{"id":30,"date":"2015-06-03T19:26:23","date_gmt":"2015-06-03T19:26:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.library.depaul.press\/full-text\/?p=30"},"modified":"2016-02-05T19:18:22","modified_gmt":"2016-02-05T19:18:22","slug":"four-shell-casings-and-an-honorary-degree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.library.depaul.press\/full-text\/2015\/06\/03\/four-shell-casings-and-an-honorary-degree\/","title":{"rendered":"Four Shell Casings and an Honorary Degree"},"content":{"rendered":"

Four Shell Casings and an Honorary Degree<\/a><\/h3>\n

By by Matthew Morley<\/span>\u00a0 \/ \u00a0 June 03, 2015<\/span>\u00a0 \/ \u00a0 Posted in: Special Collections and Archives<\/span>\u00a0 \/ \u00a0 Twitter<\/a>\u00a0 \/ \u00a0 Facebook<\/a>\u00a0 \/ \u00a00 Comments<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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In 1993, Sarajevo was the capital of newly independent Croatia and it was occupied by Serb paramilitary forces.<\/p>\n

The four shell casings on this plaque prompt the viewer with many questions: what do they symbolize, who created it, and why did DePaul Emeritus Professor of Law M. Cherif Bassiouni have it?\u00a0 We can only pose possible answers to the above questions; however, we do know that this plaque represents two things. On the one hand, it memorializes the massive loss of life incurred throughout the former Yugoslavia during the Third Balkan War of the 1990s.\u00a0 On the other hand, it signifies when and where Bassiouni, who was at the time President of the International Human Rights Law Institute (IHRLI)<\/a> at DePaul University, led a team of researchers to conduct a comprehensive investigation of the war crimes taking place.\u00a0 After hundreds of hours of dangerous research, the information that Bassiouni and the IHRLI collected was presented to the United Nations Commission of Experts, a group that Bassiouni oversaw as the Special Rapporteur.\u00a0 Many scholars of the Yugoslav civil war describe Bassiouni as an integral force in the investigation of mass graves and other human rights violations; historian John Allcock suggests that \u201ca great deal of eventual success was owed to Bassiouni\u2019s personal dedication and hard work in overcoming problems posed by the inadequacy of the resources placed at its disposal and the lack of cooperation from relevant parties.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Because of the efforts of the IHRLI, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was created.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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This honorary degree of Doctor of Laws was awarded to Bassiouni in 1997 because he \u201cstood among corpses in mass graves [of the former Yugoslavia] and dodged sniper fire.\u00a0 He has confronted the bureaucratic maze of the United Nations and challenged the President of the United States. [\u2026] Despite immense obstacles and great personal risk, and with little support\u2026\u201d\u00a0 Bassiouni has been awarded several other honorary degrees from institutions in the U.S. as well as overseas.<\/p>\n

In addition to his work in the former Yugoslavia, Cherif Bassiouni was DePaul University\u2019s first Nobel Peace Prize nominee in 1999.\u00a0 Bassiouni has also championed a few major areas of international law: the formation of an international criminal court (ICC) and recognizing mass rape not only as a violation of human rights but as a punishable war crime.\u00a0 His manuscript collection, from which the two objects above were selected, contains records of his work with dozens of organizations such as the IHRLI, the United Nations, and various United States departments\/agencies. The collection has an extensive series of articles that Bassiouni authored on a wide range of international law topics: narcotics, the ICC, mass rape, and genocide.<\/p>\n

The M. Cherif Bassiouni Papers is not only a valuable collection when researching the actions of the UN during\/after the destruction of Yugoslavia, but also an extensive archive of humanitarian efforts against war crimes, the IHRLI\u2019s promotion of legal education in the Middle East, and pro-international criminal court publications written by Bassiouni.\u00a0 For additional information about materials from the M. Cherif Bassiouni Papers\u00a0<\/a> used in this blog, contact Special Collections and Archives<\/a> at archives@depaul.edu<\/a> or stop by our department in the John T. Richardson Library, Room 314.<\/p>\n

Note: Matt Morley \u201915 processed the M. Cherif Bassiouni Papers while working as a student assistant in Special Collections and Archives.\u00a0 He later conducted further research in this collection for his Honors 301: Migration and Ethnicity in Post-World War II Europe course, and presented his paper Civil War or Genocide?: The United Nations\u2019 Misunderstanding of the Third Balkan War in the 1990s<\/em>\u00a0 at the 2015 Student History Conference<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Four Shell Casings and an Honorary Degree By by Matthew Morley\u00a0 \/ \u00a0 June 03, 2015\u00a0 \/ \u00a0 Posted in: Special Collections and Archives\u00a0 \/ \u00a0 Twitter\u00a0 \/ \u00a0 Facebook\u00a0 \/ \u00a00 Comments In 1993, Sarajevo was the capital of newly independent Croatia and it was occupied by Serb paramilitary forces. The four shell casings <\/p>\n

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