Pittman, '92, Promoted to Head of Chambers for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia

28 Jan 2016    

Thomas Wade Pittman
Thomas Wayde Pittman, '92, has been named the Head of Chambers for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). As Head of Chambers, which is a Directorate-level position within the United Nations, Pittman's primary responsibility is to serve as the principal legal adviser to the President and Judges of the Chambers of the ICTY, providing guidance and direction on the most complex and sensitive of legal issues and taking responsibility for directly supervising such matters where necessary. He is also responsible for the management of Chambers and the supervision of Chambers staff (which currently numbers about eighty lawyers) and represents Chambers legal support within the Tribunal as an institution. Pittman will be be part of closure of the Tribunal at the end of 2017 upon completion of the final two cases. The ICTY has shown that international justice can lead to peace and reconciliation, as it has in the Western Balkans following armed conflict which spanned the years 1991 to 2001 and ranged from the initial shots fired in Slovenia to the final end of war in Macedonia, and all the adjudicated atrocities in between, especially in Bosnia.    

Pittman graduated from Nebraska Law in 1992, and immediately served the next twelve years in the U.S. Air Force Judge Advocate General's Corps. He became a Cheif Circuit Trial Counsel and retired as a military judge in the European Judicial Circuit. Upon retiring from military service, Pittman joined the United Nations as a legal officer for the Chambers that he now heads.