Payam Akhavan is an Iranian – Canadian lawyer and Member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague. Dr. Akhavan was previously a Legal Advisor to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia at the Hague and a special advisor to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. He also worked with the UN in Bosnia, Cambodia, Guatemala, and Timor Leste. He has significant experience working with the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice, the European Court of Human Rights, and the United States Supreme Court.
Dr. Akhavan was one of the organizers and one of the lead prosecutors of the Iran Tribunal, a grassroots initiative inspired by the irresistible justice-seeking demands of “Mothers of Khavaran,” a group of mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, spouses, and children mourning the loss of their loved ones in the 19080s mass executions, to discover the truth and condemn the perpetrators of these crimes, was organized in 2012 in London and Hague.