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INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL LAW AND EUROPE.
LIBER AMICORUM FOR PROFESSOR KAROLY BARD
——o—
ELSPETH GUILD!
INTRODUCTION
Professor Käroly Bärd is one of Europe’s most outstanding jurists in the field of
criminal law. He is among the trail blazing legal voices regarding the intersection
of international and European human rights law and criminal justice with seminal
publications on fair trial in the context of states of emergency and the criminal
justice consequences of states’ human rights obligations.’
Professor Bard is also an exceptional jurist on account of his engagement
with regional and international institutions such as the Council of Europe, the
European Union, OECD and many others providing leadership and guidance on
human rights in particular in criminal justice. He has also been a key figure at
the CEU, helping to craft the institution into an intellectual academic leader. I
first had the pleasure of meeting Professor Bard in the early 1990s in the context
of a meeting of the European section of the International Commission of Jurists.
As a British jurist and, at the time, a practicing lawyer I was fascinated to meet
fellow jurists from our eastern neighbours with whom our contacts had been
weak before the events of 1989. It was a revelation to me just how enriching the
legal traditions of Hungary and other CEE states would be for me and western
European legal systems. The first point of discussion was of course the European
Convention on Human Rights and not only its impact in the CEE region but the
impact of the CEE states on it. Some of my colleagues were anxious that this
impact might be problematic after the post WWII period. Some worried that the
independence of the legal systems had been fatally weakened in some countries.
But to the contrary, we discovered colleagues and friends like Professor Bard
who confirmed the opposite to us. They have enriched the institutions of Europe
and strengthened respect for human rights as an inherent component of rule
of law. Of course, we have seen some set backs but the courage and academic
1 Jean Monnet Professor ad personam, Queen Mary University of London and Radboud
University Netherlands.
? Bärd, Käroly, Menschenrechte und richterliche Unabhängigkeit in den Ländern des
Donauraumes, Discussion Paper, Europa-Kolleg Hamburg, Institute for European
Integration 3 (2012).
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