Spanning the Globe
Former U.N. Official and Amnesty Deputy Secretary General Teaches International Criminal Law

The growing field of international law gained a further UB Law School presence in January when well-traveled adjunct professor Vincent Del Buono taught a bridge-term course in international criminal law.

Del Buono, who lives just across the border in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont., has just returned from a five-year position in the West African nation of Nigeria. There he directed a program on justice reform, a project funded by the British government's international development department. The $ 60 million effort provided among other things training in community policing to the 325,000 member Nigerian police force, worked to modernize the legal aid system and introduced an electronic case management system.

That experience, for which he was awarded the Order of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, was one of a series of academic, government and nongovernmental positions Del Buono has held since he earned the J.D. and master of laws degrees at the University of Toronto. He also has served as Deputy Secretary General (Political) of Amnesty International; was a legal officer with the United Nations Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina; consulted on human rights and law and order for the United Nations and the World Bank; co-founded the International Society for the Reform of Criminal Law; and taught law in Canada. When working for the United Nations, he had major assignments in South Africa, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, the Balkans, China and the Arab world.

His passport must still be smoking.

Del Buono says, "I have always had an interest in American government, both law and politics. Living near the Niagara border has allowed me to renew those kinds of connections." In 2004, he was elected a member of the American Law Institute. Born in Italy, he grew up in Toronto and holds dual Italian and Canadian citizenship.

He also speaks four languages, staying fluent by keeping in touch with his friends and family. "There is a whole group of relationships I have in my life that are in Italian," he says, "including my mother. But with my younger brother, we speak English. I had a colleague at the U.N., and my French was better than his English. So our relationship always was in French."

The two-credit bridge course Del Buono will teach at UB Law will cover the extraterritorial application of U.S. criminal law, the ways in which international human rights principles affect U.S. law, and the independent body of criminal law and international criminal tribunals that have grown rapidly in a globalized world.

"This is a growing area of law, in some ways a new area of law in the last 20 years," he says. Citing such legal thickets as the treatment of prisoners at the U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, he says, "It is the stuff of current events."

Del Buono and his wife, Ontario lawyer and St. Catharines native Jennifer Pothier, live on the shore of Lake Ontario – 40 minutes from UB if he catches the right bridge, he says. He is also 90 minutes from Toronto, where he commutes weekly to Glendon College of York University where he is helping the new School of Public and International Affairs to develop its new professional and executive development program. Glendon, he says, is a completely bi-lingual university college where all instruction is in both English and French.

"I am back as a Senior Fellow at the same College where I studied 40 years ago," he says. "It is full circle."