Education
- J.D., Cornell Law School, 2009
- M.A., Universiteit Leiden, 2006
- A.B., Harvard University, 2003
Biography
Cody Corliss is an Associate Professor at the West Virginia University College of Law, where he teaches and writes on topics related to criminal law and international law.
Prior to joining the faculty, Professor Corliss served as a Legal Officer in the Office of the Prosecutor at the United Nations International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals in The Hague, the Netherlands. He first joined the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in 2015.
As a war crimes prosecutor, Professor Corliss was involved in multiple facets of international criminal law, including investigation, indictment confirmation, trial, and appeal. He was part of the trial team that secured the conviction of Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladić on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity, and violations of the laws and customs of war. He also worked on the appellate team that upheld the conviction and life sentence of Radovan Karadžić, former President of the Republika Srpska, on similar charges.
In addition to trial and appellate work, Professor Corliss served in the Core Division of the Office of the Prosecutor, where he handled legal matters related to sentence enforcement, early release, witness protection, and cooperation with national authorities. Prior to his international legal career, he was a litigation associate at K&L Gates LLP in Pittsburgh and clerked for Justice Margaret L. Workman of the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals.
A native of Wetzel County, West Virginia, Professor Corliss earned his J.D. from Cornell Law School, his M.A. in history from Universiteit Leiden as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar, and his A.B. in comparative religion from Harvard University.
Publications, Research, and Intellectual Contributions
- The War Crime of Spreading Terror, 51 Yale J. Int’l L. __ (forthcoming 2026)
- An International Prosecutor as U.S. Special Counsel, 2025 Utah L. Rev. 675 (2025)
- Digital Terror Crimes, 62 Columbia J. Transnat’l L. 58 (2023)
- Human Trafficking as “Modern Slavery”: The Trouble with Trafficking as Enslavement in International Law, 71 S. Carolina L. Rev. 603 (2020)
- Prosecuting Members of ISIS for the Destruction of Cultural Property, 45 Fla. St. U. L. Rev. 183 (2018)
- Truth in Advertising: Applying Commercial Speech Regulations to the Secondary Dissemination of Scientific Research Publications, 90 St. John’s L. Rev. 883 (2016)
- Called On: A Novel Reflecting the Changing Nature of Legal Education, 6 Houston L. Rev. Off the Record 199 (2016)
- Truth Commissions and the Limits of Restorative Justice: Lessons Learned in South Africa's Cradock Four Case, 21 Mich. St. Int’l L. Rev. 273 (2013)
