Biography

Dr. Harry M. Rhea is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Criminal Justice at Rutgers University and the School of Law – Camden.  Dr. Rhea holds several graduate degrees, including a Ph.D. in law at the Irish Center for Human Rights, National University of Ireland, Galway, School of Law. He has studied at several prestigious international institutions, including the University of Oxford, Grotius Center for International Legal Studies, International Institute for Higher Studies in Criminal Sciences, Institute for International Criminal Investigations, Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies, and the University of Salzburg. He is also a trained international war crimes investigator and a member of the War Crimes Research Network at the University of Oxford and the International Criminal Court Scholars Forum at the Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute, Washington University School of Law.

Dr. Rhea held a dual appointment in the Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs and the College of Law at Florida International University, where he was instrumental in developing the first Ph.D. in international crime and justice in the United States. He served as the program’s Associate Director before accepting his current position at Rutgers. 

Dr. Rhea’s scholarship is multidisciplinary and covers a variety of subjects, including international criminal courts, war crimes commissions, international criminal law, history, human rights, and international relations. His scholarly articles have appeared in the University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law, Genocide Studies International, Criminal Law Forum, Transnational Law and Contemporary Problems, International Journal of Criminology and Sociology, Journal of Transnational Law and Policy, and International Criminal Justice Review.  In recognition of his scholarly research, the Northeastern Association of Criminal Justice Sciences awarded him the 2013 Emerging Scholar Award in recognition of outstanding scholarly contributions to the advancement of criminal justice. 

Dr. Rhea has presented research at more than 70 national and international conferences. In 2012, the American Bar Association’s Rule of Law Initiative invited him to speak on United States policies and international criminal courts. He has lectured at the 2015 Annual Specialization Course in International Criminal Law for Young Penalists at the Siracusa International Institute for Criminal Justice and Human Rights, Italy. The course’s participants included over 60 doctoral students from more than 30 different countries studying the International Criminal Court. He has also lectured at the 2019 Vienna Winter School on Transnational Organized Crime in Austria. The course's participants included over 40 students from more than 20 countries.

Dr. Rhea served as a delegation leader at the Sixth Session of the Assembly of States Parties to the International Criminal Court. He served as Chair of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences International Section (2017-2019).  He previously served as Editor-in-Chief of the Interdisciplinary Journal of Human Rights Law and is currently Associate Editor of the International Criminal Justice Review and serves on the editorial board of the African Journal of International Criminal Justice.

Publications

Book:

The United States and International Criminal Tribunals (Supranational Criminal Law: Capita Selecta, Vol. 14, 2012).

Articles, Book Chapters and Reviews:

Post-World War Prosecutions of Crimes Against Humanity: An Analysis of United States Policies After the First and Second World Wars and Their Effect on Contemporary International Criminal Justice (in progress).

The First Attempt to Prosecute the International Crime of Aggression, 28 Journal of Transnational Law and Policy 47-76 (2019).

United States Public Support for the International Criminal Court: Do Constitutional Considerations Matter? (with Ryan C. Meldrum, Brittany Gilmer, and Caroline Comerford), 43 International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice 357-370 (2019).

International Criminal Courts Prior to the Second World War: An Historical Analysis of International and Multinational Criminal Courts Preceding Nuremberg, 46 Syracuse Journal of International Law and Commerce 323-341 (2019). 

The Evolution of International Criminal Tribunals, 6 International Journal of Criminology and Sociology 52-64 (2017).  

United States Public Support for the International Criminal Court: A Multivariate Analysis of Attitudes and Attributes (with Ryan C. Meldrum) 37 University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law 739-762 (2015).

United States Foreign Policy and the International Penal Tribunal in the Genocide Convention: Article VI and Beyond, 9 Genocide Studies International 186-207 (2015).

The International Investigator Course in The Hague, 40 The Criminologist 34 (2015).

The Commission on the Responsibility of the Authors of the War and on Enforcement of Penalties and its Contribution to International Criminal Justice After the Second World War, 25 Criminal Law Forum 147-169 (2014).        

Crimes Against Humanity, in Encyclopedia of Transnational Crime and Justice 82-84 (Margaret Beare ed., 2012).

International Crimes, in Encyclopedia of Transnational Crime and Justice 204-206 (Margaret Beare ed., 2012).

Internationalized Criminal Courts, in Encyclopedia of Transnational Crime and Justice 210-211 (Margaret Beare ed., 2012).

Transitional Justice, in Encyclopedia of Transnational Crime and Justice 422-424 (Margaret Beare ed., 2012).

War Crimes, in Encyclopedia of Transnational Crime and Justice 451-453 (Margaret Beare ed., 2012).    

Paris 1919 and Rome 1998: Different Treaties, Different Presidents, Different Senates, and the Same Dilemma, 20 Transnational Law and Contemporary Problems 411-429 (2011). 

International Criminal Courts, in Routledge Handbook of International  Criminology 134-141 (Cindy J. Smith et al. eds. 2011).

Collective Memory, International Law, and Restorative Social Processes after Conflagration:   The Holocaust (with Mary J. Gallant), 20 International Criminal Justice Review 265-279 (2010).

The United States and International Criminal Tribunals: An Historical Analysis, 16 ILSA Journal of International and Comparative Law 19-38 (2009).

An International Criminal Tribunal for Iraq after the First Gulf War: What Should Have Been, 19 International Criminal Justice Review 308-321 (2009). 

The Nuremberg Effect on Contemporary International Criminal Justice, 21 Criminal Justice Studies 361-372 (2008).

War Crimes, in Encyclopedia of Social Problems 1012-1014 (Vincent N. Parrillo ed., 2008).

Kingsley Chiedu Moghalu’s Global Justice: The Politics of War Crimes Trials, 18 International Criminal Justice Review 476-477 (2008) (Book Review).

Martin Shaw’s What is Genocide?, 3 Interdisciplinary Journal of Human Rights Law 87-88 (2008) (Book Review).

Setting the Record Straight: Criminal Justice at Nuremberg, 7 Journal of the Institute of Justice and International Studies 250-260 (2007).

Integration of Police in the United States: Changes and Development after 9/11 (with Allan Y. Jiao), 17 Policing and Society 388-408 (2007).

A Difference of Opinion between the United States and Canada concerning the International Criminal Court (with Allan Y. Jiao), 6 Journal of the Institute of Justice and International Studies 251-258 (2006).