William Anthony Schabas, OC (born 19 November 1950) is a Canadian academic specialising in international criminal and human rights law. He is professor of international law at Middlesex University in the United Kingdom, professor of international human law and human rights at Leiden University in the Netherlands, and an internationally respected expert on human rights law, genocide and the death penalty. Schabas has been described as "the world expert on the law of genocide and international law." He has written over 18 monographs and 200 articles. In 2009 he was elected President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars. He is an Officer of the Order of Canada and a Member of the Royal Irish Academy, as well as holding a position on the board of directors of the International Institute for Criminal Investigation and René Cassin, a non-government organisation that presents a Jewish voice on human rights. Schabas has authored more than 350 academic journal articles. He has also delivered lectures or conference papers in more than fifty countries. His writings have been cited in judgments, decisions and opinions of: International Court of Justice, International Criminal Court, International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, Special Court for Sierra Leone, European Court of Human Rights, Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Supreme Court of Canada, United States Supreme Court, Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, High Court of Tanzania and Supreme Court of Israel. Schabas also sits on the advisory board of the Israel Law Review, the Journal of International Criminal Justice and is editor-in-chief of Criminal Law Forum, the quarterly journal of the International Society for the Reform of Criminal Law. He is a member of the board of trustees of the United Nations Voluntary Fund for Technical Cooperation in the Field of Human Rights. Schabas served as one of seven commissioners on the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and as one of six commissioners on the Iran Tribunal Truth Commission from 18 to 22 June 2012. In 2014, Schabas was appointed the head of a UN Committee investigating the role of Israel in the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict. The appointment was criticized by Canada's Foreign Minister, John Baird, and the Geneva-based advocacy NGO UN Watch, on the basis of allegations that Schabas was anti-Israel, a charge he denied. In February 2015 he resigned after an Israeli complaint that he provided legal advice to the