Robert Badinter has been a senator in the French Senate from 1995 until 2011. During his distinguished career, he has also been President of the Constitutional Council (1986-1995), President of the Arbitration Commission for former Yugoslavia (1992-1995), a member of the Brussels Convention for the European Constitution 2003 of the High Level Panel appointed by S.G. Kofi Annan (2003-2004), and Minister of Justice (1981-1986). Robert Badinter has been a long-time activist for the abolition of the death penalty and among the numerous achievements of his period as Minister of Justice was the abolition of the death penalty in France.
Badinter holds the highest degrees from the Sorbonne, Paris School of Law and an M.A. from Columbia University, and was appointed Professor of Law at the Sorbonne in 1965 (Emeritus since 1996). He is the author of eleven books: Against Death Penalty (2006); The Execution (1973); Freedom, Freedoms (1975); Condorcet, in collaboration with Elisabeth Badinter (1988); Free and Equals... (1989); The Penitentiary system of the Republic 1871-1914 (1992); An ordinary anti-Semitism (1997); The Abolition (2000); An European Constitution (2002); The greater good . . . (2004); and The birth of the Civil Code of 1804, Les épines et les roses (2011).
Welcome: Renata Uitz, Professor, Department of Legal Studies, CEU
Opening Remarks: John Shattuck, President and Rector, CEU
Introduction: Wiktor Osiatynski, Professor, Department of Legal Studies, CEU
