Roger S. Clark is an expert on global issues that include nuclear
disarmament, protecting human rights, international criminal law, and
U.S. foreign relations law. He worked for the New Zealand Justice
Department and Ministry of Foreign Affairs, served on the U.N. Committee
on Crime Prevention and Control, and represented Samoa and the Marshall
Islands before the International Court of Justice.
Professor Clark earned these degrees: B.A., L.L.B., L.L.M., L.L.D., L.L.D. honoris causa; Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand; L.L.M., J.S.D.; Columbia University, New York.
Professor Clark teaches courses in International Law; International Protection of Human Rights; International Organizations; International Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Policy; United States Foreign Relations and National Security Law; and Criminal Law. He served as a
member of the United Nations Committee on Crime Prevention and Control
between 1987 and 1990.
Prior to joining the Rutgers faculty in 1972,
he worked for the New Zealand Justice Department and Ministry of
Foreign Affairs; taught law in New Zealand; served as an American
Council of Learned Societies Fellow and Doctoral Fellow at the Columbia
University School of Law; interned at the United Nations; and taught at
the law school of the University of Iowa.
He has been a visiting or adjunct professor at numerous institutions,
including the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Miami, the
University of Graz in Austria, and the University of the South Pacific
(Fiji). He has taught in study abroad programs offered by Temple
University and the University of San Diego and teaches regularly in the
University of Salzburg's Summer School in International Criminal Law.
Professor Clark serves on the editorial boards of various publications,
including Criminal Law Forum: An International Journal; the Human
Rights Review; and the International Lawyer. He has been a board member
of several international nongovernmental organizations, such as the
International Centre for Criminal Law Reform and Criminal Justice Policy
in Vancouver, B.C., and the International League for Human Rights,
headquartered in New York.
In 1995 and 1996, he represented the Government of Samoa in arguing
the illegality of nuclear weapons before the International Court of
Justice in The Hague. Since 1995, he has represented Samoa in
negotiations to create the International Criminal Court and to get the court running successfully. He was very active in Court's Special
Working Group on the Crime of Aggression, which had the task of drafting
an amendment to the Court's Statute to activate its nascent jurisdiction
over the crime of aggression.
In 2014, he joined the legal team representing the Marshall Islands
in its cases against the states possessing nuclear weapons for failure
to disarm. These cases are before the International Court of Justice in
The Hague.
In 2015, 42 of Professor Clark's professional colleagues from around the world published a Feschrift for him: For the Sake of Present and Future Generations: Essays on International Law, Crime and Justice in Honour of Roger S. Clark (Suzannah Linton, Gerry Simpson, and William A. Schabas eds., Brill Nijhoff, Leiden, Boston).
Professor Clark contributed the following lecture to the United Nations Audiovisual Library of International Law: Reflections on The Lotus, Submarine Cables, Counterfeiters and Hijackers. [Available at: legal.un.org/avl/ls/Clark_S.html (2012)].
