Speaker details

Biography

Since being called to the Berlin Bar, Natalie von Wistinghausen specialises in criminal law as a trial advocate and has acquired wide-ranging legal experience in domestic and international legal criminal work. She was admitted to the List of Counsel at the International Criminal Court (ICC), the Kosovo Specialist Chambers (KSC), the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) and the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (MICT). Before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), she was Legal Assistant in the defense team of Justin Mugenzi and in Germany, she was Lead Counsel through all the stages of the proceedings in the case against Onesphore Rwabukombe who was accused of charges relating to the Rwandan genocide. Besides her domestic work in Germany, she was assigned in 2016 to protect the interests and rights of the accused Hassan Hussein Oneissi in the in absentia proceedings of The Prosecutor v. Ayyash et al. at the STL. In 2018/2019 she worked for Axiom International Ltd as a Senior Rule of Law expert in the UK government project „Strengthening the Judicial System in Kosovo“. Her focus was on disciplinary proceedings against judges and prosecutors. Since 2019 she is also representing Yazidi women in trials against alleged „ISIS“ members before Higher Regional Courts in Germany. The victims she is representing have joined the proceedings as co-plaintiffs. She has also filed criminal complaints on behalf of NGOs who are representing victims of chemical attacks in Khan Shaykun and Ghouta/Syria. Those chemical attacks are subject to so-called “structural investigations” conducted by the German Prosecutor General. In 2020/2021 Natalie von Wistinghausen has also been the Co-Chair of the War Crimes Committee (WCC) of the International Bar Association (IBA) and she was a member of the Executive Council of the ICC Bar Association (ICCBA). In October 2021, she was appointed as Common Legal Representative of Victims in the case against Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman (situation in Darfour, Sudan) at the ICC.