Susan Lamb
(On Leave)
Susan is an experienced international criminal and humanitarian lawyer and criminal litigator, with a particular focus on appellate advocacy.
Before joining the bar, Susan was a Crown Counsel in the Crown Law Office’s criminal team and has appeared before the New Zealand Court of Appeal and United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia trial and appeals chambers.
Susan undertook doctoral studies in public international law at Oxford University in the 1990s as a Rhodes Scholar. She began her New Zealand career as a vacation researcher with MFAT’s legal division and, after graduate studies, as a researcher to a Liberal Democrat life peer before the UK House of Lords. She commenced her United Nations career in 1997 with the UNICTY Office of the Prosecutor, and has held senior-most judicial support roles before the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the UN Assistance to the Khmer Rouge Trials for almost 15 years.
Susan has over 20 years of UN, governmental and civil society consultancy experience in the international accountability, law of armed conflict, conflict-related sexual violence, counter-terrorism and anti-corruption fields. She has advised United Nations agencies, inter-governmental organisations, governments, and civil society organisations in various countries, including the Maldives, Mali, Nigeria, Somalia, Kenya, Uganda, Iraq and Bangladesh.
Given her expertise in international criminal and humanitarian law and public international law, Susan enjoys acting on non-contentious matters and frequently provides legal, policy and strategic advice outside of a litigation context, on a broad range of issues within the international criminal and humanitarian law, counter-terrorism, and anti-corruption fields. She is currently part of an international body of experts developing and building support for the creation of an International Anti-Corruption Court.
In 2022, Susan was appointed to a one-year term as a Justice of the criminal division of the Belize Supreme Court (now High Court), where she had a substantial docket of homicide, sexual crimes, and other serious indictable offences. She is also a qualified arbitrator and a member of the Certified Institute of Arbitrators (CIARB).
Susan has frequently taught university courses (usually summer school papers) in international criminal law and transitional justice at the Universities of Otago and Auckland, and at many other law schools in the United Kingdom, Europe, Asia, Australia and the United States.
Areas of practice: criminal; international criminal law; public international law; arbitration.
Qualifications
BA (Hons, 1st), Political Studies, University of Otago, 1991
LLB (Hons, 1st), University of Otago, 1992
Barrister and Solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand, 2010
Awards and memberships
Borrin Foundation Learning and Travel Award 2024
Rhodes Scholarship (New Zealand and Balliol) 1992
University Senior (1991) and Junior (1986) Scholarships
Member, Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (CIARB) 2023
Member, New Zealand Bar Association | Ngā Ahorangi Motuhake o te Ture
Notable work
Member of International Committee of Experts guiding the development of an International Anti-Corruption Court (IACC) (supported by a Borrin Foundation Travel and Learning Award (2024) and fellowship at The New Institute, Hamburg (2024-25))
Justice of the Supreme Court of Belize (2022-2023)
Rostered expert in international criminal justice, Justice Rapid Response (JRR)
International humanitarian law adviser to the Mission Force Headquarters of the European Union Training Mission, Mali (EUTM-Mali) (2019-2020)
Senior Judicial Coordinator/ Senior Legal Officer, Chambers, United Nations Assistance to Khmer Rouge Trials (2009-2013) (first trial verdict in relation to notorious torture and extermination facility in Phnom Penh and trial of core case against four surviving senior leaders of Pol Pot regime)
Chef de Cabinet to President Erik Mose and Senior Legal Officer, Trial Chamber I, United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (2005-09) (senior-most staff support role to ICTR Presidency and to trial and verdicts concerning several significant civilian and military perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide before Trial Chamber I, including Prosecutor v Bagosora)
Appeals Counsel and Legal Adviser (International Law), Office of the Prosecutor, UNICTY (2000-2005) (specialist focus on scope of OTP enforcement powers, particularly powers of arrest; counsel or legal adviser in core UNICTY cases, including Prosecutor v Kunarac (lead authority on conflict-related sexual violence), Prosecutor v Galic and Prosecutor v Strugar et al (conduct of hostilities prosecutions following the siege of Sarajevo and shelling of Dubrovnik) and Prosecutor v Milosevic (pre-trial/arrest phase)
Notable cases
Court of Appeal
- Tatterson v R [2023] NZCA 467 (sentencing starting point for serious sexual offending; available discounts upon plea of guilty; impact of ‘Three Strikes’ legislation)
- Hugo v R [2024] NZCA 62 (risk and proportionality assessment; rights based analysis; Extended Supervision Order)
- Ka Yip Wan v R [2024] 3 NZCA 143 (significantly out of time sentencing appeals)
Court of Appeal (*not lead counsel)
- Mist v Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections [2023] NZCA 549 (leave to appeal to Supreme Court declined [2024] NZSC 20) (risk assessment and other criteria for grant of Extended Supervision Order)
- Hanna v R [2023] NZCA 485 (evaluation of mixed jury verdict and reasonableness of belief in consent post-Kempson)
Publications
“The Legal Good of ‘Humanity’ Protected by Crimes Against Humanity”, in Morten Bergsmo, Emiliano J. Buis and SONG Tianying (editors), Philosophical Foundations of International Criminal Law: Legally Protected Interests, Torkel Opsahl Academic EPublisher, Brussels, 2022
“Preuve” (evidence), in Oliver Beauvallet (ed), Dictionnaire Encyclopedique Justice Penale, Berger Levrault (2017)
“Reconciliation v. Accountability: The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia”, FICHL Policy Brief Series No. 34 (2015)
“Access to Justice before International Criminal Tribunals: An Evaluation of the Scheme of Victim Participation Adopted by the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC)” in Patrick Keyzer, Vesselin Popovski and Charles Sampford (eds), Access to International Justice (Routledge, 2015), 128-147
“Prosecutor v. Tadic”, Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law, Rüdiger Wolfrum (ed.), (Oxford University Press, 2009)
“Nullem crimen, nulla poena sine lege in international criminal law” in A. Cassese et al. (eds.), The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court: a commentary (Oxford University Press, 2002), Vol I, 733-66
“Illegal Arrest and the Jurisdiction of the ICTY” in Richard May et al. (eds.), Essays on ICTY Procedure and Evidence: In Honour of Gabrielle Kirk McDonald, (Kluwer, 2001), 27-43
“The Powers of Arrest of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia,” British Yearbook of International Law, Volume 70, Issue 1, 1999, 165-244
“Legal Limits to UN Security Council Powers,” in G. Goodwin-Gill and S. Talmon, The Reality of International Law: Essays in Honour of Ian Brownlie, (OUP, 1999), 361-388
“The U.N. Protection Force in Yugoslavia,” in R. Thakur and C. Thayer, A Crisis of Expectations: U.N. Peacekeeping in the 1990s, (Harper Collins/Westview: 1996), 65-84
“The Ethics of Surrogacy: A Framework for Legal Analysis,” 31(4) Family and Conciliation Courts Review (October 1993), 401-424
“Residence Rules and the Income Tax (Amendment) Act 1989″ [1990] NZLJ 102 (with W.M Patterson)
