Mark Drumbl Quoted in Courthouse News Service Drumbl was among several scholars discussing disputes about the legal definition of genocide and the term’s use to describe Israel’s actions in Gaza.

By Law Communications
March 18, 2026

Washington and Lee law professor Mark Drumbl was quoted in a recent “Courthouse News Service” article on the U.S. intervention at the United Nations highest court. The U.S. announced last week that it would present its interpretation of the Genocide Convention, the post-World War II treaty at the center of the dispute, at a case being heard in the International Court of Justice.

At issue is whether the definition of genocide will be relaxed to include Israel’s actions in Gaza, a position which the U.S. rejects. The U.S. is not alone in offering guidance to the court on interpretations of the treaty, with other interventions coming from Namibia, Hungary, Fiji, the Netherlands, and Iceland.

Professor Drumbl said in the article that interventions like these “play an important expressive role in international litigation.”

“Interventions by treaty signatories in a case like this can create a broader conversation,” he said, allowing states to weigh in on how key provisions of the Genocide Convention should be interpreted. Even if judges give them limited weight, he added, the filings help by “creating a space for broader input and centralizing the importance of law in the management of violence, international relations, and judicial legitimacy.”

Professor Drumbl is the Class of 1975 Alumni Professor and Director of the Transnational Law Institute at W&L. His research and teaching interests include public international law, global environmental governance, international criminal law, post-conflict justice, and transnational legal process. His work has been relied upon by national and international courts; he has served as a 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), and The Character of International Law (Bloomsbury, 2025, with Emma Breeze and Gerry Simpson).

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