Alumnus and renowned international law expert returns to OHIO as Glidden Visiting Professor
Alumnus David Crane, BGS ’72, MA ’73, addresses those attending Ohio University’s 2017 Graduate Commencement ceremony during which he was presented an honorary doctorate degree. Photo by Ben Siegel
OHIO alumnus David Crane, BGS ’72, MA ’73, has traveled the world and, in the process, made it a better, more just place.
As a young boy, he learned to play soccer in Germany where his father was stationed with the U.S. military. As a first-year OHIO undergraduate, he was the lone American player on the University’s soccer team. He studied history and African studies at Ohio University and embarked on a 40-year career devoted to national security, international law and social justice, culminating in a United Nations’ appointment to serve as the founding chief prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone.
One of the most recognized international criminal lawyers in the world, Crane returns to his Bobcat roots this November, serving as Ohio University’s 2018-19 Glidden Visiting Professor and bringing with him a lifetime of worldly experiences.
“I grew up at Ohio University. I fell in love at Ohio University. I became a man at Ohio University. I learned how to become a leader. All of these traits that I learned there I took with me into my career,” Crane said. “I’m very honored to be given the ability to come back and teach at my alma mater.”
As the Glidden Visiting Professor, Crane will be on OHIO’s Athens Campus Nov. 4-17, teaching, lecturing, mentoring and connecting with students and faculty—all while sharing his experiences in public administration and public service at the national and international level.
In preparing to return to his alma mater, Crane reflected on his own OHIO experience.
“When I graduated from high school in 1968, all the males had two choices: go to college or go to Vietnam…,” he said. “I went off to college.”
Crane arrived on the Athens Campus in the fall of 1968 with a scholarship to play soccer. His time spent on the field at Peden Stadium was a global experience, exposing him to a diverse international student population.
“I was the only American on the team,” he said. “There were like five languages being spoken on the field when we were playing.”
An injury late in his first season ended Crane’s collegiate soccer career, but he continued to stay involved as an undergraduate, participating in the University’s ROTC program and student government. Crane ran successfully to serve as executive vice president of student government, but just weeks later, in the spring of 1970, the University closed due to riots in opposition of the expanding Vietnam War.
After graduating, Crane entered a 30-year career with the federal government, serving as a judge advocate for the U.S. Army, assistant general counsel of the Defense Intelligence Agency and founding director of the Office of Intelligence Review in the Department of Defense.
“It all began, the cornerstone of my entire life, was at Ohio University,” Crane said. “I relied upon a lot of the things I learned in Athens, Ohio.”
Throughout his career, Crane demonstrated a commitment to international law. He served as the Waldemar A. Solf Professor of International Law and chairman of the International Law Department in the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s School where he prosecuted cases, educated attorneys on international humanitarian law and oversaw investigations into acts of terrorism and international aggression.
In 2002, then U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan appointed Crane as the founding chief prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone. This international war crimes tribunal was charged with evaluating and prosecuting individuals who committed crimes against humanity and violations of international human rights during the 1991-2002 civil war in Sierra Leone. Among those prosecuted and found guilty was Liberian President Charles Taylor.
“Those skills I learned at Ohio University as an undergraduate student culminated over 30-plus years,” Crane said. “I gained leadership and management experience that helped in literally developing a military, legal, political and diplomatic effort to arrest all of the individuals who were part of the famous blood diamond story. We arrested all of (the perpetrators) for war crimes and crimes against humanity in a 55-minute arrest operation called Operation Justice in March 2003—without a shot being fired.”
Crane has spent the past 10-plus years as an educator, imparting his wisdom and experience to young scholars following in his footsteps. He returned to his alma mater, the Syracuse University College of Law, to teach international criminal law, international law, national security law and the law of armed conflict. While at Syracuse, he founded Impunity Watch, an online publication dedicated to informing the world of human rights violations occurring today, and the Syria Accountability Project, which works with international organizations to ensure that those involved in the Syrian conflict are held legally accountable for human rights violations and war crimes.
In recent months, Crane launched the Yemini Accountability Project to address the atrocities occurring against the Yemeni people and finished his memoir, “Every Living Thing.” He continues to serve as a distinguished scholar at Syracuse University and as a visiting professor at several higher education institutions.
While at OHIO, he will deliver a public lecture titled, “Justice in the Sierra Leone: The Investigation, Indictment and Arrest of President Charles Taylor.” That lecture is slated for 1:30 to 2:50 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 13, in Seigfred Hall 519.
Having this international law expert on campus as an educator illustrates the founding purpose of the Glidden Visiting Professorship.
“All of our experiences shape who we are and what we will become and what we think of,” said OHIO President Emeritus Robert Glidden, for whom the Glidden Visiting Professorship is named.
Glidden noted the role visiting composers played in his undergraduate experience, studying music at the University of Iowa, saying, “There’s something about rubbing shoulders and talking with such people and getting close to them a little bit that kind of elevates your own perception of self and what you can do.”
He said he hopes that Crane’s visit and interactions with other visiting professors has the same effect on Ohio University students.
“When you think about education, educating university students, one of the big things you want to do is to expose them to new things, the fullness of life, the kind of opportunities that are there,” Glidden said. “If you have a person coming in like these experts who can share their experiences with those students, it just opens new horizons for them, and that’s what I think is so critically important about (this professorship).”