Speaker: C. Federico Gaitán Hairabedian (American University, Washington College of Law)

Chair: Dr Alice Panepinto (QUB)

In this roundtable seminar Federico Gaitán will present his research on late-stage Transitional Justice in Argentina through the case analysis of the ESMA III Death Flights Trial, drawing on his career as a practising lawyer, human rights activist and scholar.   The conversation will address the opportunities and challenges of late-stage transitional justice mechanisms seeking to address unresolved legacies of harm.

The guest speaker will be joined by colleagues at Queen's working on similar themes, including in relation to Northern Ireland, for an interesting discussion of how societies address violent past many decades later.

Federico Gaitán Hairabedian is currently a Dean’s Fellowat the Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, Washington College of Law.

Federico, an Argentine-trained lawyer, is an international criminal law attorney with a specialisation in human rights and transitional justice.  He has played a leading role in the prosecution of human rights violations during Argentina’s last military dictatorship, including a landmark case involving 50+ accused and 800+ victims.   Alongside his litigation work, as President of the Argentine-Armenian NGO Luisa Hairabedian Foundation, Federico led the organization’s efforts culminating in the historic 2011 ruling by an Argentine federal court that recognised the Armenian Genocide under Argentine law.

Federico holds a law degree from the University of Buenos Aires and a specialisation in criminal law from Torcuato Di Tella University.  He also earned an LL.M. in International Human Rights Law and International Humanitarian Law from American University’s Washington College of Law, where he is currently a doctoral candidate (SJD). 

Dr Alice Panepinto is a Mitchell Institute Fellow and Reader at the School of Law, Queen's University Belfast.

Alice is an international and comparative lawyer focusing on human rights and humanitarian law, and has a regional specialism in the 'Middle East' and particularly Palestine where she worked in a non-academic role prior to returning to academia.   Alice's monograph, Truth and Transitional Justice: Localising the International Legal Framework in Muslim Majority Legal Systems (Hart, 2022), investigates synergies between international law and Islamic law in furthering truth-seeking.

Between 2020-24 she led, as PI, a project funded by AHRC on the forced displacement of Palestinian Bedouin communities in the West Bank, resulting in an edited book,  Ending Impunity for International Law Violations: Palestinian Bedouins and the Risk of Forced Displacement (Hart, 2025) and an accompanying documentary film, We Will Remain. 

This event is hosted in partnership with:

Queen's University Belfast School of Law. QUB Human Rights Centre Seminar Series together with Transitional Justice Cluster and the Institute of Criminology and Criminal Justice.