Gregory S. Gordon is a Professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) Law Faculty. He formerly served as CUHK Law’s Associate Dean (Development/External Affairs) and Director, Research Postgraduates Programme. Prior to joining CUHK, Professor Gordon was a tenured faculty member at the University of North Dakota (UND) School of Law and Director of the UND Center for Human Rights and Genocide Studies. 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 the 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 DOJ 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 CNN, the BBC, NPR, C-SPAN, and Radio France Internationale as an expert on genocide and war crimes prosecutions and has lectured on those subjects at the United Nations, the International Criminal Court, the U.S. Army J.A.G. School, the Harry S. Truman Presidential Museum and Library, the Nuremberg Trials Courtroom, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. In 2015, his work was featured in an NPR broadcast on incitement to genocide narrated by Academy Award-winning actor Morgan Freeman. Professor Gordon has trained high-level federal prosecutors in Addis Ababa at the request of the Ethiopian government, as well as prepared prosecutors for the Khmer Rouge leadership trial at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia in Phnom Penh and trained lawyers and judges at the War Crimes Chamber for the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina. His scholarship on international criminal law has been published in leading international academic publications, such as the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law and the Virginia Journal of International Law as well as top American flagship law reviews such as the Ohio State Law Journal and the Oregon Law Review. He is one of the world’s foremost authorities on incitement to genocide and his book Atrocity Speech Law: Foundation, Fragmentation, Fruition, proposing a new paradigm for hate speech in international criminal law, was published by Oxford University Press in 2017. In 2018, Professor Gordon received the university’s Research Excellence Award, providing substantial financial support for his research.

Professor Gordon has presented his work at institutions such as Oxford University Faculty of Law, Harvard Law School, Columbia Law School, Yale University, Georgetown University Law Center, Melbourne Law School and Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. He was the inaugural winner of the North Dakota Spirit Law School Faculty Achievement Award in 2009 and was invited to deliver the prestigious UND Faculty Lecture in 2011. In 2010, Professor Gordon co-wrote the U.S. Supreme Court amicus brief of Holocaust and Darfur Genocide survivors in the case of Yousuf v. Samantar. He also represented the International League for Human Rights at the International Criminal Court Conference in Kampala, Uganda. In 2012, he was the BBC World News live on-air television analyst for the announcement of the historic Charles Taylor trial verdict. He serves as a consultant for the International Nuremberg Principles Academy and is adviser on hate speech issues for the Sentinel Project on Genocide Prevention’s Advisory Council. He is also on the Council of Advisors for the Global Institute for the Prevention of Aggression. In 2018, Professor Gordon was made a Research Fellow of the Centre for International Law Research and Policy.

EDUCATION AND PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATIONS

• JD, University of California at Berkeley
• BA (French Literature) (Summa cum Laude), University of California at Berkeley
• Admitted to Practice before the United States Supreme Court
• Admitted to State Bar of California
• Admitted to State Bar of Hawaii

AWARDS

• Commendation from U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno for “Service to the United States and International Justice” (2001)
• North Dakota Spirit Law School Faculty Achievement Award (Inaugural Winner)
  Feb. 2009 — In recognition of “expanding the reach of law school programs and student thinking, prolific scholarship, and an international presence that raises the visibility of the law school and the University”
• University of North Dakota Faculty Lecture 
  Feb. 2011 — Selected to present prestigious University Faculty Lecture: “The Next Chapter in International Speech-Crime Law? Incitement to Commit War Crimes”
• University of North Dakota Johnson Research Fellowship
  2012 & 2013 — Awarded fellowship and grant money for excellence in scholarship
• Chinese University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law — Nominated for Teaching Excellence Award for 2014-2015 academic year
• Chinese University of Hong Kong – 2018 Research Excellence Award

RESEARCH INTERESTS

• International Criminal Law
• Atrocity Speech Law
• History of International Criminal Law
• International Criminal Procedure
• International Human Rights Law

REPRESENTATIVE PUBLICATIONS

Books/Book Chapters

• Atrocity Speech Law: Foundation, Fragmentation, Fruition (Oxford University Press,  2017)
• International Criminal Law’s ‘Oriental Pre-Birth’: The 1894-1900 Trials of the Siamese, Ottomans and Chinese, in The Historical Origins of International Criminal Law (Torkel Opsahl, M. Bergsmo et al. eds., 2015)
• Of War-Councils and War-Mongering: Considering the Viability of Incitement to Aggression, in For the Sake of Present and Future Generations: Essays on International Law, Crime and Justice in Honour of Roger S. Clark (Brill-Nijhoff, S. Linton, G. Simpson & W. Schabas, eds., 2015) 
• Speech in Pre- and Post-Genocidal Environments, in Confronting Genocide in Rwanda: Dehumanization, Denial, and Strategies for Prevention (Conference Proceedings of Dec. 2012 conference hosted by the Rwandan National Center for the Fight against Genocide, Jean-Damascene Gasanabo, David Simon & Margee Ensign, eds. 2014)
• The Trial of Peter von Hagenbach: Reconciling History, Historiography and International Criminal Law, in Untold Stories: Hidden Histories of War Crimes Trials (Oxford University Press, Kevin Jon Heller, Gary J. Simpson eds. 2013)
• Complementarity and Alternative Forms of Transitional Justice, in The International Criminal Court and Complementarity: From Theory to Practice (Cambridge University Press, Carsten Stahn, Mohamed El Zeidy, eds. 2011)
• John D. Williams, Robert G. Waite, Gregory S. Gordon, eds., John F. Kennedy: History, Memory, Legacy – An Interdisciplinary Inquiry – authored book Introduction and edited JFK Conference proceedings, available at https://commons.und.edu/oers/3/
• Incitement to Genocide in International Law, in Holocaust Encyclopedia (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum online publication) – contributed to and helped edit chapter, available at http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10007839

Journal Articles

• When “One Country, Two Systems” Meets “One Person, One Vote”: The Law of Treaties and the Handover Narrative through the Crucible of Hong Kong’s Election Crisis, 16 Melbourne J. Int’l. L. 343 (2015)
• Speech Along the Atrocity Spectrum 42 Ga. J. Int’l & Comp. L. 560 (2014) (lead article)
• The Forgotten Nuremberg Hate Speech Case: Otto Dietrich and the Future of Persecution Law, 75 Ohio St. L. J. 571 (2014)
• Hate Speech and Persecution: A Contextual Approach, 46 Vand. J. Transnat’l L. 303 (2013) (lead article)
• Formulating a New Atrocity Speech Offense: Incitement to Commit War Crimes, 43 Loy. U. Chi. L. J. 267 (2012) (lead article)
• Music and Genocide: Harmonizing Coherence, Freedom and Nonviolence in Incitement Law, 50 Santa Clara L. Rev. 607 (2010) (lead article)
• Complementarity and Alternative Justice, 88 Or. L. Rev. 621 (2009) (lead article)
• An African Marshall Plan: Changing U.S. Policy to Promote the Rule of Law and Prevent Mass Atrocity in the Democratic Republic of Congo, 32 Fordham Int’l L. J. 1361 (2009) (lead article)
• Genocide: The Year in Review 2009 – Never Say Never Again?, Genocide Prevention Now (2008) available here.
• 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 853 (2008)
• Toward an International Criminal Procedure: Due Process Aspirations and Limitations,
  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 2004 Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, 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)

Essay

• The Law of Incitement, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Committee on Conscience “Speech, Power, Violence: A Seminar of Experts” available at http://www.ushmm.org/genocide/spv/ (2009)
• Review Essay of Hong Kong’s War Crimes Trials by Suzannah Linton, 15 560 (2014)

Book Reviews

• The Eichmann Trial by Deborah E. Lipstadt, 26 Emory Int’l L. Rev. 489 (2012)
• JFK  & The Unspeakable by James Douglass, 19 Villanova J. Peace & Justice Studies 84 (2010)

SELECTED CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS

• International Nuremberg Principles Academy, Nuremberg, Germany
  December 2014 – “Hate Speech and Incitement to Genocide: A Legal Framework”
• International Criminal Court, The Hague, Netherlands
  May 2014 – “Hate Speech and the ICC’s Substantive Crimes”
• Columbia Law School, New York, New York
  February 2014 – “The Enemy Within: A Neo-Nazi Takeover in the American Heartland?”
• University of Siena, Siena, Italy
  June 2013 – “Hate Speech and Persecution: A Contextual Approach”
• Harvard Law School, Cambridge, Massachusetts
  April 2013 – “The Forgotten Nuremberg Hate Speech Case: Otto Dietrich and the Future of Persecution Law”
• United Nations, New York, New York February 2013 – “The Role of Incitement in the Rwandan Genocide”