International law, human rights and criminal law scholar, Professor Roger Clark, will receive an honorary Doctor of Laws at Victoria University’s May graduation.

The first member of his family to go to university, Professor Clark graduated from Victoria in 1964 with a BA LLB. He added an LLM in 1967, and has since gained a further three degrees: a Doctor of Laws from Victoria in 1997, along with an LLM and a Doctorate in Juridical Science from Columbia University in New York.

Professor Clark has written or edited 12 books, authored and co-authored more than 130 articles and book chapters, and played a significant role in international human rights law – especially in helping to establish the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Professor Clark taught at Rutgers University-Camden for over 40 years, where he insisted on the inclusion of a course on the international protection of human rights, an uncommon part of the law school curriculum in the United States at the time.

By the mid-1980s his focus had shifted to teaching international criminal law, a topic also just beginning to be taught in law schools. He has helped to shape that discipline which is now taught at the majority of law schools across the United States and is the subject of specialty programmes worldwide.

In 1998, Professor Clark was named a Rutgers Board of Governors Professor. This honorary professorship is awarded by Rutgers University’s governing board to faculty members for substantial contributions to teaching and research.