.G. School and the Harry S. Truman Presidential Museum and Library. On behalf of the Ethiopian government, he has trained high-level federal prosecutors in Addis Ababa. His scholarship on international criminal law has been published in leading international journals, such as the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, and the Virginia Journal of International Law. He has presented his work at institutions such as Yale University, Georgetown University Law Center and Emory University.
On-Line Symposia
OpinioJuris reply on "Participation in Virginia Journal of International Law Online Symposium related to incitement to genocide" - April 2008 thread
Opinio Juris, "Challenges to Public International Law"
Discussion of Gordon Paper, Response by Prof. Gordon
EMPLOYMENT
PUBLICATIONS
EDUCATION
ADDITIONAL EXPERIENCE
EMPLOYMENT
University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, North Dakota
Assistant Law Professor, School of Law, Aug. 2006 to present
-- Teaching International Human Rights, International Law, Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure
Director, Center for Human Rights & Genocide Studies, Dec. 2007 to present
United States Department of Justice, Criminal Division, Washington, D.C.
Senior Trial Attorney, Office of Special Investigations, 2003 to 2006
-- Prosecuted war criminals through denaturalization/deportation proceedings
Trial Attorney, Tax Criminal Enforcement Section, April 1999 to Nov. 2003
-- Prosecuted Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force and tax fraud cases
- Detailed by DOJ to conduct post-civil war justice assessment in Sierra Leone
- Awarded National and Pacific Region OCDETF Commendations
- Awarded IRS Commendation
United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, Washington, D.C.
Special Assistant United States Attorney, July 1999 to Jan. 2000
Sex Offense/Domestic Violence Unit -- 18 convictions in 20 trials
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, Kigali, Rwanda
Legal Officer and Deputy Team Leader -- Media Crimes Team, 1996 to 1997
- Indicted "Media Case" defendants for their role in incitement to genocide
- Helped direct team of lawyers, paralegals, and support staff
- Commendation from AG Janet Reno for Service to the U.S. and International Justice
Kollender & Sargoy, Los Angeles, CA - 1998
Seyfarth, Shaw, et al., San Francisco, CA - 1994 - 1996
McCutchen, Doyle, et al., San Francisco, CA - 1992 - 1994
Litigation Associate -- Emphasis in labor and employment litigation
United States District Court, Honolulu, Hawaii
Law Clerk, Honorable Martin Pence, U.S. District Court Judge, 1990 to 1991
PUBLICATIONS
From Incitement to Indictment? Prosecuting Iran's President for Advocating Israel's Destruction and Piecing Together Incitement Law's Emerging Analytical Framework
98 J. Crim. L. & Criminology __ (2008) (forthcoming) (symposium issue with articles by Professors M. Cherif Bassiouni, William Shabas, David Scheffer and Douglas Cassel)
Toward an International Criminal Procedure: Due Process Aspirations and Limitations - pdf format
45 Colum. J. Transnat'l L. 635 (2007) (lead article)
Taking the Paper Trail Instead of Memory Lane: OSI's Use of Ancient Foreign Documents in the Nazi Cases
United States Attorney's Bulletin, Vol. 54, No. 1 (Jan. 2006)
OSI's Expanded Jurisdiction under the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004
United States Attorney's Bulletin, Vol. 54, No. 1 (Jan. 2006)
"A War of Media, Words, Newspapers and Television Stations": The ICTR Media Trial Verdict and a New Chapter in the International Law of Hate Speech
45 Va. J. Int'l L. 139 (2004)
The Other Shoe Drops: Suits by Employees Discharged for Sexual Harassment
California Labor Letter, Vol. 6, No. 3 (1995)
A Family Farmer and a Deficient Definition: A Search for Analytic Criteria to Classify Hybrid Property in California Purchase-Money Antideficiency Cases
26 U.S.F. L. Rev. 23 (1991)
EDUCATION
Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California, Berkeley
Juris Doctor, 1990
- Moot Court Award for Written Brief
- Moot Court Board and Student Advisor
- High Honors, inter alia, in Criminal Procedure and International Organizations
- Editor, International Tax and Business Lawyer
University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California
B.A., Summa Cum Laude, French Literature, 1985
- Phi Beta Kappa and Second Highest Ranked Student in French Department
- Winner, California French Teachers Association Writing Contest
- Teaching Assistant, French Department
- Journalist, Daily Californian
Goethe Institute, Berlin, Germany
Diploma in Advanced Level German, 1985
University of Paris at the Sorbonne, Paris, France
Emphasis in Philosophy, History and Literature, 3.9 GPA, 1983-1984
ADDITIONAL EXPERIENCE
Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut - Understanding the Challenge of Iran
Speaker, April 30, 2008, "International Law and Incitement to Genocide"
Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia
Panelist, Nov. 2007 -- "Beyond Hollywood's Rwanda: Truth & Justice After the 1994 Genocide"
Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan
Speaker, Oct. 2007 -- "Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Incitement to Genocide"
Ethiopian Ministry of Justice, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Instructor, July 2007 -- Conducted training session for high-level federal prosecutors at personal request of Ethiopian Minister of Justice
Georgetown University Law Center, Washington, D.C.
Panelist, April 2007 -- "Issues in International Criminal Law"
Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia
Panelist, Jan. 2007 -- "The Continuing Search for Justice in the Rwandan Genocide"
American Association of Law Schools Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C.
Panelist, Jan. 2007 -- “New Voices in International Human Rights Scholarship"
Harry S. Truman Presidential Museum and Library, Independence, Missouri
Expert Panelist, 2005 - "Law of War" (televised on C-SPAN, Jan. 3, 2006)
George Washington University Law School, Washington, D.C.
Guest Lecturer, 2005 -- Delivered lecture on international criminal procedure
Army JAG School, Charlottesville, Virginia
Guest Lecturer, 2004 -- Delivered lecture on war crimes prosecution in Rwanda
Georgetown University Law Center, Washington, D.C.
Moot Court Judge, 2000 -- Evaluated/advised students in Mock Trial competition
Early Outreach/Upward Bound, University of California, Berkeley
Instructor, 1984-1985 -- Worked with economically underprivileged H.S. students
Institut Franco-Américain de Management, Paris, France
Lecturer, 1983-84 -- Taught International Relations course
