History of the IPPF Presidency

The International Penal and Penitentiary Foundation (IPPF)/Fondation International Pénale et Pénitentiaire (FIPP) was founded on 3 July 1951. During that period the IPPF/FIPP has had just 11 Presidents from eight different countries.
The distinction of the 10 previous Presidents is remarkable (and humbling). The list includes two Secretary-Generals in the Belgian Ministry of Justice (Professor Paul Cornil and Professor Jean G.O. Dupréel); one Directeur de l’Administration Pénitentiare in the French Ministry of Justice who was also Avocat Général à la Court de Cassation (Charles Germain); one long-serving Justice of the Supreme Court in Norway (Justice Helge Röstad); one Judge of the Constitutional Court in Hungary (Professor Dr Judge András Szabó); and one Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Appeals Court (Chief Justice Phillip Rapoza).
The remaining five Presidents were (or are) distinguished academics: Professor Dr Thorsten Sellin (USA), who was one of the most acclaimed criminologists and penologists of the 20th Century; Professor Dr Jorge de Figueiredo Dias (Portugal); Professor Dr George Joseph Kellens (Belgium); and Dr Mary Rogan (Ireland).
Looking at the IPPF/FIPP’s predecessor bodies ̶ the International Penitentiary Commission (IPC) and the International Penal and Penitentiary Commission (IPPC) ̶ the illustrious list of Presidents includes many of the other great names in late 19th and 20th Century penology. Amongst these are two celebrated Britons and two celebrated Americans.
The two Americans are Dr Enoch Cobb Wines (USA) (17 February 1806-10 December 1879), who was the first President of the IPC from 1872 to 1878 and was Secretary of the US National Prison Association; and Sanford Bates (USA) (17 July 1884-8 September 1972), who was the last President of the IPPC from 1947 to 1951 and was the Director of the US Federal Bureau of Prisons.
The two Britons are Sir Evelyn John Ruggles-Brise (6 December 1857-18 August 1935), who was President of the IPC from 1910 to 1926; and Sir Alexander Henry Paterson MC (20 November 1884-7 November 1947), who was Interim President of the IPPC from 1943 to 1946. Both were distinguished holders of the office of Commissioner for Prisons for England and Wales.
The IPPF/FIPP’s Council, which is its Governing Body under its revised 2016 Statutes, has a membership of five: the President, who Chairs the Council and other IPPF/FIPP meetings; the Secretary-General; the Treasurer; and two Vice-Presidents, a “Premier” and a “Deuxième” Vice-President. As we shall see, in addition to its 11 Presidents, the IPPF/FIPP has, during the period since its Foundation in 1951, also had 10 Secretaries-General, four Treasurers, and at least 20 Vice-Presidents.

A: IPPF/FIPP Presidents

1. 1951-1961: Professor Dr Paul Cornil (Belgium) (17 March 1903-8 December 1985)

Professor Dr Paul Cornil (Belgium) was the First President of the IPPF/FIPP. Born in Brussels on 17 March 1903, he graduated as a Doctor of Philosophy from the Free University of Brussels (Vrije Universiteit Brussel/Université Libre de Bruxelles) in 1924. He obtained his Juris Doctor from the same University in 1927. After a short spell spent in the USA from September 1927 to June 1928, he joined the Belgium Ministry of Justice. His first job was preparing a new law of social defense relating to habitual offenders. In 1937, he was made Inspector-General of Prisons; in 1944, he became Director-General of the Administration of Prisons; and in 1946, he was made Secretary-General in the Belgium Ministry of Justice. He was Treasurer of the IPPC at its dissolution in July 1951.
Cornil was elected to the IPPF/FIPP’s Presidency on 3 July 1951, the day the Founding Articles of the IPPF/FIPP were signed. He held this position for a decade, serving two five-year terms. After seeing the IPPF/FIPP through its formative period, he stepped back from the Presidency in 1961. He was then made an Honorary President of the IPPF/FIPP.
Cornil was not just an innovative prison administrator. He also held academic roles. Having been involved in teaching for more than 15 years, including at his alma mater, the Free University of Brussels (Vrije Universiteit Brussel/Université Libre de Bruxelles), he was appointed to a Chair in Criminal Law at the Faculty of Law at the Free University of Brussels in 1946. In 1947, he was given the title of Ordinary Professor. Later, in 1971, he was made Chair of the School of Criminological Sciences at the Free University of Brussels; and, in 1973, he was appointed to an Associate Professorship at the University of Paris.
In addition to being the last Treasurer of the IPPC and serving as the First President of the IPPF/FIPP and leading it through its early years, Cornil was, like so many others at that time, closely engaged with other international organisations as well. He was President of the International Association of Penal Law (IAPL)/Association Internationale de Droit Pénal (AIDP) from 1953 to 1962; Vice-President of the International Society for Social Defence/Société Internationale de Défense Sociale; and Vice-President of the Scientific Commission of the International Society of Criminology (ISC).

Professor Paul Cornil died on 8 December 1985, aged 82.

2. 1961-1964: Charles Germain (France) (29 February 1904-15 August 1964)

Charles Germain (France) became Second President of the IPPF/FIPP in July 1961, having previously been the IPPF/FIPP’s First Secretary-General for a decade from 1951 to 1961. He was elected as President on 15 August 1960 during the IPPF/FIPP’s Assembly which was held in London to coincide with the United Nations Congress. His term of office was for 10 years until July 1971. Sadly, he did not see out even his first five years as President. He died in office on 15 August 1964, aged 60.

Born in 1904, a year after Cornil, Charles Germain became Avocat Général à la Court de Cassation, Paris. He also served as Directeur de l’Administration Penitentiare in the French Ministry of Justice. In addition, he was Chargé du Cours de Science Pénitentiaire (Lecturer in Penitentiary Science) at the Faculty de Droit at the University of Strasbourg. He was a Vice-President of the IPPC at is dissolution in July 1951.
Together with the distinguished international jurist Professor Dr Manuel López-Rey y Arrojo (30 September 1902-15 December 1987), Germain edited a book for the IPPF/FIPP which was published in 1964. This turned out to be the year in which he died. Entitled Etudes Penologiques (Studies in Penology), the book was dedicated to the memory of Sir Lionel Wray Fox, CB, MC (United Kingdom) (21 February 1895-6 October 1961) who, like Cornil and Germain, had been an officer of the IPPC at its dissolution in 1951 (he was one of the Vice-Presidents) and became a member of the IPPF/FIPP when it was created in July 1951.
Fox, like Sir Evelyn John Ruggles-Brise (6 December 1857-18 August 1935) and Sir Alexander Henry Paterson MC (20 November 1884-7 November 1947), was a Prison Commissioner for England and Wales. And like Ruggles-Brise but unlike Paterson, he served as Chair of the Commission, an office which he held for 18 years from 1942 to 1960.
Fox attended a grammar school in Halifax and then went to Hertford College at the University of Oxford. He joined the army in 1914 and fought in the First World War, attaining the rank of Captain. He went to France in November 1915 and received the Military Cross and the Belgian Croix De Guerre and was mentioned in dispatches. After the War, he joined the Home Office in 1919. He was Secretary of the Prison Commission from 1925 to 1934 and wrote The Modern English Prison in 1934. Also in 1934, he became Deputy Receiver to the Metropolitan Police District. He served as Receiver from 1941 to 1942. Then, in 1942, he was appointed as Chairman of the Prison Commission, a post he held until his retirement in 1960.
Fox was responsible for liberalising the prison regime; for creating open prisons for men and women; and for authorising the construction of HMP Grendon which opened in 1962 and was initially used as an experimental psychiatric prison and as a unit for prisoners with antisocial personality disorders: it later developed into a therapeutic community prison. He was also the founder of the Prison Service Journal, the first edition of which was published by the Prison Commissioners in 1960. It is still published today.
Fox was very active internationally. He was the permanent Chairman of the United Nations European Consultative Group and, in 1958, was elected Chairman of the UN’s Ad Hoc Committee of Experts. He was Honorary President of the Second United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders which was held in London in August 1960. He was said by Sir George Benson MP (3 May 1889-17 August 1973) in the House of Commons to be “probably the greatest penal reformer since Howard, in the 18th century”.
The book in Fox’s memory, edited by Professor Dr Manuel López-Rey y Arrojo and Charles Germain, contained 17 chapters, 16 of which were written by members of the IPPF/FIPP. The subject matter of these chapters is still relevant today. The IPPF/FIPP contributors, described by one reviewer as “the Western world’s best known penologists”, were:
(i) Marc Ancel (France) (14 July 1902-4 September 1990)

Ancel was a Judge and Conseiller à la Cour de Cassation in Paris. He later became President of the Chambre Honoraire à la Cour de Cassation. He has been described by Professor Robert Badinter (b.30 March 1928) (French Minister of Justice from 1981 to 1986; President of the French Constitutional Council from 1986 to 1995; Professor at the Sorbonne Faculty of Law) as exercising “a greater influence than any penologist of his age”. It was Ancel who made the representation to the United Nations Secretary-General that led to the First United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and the Treatment of Offenders which was held in 1955. He was “a theorist of the New Social Defence School” and “an eminent scholar of Comparative Law”. As well as being a Justice of the French Supreme Court, he was editor of the Review of Criminal Science and Comparative Penal Law. He was responsible for analysing and publishing the returns from the first United Nations Survey, covering the years 1956 to 1960, on use of the death penalty worldwide. He served as Director of the Section of Penal Law and Criminal Science at the Paris Institute of Comparative Law. He was the Second President of the International Society for Social Defence/Société Internationale de Défense Sociale.

His chapter in the book was entitled “L’abolition de la peine de mort et le problème de la peine de remplacement”.

(ii) Andreas Aulie (Norway) (17 November 1897-17 January 1990)
Aulie was Director of Public Prosecutions/Attorney-General for Norway for more than 20 years, from 1946 to 1967.
His chapter in the book was entitled “Criminology, Criminal Policy and Propaganda”. In it Aulie quoted, inter alia, the following three trenchant sentences written by Sir Leon Radzinowicz (15 August 1906-29 December 1999) three years’ earlier, with which Aulie clearly agreed:

“Jargon, padding, over-elaborated statistical data, hunting for far-fetched hypotheses, pretentiousness and repetitiveness are deadly sins. The volume of what now appears in print could with advantage be reduced. Finally, criminologists should avoid crusading zeal, dogmatic beliefs and narrow expertise.”

(iii) Sanford Bates (USA) (17 July 1884-8 September 1972)

Bates was a lawyer. At the time the book was published, he was acting as a Consultant in Public Administration in Pennington, New Jersey, but he had been Superintendent of Prisons in the US Department of Justice in 1929 and then in 1930 he became Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons after preparing the legislation which established that Bureau from 14 May 1930. He held the position of Director until 1937. He also served as the last President of the IPPC from 1947 until its dissolution in July 1951. Subsequently, aged 66, he became one of the two First Vice-Presidents of the IPPF/FIPP when it was established in 1951 and served in that capacity until 1955.

His chapter in the book was entitled “Anglo American Progress in Penitentiary Affairs”.

(iv) James Van Benschoten Bennett (USA) (29 August 1894-19 November 1978)

Bennett was Sanford Bates’s successor as Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons in the USA, holding that office for more than a quarter of a century, from 1937 to 1964.

His chapter in the book was entitled “Ahead of his Time”.

(v) Professor François Clerc (Switzerland) (9 February 1911-17 June 2000)

Clerc was Professor de Droit Pénal at the University of Fribourg and Rector of the University of Neuchȃtel. He was appointed as the IPPF/FIPP’s First Treasurer in July 1951.

His chapter in the book was entitled “Réflexions sur la detention préventive”.

(vi) Professor Paul Cornil (Belgium) (17 March 1903-8 December 1985)

Cornil was the IPPF/FIPP’s First President (see above).

His chapter in the book was entitled “De la privation à la restriction de la liberté”.

(vii) Professor Jean G.O. Dupréel (Belgium) (Belgium) (4 September 1913-1998)

Dupréel was the IPPF’s Secretary-General and later became its Fourth President (see below).

His chapter in the book was entitled “Jeunes adultes et courtes peines”.

(viii) Torsten Eriksson (Sweden) (1906-2 June 1976)

Eriksson was Director-General of the Swedish National Prison Board/National Correctional Administration. He was also Chair of the European Committee for Crime Problems. He was later described by Dr William Clifford (1918-1986) as “one of the greatest men” in the field of international corrections. In its 11th Bulletin, the IPPF/FIPP observed that he was “a particularly energetic member of the Foundation” and had been entrusted “with important international missions on behalf of the Council of Europe and the United Nations” and “spared no effort for the promotion of a modernized, humane penitentiary action throughout the world”.
His chapter in the book was entitled “Society and the Treatment of Offenders”.
(ix) Charles Germain (France) (29 February 1904-15 August 1964)

His chapter in the book was entitled “Variations sure certaines formes nouvelles de privation de liberté”.

(x) Hardy Görannson (Sweden) (27 June 1894-16 February 1969)

Görannson was Director-General of the Swedish National Prison Board for 24 years, from 1936 to 1960, when the role passed to Torsten Eriksson.
His chapter in the book was entitled “Human Dignity in the Execution of Punishment”.
(xi) Ernest A.M. Lamers (The Netherlands) (d.19 May 1980)

Lamers was a Vice-President of the IPPF/FIPP from 1966 to 1970 (see below) and Director-General of Prison Administration, Ministry of Justice, The Hague, The Netherlands, and President of the Supreme Military Court in The Netherlands. He was one of the members who signed the IPPF/FIPP’s Founding Articles on 3 July 1951.

His chapter in the book was entitled “Mr Prisoner goes to Town: Some Observations and Experience on Open Prisons”.

(xii) Professor Dr Manuel López-Rey y Arrojo (Bolivia) (30 September 1902-15 December 1987)

López-Rey y Arrojo was corresponding member of the IPPF/FIPP for Bolivia for 22 years, from 1965 until his death in 1987. He was a celebrated international jurist who played a significant role at the United Nations. A Spaniard by birth, he was Professor of Criminal Law at the University of La Laguna in the Canary Islands. During the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) he had prominent positions in the Republican Government. He became Chief of the Madrid Police in July 1936; Director-General of Prisons in September 1936; and Minister at the Delegation of the Spanish Republic in Bucharest in January 1937. After the Civil War, he became an exile. He worked first as a gardener in Chile before moving to Bolivia where he was involved in the drafting of a Penal Code. He had a major hand in establishing the Social Defence Branch in the United Nations and was one of the organisers of the First United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders which was held in Geneva in 1955. He was influenced by the work of, amongst others, the German criminologist Professor Edmund Mezger (15 October 1883-24 March 1962); the Italian criminologists Professor Filippo Grispigni (31 August 1884-20 August 1955) who worked at the University of Rome and was one of the founders of the Positivist School, and Professor Arturo Rocco (d.1951) who was Professor of Criminal Law and Criminology also at the University of Rome;
and the French criminologist Professor Louis Hugueney who worked at the Paris Law School at the University of Paris.

His chapter in the book was entitled “Analytical Penology”.

(xiii) Sir Arthur William Peterson (A.W. Peterson) (United Kingdom) (22 May 1916-8 May 1986)

Peterson was a senior member of the British Civil Service. He held the role of Assistant Under-Secretary of State in charge of the Prison Department. In 1960, he succeeded Sir Lionel Wray Fox (21 February 1895-6 October 1961) as Chairman of the Prison Commissioners (in which role Peterson was responsible for introducing the first psychologists into British prisons), having previously been Deputy Chair. He became Head of the Prison Department at the Home Office when the Prison Commission was abolished in 1963 and later served as Permanent Under-Secretary at the Home Office from 1972 to 1977.

His chapter in the book was entitled “Sir Lionel Fox’s Work in the Prison Commission”.

(xiv) Professor Thorsten Sellin (USA) (26 October 1896-17 September 1994)

Sellin was a highly distinguished academic and a Vice-President of the IPPF/FIPP. Within a year, he was to become the IPPF/FIPP’s Third President in 1965.
His chapter in the book was entitled “Lionel Fox and the International Penal and Penitentiary Commission”.
(xv) Karl Valentin Soine (Finland) (26 June 1902-24 November 1996)

Soine was Director-General of the Finnish Prison Service for almost a quarter of a century, from 1945 to 1969.

His chapter in the book was entitled “Open Institutions in Finland”.

(xvi) Professor Giuliano Vassalli (Italy) (25 April 1915-21 October 2009)

Vassalli was Professor of Criminal/Penal Law at the University of Rome and a politician, serving as an MP and as a Senator in the Italian Parliament, and later became the Italian Minister of Justice from 1987 to 1991. Subsequently, he was appointed President of the Italian Constitutional Court from 11 November 1999 to 13 February 2000. He was a Vice-President of the IPPF/FIPP from 1981 to 1985.

As well as his involvement with the IPPF/FIPP, he was a member of the Council of the International Association of Penal Law (IAPL)/Association Internationale de Droit Pénal (AIDP) from the early 1960s. In a tribute published after Vassalli’s death aged 94 on 21 October 2009, Professor Mahmoud Cherif Bassiouni (9 December 1937-22 September 2017) described him as “one of the greatest jurists of the post-World War II period”.
His chapter in the book was entitled “La function rééducative de la peine et la libération conditionelle”.
The only contributor to the book who was not a member of the IPPF/FIPP was Hugh John Klare (Hugh J. Klare) CBE (22 June 1916-14 May 2012). Klare was, for 21 years, from 1950 to 1971, Secretary of the Howard League for Penal Reform. He was also a member of the Parole Board for England and Wales; and was “First Criminologist” for the Council of Europe His chapter in the book was entitled “The Problem of Remand in Custody for Diagnostic Purposes”.

3. 1965-1971: Professor Dr Thorsten Sellin (USA) (26 October 1896-17 September 1994)

Professor Dr Thorsten Sellin (Johan Thorsten Sellin) (USA) became the Third President of the IPPF/FIPP in 1965, taking over from Charles Germain on the latter’s death in 1964. Sellin had previously been one of the Foundation’s Vice-Presidents for 10 years, from 1956 to 1965. He had also been Secretary-General of the IPPC, serving in that capacity from 1949 to July 1951 as the successor to Professor Ernst Delaquis (13 November 1878-1 September 1951) who then became a Vice-President of the IPPC, a position he held for two years until his death in 1951. After the death of Charles Germain on 15 August 1964, Sellin served as Acting President of the IPPF/FIPP. He was elected President at a meeting held in Stockholm on 16 August 1965.
Thorsten Sellin was born in Sweden on 26 October 1896 but moved, when he was aged 17, to Fort William, Ontario, Canada with his mother and younger sister. All three were joining Sellin’s father, a carpenter, who had emigrated to Canada several years previously in the hope of improving the family’s prospects. Encouraged by his parents, Sellin enrolled in 1914 at the Swedish-American Liberal Arts College, Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois. He graduated with a BA in 1915 when he was aged just under 19. Having been given advanced academic standing, he completed the course in three semesters. He was later to receive an Honorary Degree from the College.
Subsequently, Sellin moved with his family to Philadelphia and enrolled for a Masters Degree at the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in 1916 when he was aged 20. This was followed by a Doctorate at the same University which he completed in 1922, when he was aged 26. During his Doctorate he taught in Minneapolis.
He joined the Faculty at the University of Pennsylvania as an instructor in 1921 but spent the years from 1922 to 1924 in Europe studying criminology. He was at the Institute of Criminology at the Law School in Paris for a year and spent time in Italy and in England.
Afterwards, he taught at the University of Pennsylvania for almost 45 years until 1967 when he became an Emeritus Professor. He was a champion of scientific criminology and extremely active on the international stage, playing a significant role in various international organisations dedicated to the advancement of criminology and penology.
Prior to becoming President of the IPPF/FIPP in 1965, he was President of the International Society of Criminology (ISC) from 1956 to 1965, and afterwards became its Honorary President. Later, for one-and-a-half years, in 1950 and 1951, he served as a Consultant to the Penal Code Commission of Sweden.
Sellin received Honorary Degrees from several institutions, including the University of Uppsala and the University of Leiden and the Free University of Brussels. He was a Visiting Professor at Princeton University; the University of California, Berkeley; and the University of Oxford. He died in Gilmanton, New Hampshire, on 17 September 1994, aged 97.
As Professor Marvin E. Wolfgang (14 November 1924-12 April 1998) attested, his passing left “a tremendous gap in the field of criminology, of which he was one of the most respected scholars, both in the United States and internationally”.
Sellin attended the Third United Nations Congress which was held in Stockholm in 1965. At that point, he was “Premier” Vice-President of the IPPF/FIPP. The Congress was also attended by three other IPPF/FIPP officers: Björn Torsten Martin Kjellin (Sweden) (5 July 1910-26 August 1986) (President of the Court of Appeal for Skȯne and Blekinge; Malmo, Sweden), who was the IPPF/FIPP’s “Deuxième Vice-President”; Professor François Clerc (Switzerland), who was the IPPF/FIPP’s long-serving Treasurer; and Professor Jean Dupréel (Belgium), who was the IPPF/FIPP’s Secretary-General and later became its Fourth President.
At the Fourth United Nations Congress in 1970 in Kyoto, Japan, Sellin attended as IPPF/FIPP President. Three other IPPF/FIPP officers also attended: Professor François Clerc (Switzerland), who was Treasurer of the IPPF/FIPP and Professor de Droit Pénal at the University of Fribourg and Rector of the University of Neuchȃtel; Professor Jean Dupréel (Belgium), who was Secretary-General in the Belgian Ministry of Justice and Secretary-General of the IPPF/FIPP; and Yoshitsugu Baba (3 November 1902-24 February 1977) (Japan), who was Vice-Minister of the Japanese Ministry of Justice and had been in the Tokyo Superior Prosecutor’s Office and was “Premier” Vice-President of the IPPF/FIPP. Baba played a significant role on the international stage and was influential in the establishment of the United Nations Asia and Far East Institute (UNAFEI) for the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders in Tokyo in 1962.

4. 1971-1981: Professor Jean Gustave Olsen Dupréel (Belgium) (4 September 1913-1998)

Professor Jean Dupréel (Belgium) was the Fourth President of the IPPF/FIPP. He shared much in common with Professor Paul Cornil. Both were of Belgian nationality; and both had responsibility for prisons in Belgium and held the office of Secretary-General in the Belgian Ministry of Justice. Also, both were Professors at the Free University of Brussels.

Dupréel followed the path taken by the IPPF/FIPP’s second President, Charles Germain, in that he was the IPPF/FIPP’s Secretary-General before becoming its President. Dupréel was Secretary-General of the IPPF/FIPP from 1961 to 1971, becoming President in 1971 and serving in that capacity for 10 years.

The son of a distinguished Belgian philosopher, Professor Eugène Dupréel, who was also at the Free University of Brussels, Jean Dupréel was born on 4 September 1913. He served as Deputy Military Auditor in Brussels. He was Director-General of the Administration of Penal Institutions in Belgium for 20 years, from 1948 to 1968. In 1969, he became Secretary-General of the Ministry of Justice and continued in that role until 1978. He was honoured in The Netherlands by being made a Commandeur of the Orde van Oranje-Nassau, a Dutch chivalry award for acts of “special merit to society”.

He was the Chair of the IPPF/FIPP’s Third International Colloquium which was held in Vienna from 5 June to 9 June 1972. He was also the author of Aspects de L’Action Pénitentiaire en Belgique (1952).

When he stepped down a President in 1971, he became an Honorary President of the IPPF/FIPP. He died in May 1998, aged 84.

5. 1981-1990: Justice Helge Röstad (Norway) (29 December 1923-23 October 1994)
   Helge Röstad (Norway) was a long-serving Justice of the Supreme Court in Norway. He had previously worked, from 1968 to 1970, in the Norwegian Prosecuting Authority. This was followed by six years working as Deputy Under-Secretary of State in the Norwegian Ministry of Justice and Police. He was a Supreme Court Justice for 17 years, from 1976 to 1993. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the Faculty of Law at Uppsala University in Sweden in 1985.
   He was elected the Fifth President of the IPPF/FIPP at the Assembly held in Caracas on 4 September 1980. His term of office was to commence on 1 January 1981. When he stepped back at the end of 1990, he was made an Honorary President of the IPPF/FIPP.
   As President of the IPPF/FIPP, he attended the 13th Annual International Association of Penal Law (IAPL)/Association Internationale de Droit Pénal (AIDP) Congress in Egypt in 1984.
6. 1991-2001: Professor Dr Jorge de Figueiredo Dias (Portugal) (b.30 September 1937)

Professor Dr Jorge de Figueiredo Dias (Portugal) is a highly distinguished academic. He was Professor of Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, and Criminal Science at the University of Coimbra. He was elected President of the IPPF/FIPP at the Assembly held in Havana on 4 September 1990. His term of office commenced on 1 January 1991.

He has published a wide body of work and served on many international bodies. He has been Deputy Chairman of the Board of the International Society for Social Defence/Société Internationale de Défense Sociale; a member of the Board of the International Association of Penal Law (IAPL)/Association Internationale de Droit Pénal (AIDP); and a member of the Board and Vice-President (from 1988 to 1994) of the International Society of Criminology (ISC). He was a member (from 1984 to 1988) of the Conseil Scientifique Criminologique of the Council of Europe.

7. 2001-2006: Professor Dr Judge András Szabó (Hungary) (1928-2011)

Professor Dr András Szabó (Hungary) was a Judge of the Constitutional Court in Hungary from 1990 to 1998.

He studied Law first at Bólyai University in Kolozsvár and then at the University of Budapest. He started his career in 1953 as a Research Officer at the Institute of Juridical and Political Sciences of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest. While in that position, he wrote an article on “Juvenile Delinquency in Hungary” which was published in (1967) 11 International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology 67.

Later, he was appointed Head of the Department of Criminal Law and Criminology. He was awarded a Doctorate in Law in 1978. A criminologist and criminal sociologist, he was made a full Professor of Law at the Faculty of Law of József Attila University in Szeged. He was Chair of the Hungarian Criminological Society and of the Hungarian Association for the Protection of Minorities. He was an opponent of capital punishment.

8. 2006-2010: Professor Georges Joseph Kellens (Belgium)

Professor Georges Kellens was a distinguished Professor of Criminology (and is now an Emeritus Professor) at the University de Liège and was President of the Department of Criminology there. His publications include Qu’as-tu Fait de Ton Frère?: Études de Criminolgie Spéciale which was published in 1990; and Éléments de Criminologie which appeared in paperback in 1998. In 2000, he was a founding member of the European Society for Criminology.

He stepped down as President of the IPPF/FIPP in 2010 because of ill health. He had been “Premier” Vice-President of the IPPF/FIPP from 2001 to 2005.

9. 2011-2020: Chief Justice Phillip Rapoza (USA) (b.June 1950)

Kellens was succeeded as President of the IPPF/FIPP by Phillip Rapoza (USA) who was, from 2006 to 2015, Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Appeals Court. He took over as President of the IPPF/FIPP in January 2011 and served two five-year terms before stepping back at the end of December 2020. He had been “Premier” Vice-President of the IPPF/FIPP from 2006 to 2010. He was elected an Honorary President of the IPPF/FIPP at its meeting in Geneva in September 2022.

Of Portuguese-American background, Rapoza received a BA from Yale and then moved to Cornell where he completed his Juris Doctor (JD). After a period as an Assistant District Attorney and as a criminal defence attorney, he was appointed to the judiciary, first in 1992 as a Judge at Fall River District Court, and then in 1992 at the Superior Court and in 1998 at the Massachusetts Appeals Court. He became Chief Justice in 2006. He also served as a Judge on two United Nations War Crimes Tribunals: first, from 2003 to 2005, he was President of the Tribunal established to prosecute crimes against humanity and other serious offences committed during the Indonesian occupation of East Timor; and, second, in 2012, when he was the Reserve Judge on the Supreme Court Chamber of the UN-backed Khmer Rouge Tribunal in Cambodia.

He was awarded the rank of Commander in the Order of Prince Henry the Navigator by the President of Portugal for “promoting closer relations between the judicial systems of our two countries”; in 2007, he received the Brazilian Medal of International Merit in recognition of his contribution to “strengthening the ties of friendship and cooperation between the judicial systems on the American continent”; and, in 2009, he received the Alexander George Teitz Memorial Award from the Touru Synagogue Foundation in recognition of his commitment to “religious freedom and ethnic tolerance worldwide, as demonstrated by … his career as a leader in international criminal justice [and] his work for the United Nations”.

10. 2021-2022 Dr Mary Rogan (Ireland)

Dr Mary Rogan (Ireland) was the first female President of the IPPF/FIPP and served for two years, from 1 January 2021 until the end of December 2022, when she transferred to be the IPPF/FIPP’s Secretary-General. She is an academic at Trinity College Dublin. Her research focuses on Prison Law, Human Rights and Imprisonment, and Penal Policy Making.

11. 2023-present: Professor Stephen Shute (United Kingdom)

Professor Stephen Shute was appointed the 11th President in 2023. He is the first UK President of the IPPF/FIPP and the first person from the UK to serve on the IPPF/FIPP’s Council.

 
B: IPPF/FIPP Secretaries-General

1. 1951-1961: Charles Germain (France) (29 February 1904-15 August 1964)

Charles Germain (France) was the IPPF/FIPP’s First Secretary-General, serving from 1951 to 1961. He was Avocat Général on the Court de Cassation in Paris and was Directeur de l’Administration Penitentiare in the French Ministry of Justice. After stepping down as Secretary-General of the IPPF/FIPP, he served as its Second President from 1961 until his death in 1964 (see above).

2. 1961-1971: Professor Jean Gustave Olsen Dupréel (Belgium) (4 September 1913-1998)

Professor Jean Dupréel (Belgium) was Secretary-General of the Belgian Ministry of Justice and before that he was Directeur-General de l’Administration des establishments penitentiaries et de defences sociale) and a Professor at the Free University of Brussels. He was elected as Secretary-General on 15 August 1960 during the IPPF/FIPP Assembly which was held in London to coincide with the United Nations Congress. His office was to commence in July 1961 and his term of office was for 10 years until July 1971. He served out that term and then became the IPPF/FIPP’s Fourth President for another 10 years from 1971 to 1981 (see above).

3. 1971-1975: Pier Allewijn (The Netherlands)

Pier Allewijn (The Netherlands) was elected Secretary-General of the IPPF/FIPP in August 1970. He took up his office on 1 January 1971 and served for five years until 1975. He was the Director-General of Prison Administration for The Netherlands and worked in The Hague. Taking on this latter role from Ernest A.M. Lamers in 1966, he called for “greater tolerance towards inmates”. His approach was one of “humanizing and “normalizing” and allowing “much unless it should really be prohibited”. He left the Director’s role nine years’ later, in 1975, for another Department in the Dutch Civil Service.

4. 1976: Professor Alphonse Spielmann (Luxembourg) (23 May 1931-18 April 2006)

Professor Alphonse Spielmann (Luxembourg) was Advocate at the Luxembourg Court of Appeal and Representative of the Attorney-General at the Panel Institutions and Reformatories Department of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. He was Procureur Général d’Etat Adjoint in Luxembourg. He served as a Judge at the European Court of Human Rights for 13 years, from 1985 to 1998. He was elected Secretary-General of the IPPF/FIPP at an Assembly in Geneva held on 5 September 1975.

5. 1977-1981: Professor Pierre-Henri Bolle (Switzerland) (b.20 July 1941)

Professor Pierre-Henri Bolle (Switzerland) has been a Professor at the Université de Neuchȃtel since 1971 and has also been a Professor at Galatasaray University since 2001. He was a Vice-President of the International Society for Criminology (ISC) from 2000. He became Treasurer of the IPPF/FIPP in 1987 and served in the capacity for 25 years until 2010. Between 1977 and 1981 he was Acting Secretary-General after the “sudden” resignation of Professor Alphonse Spielmann.

6. 1981-2001: Professor Dr Konrad Hobe (Germany) (d.2015)

Professor Dr Konrad Hobe was elected Secretary-General of the IPPF/FIPP at the Assembly held in Caracas on 4 September 1980. His term of office was to commence on 1 January 1981.

7. 2001-2006: Professor Dr Anabela Maria Pinto de Miranda Rodrigues (Portugal) (b.5 December 1953)

Professor Anabela Rodrigues (Portugal) was the first woman to serve as Minister for Internal Administration in Portugal. She held that office from 19 November 2014 to 30 October 2015. She was Secretary-General of the IPPF/FIPP from 2001 to 2005.

8. 2006-2011: Professor Peter Paulus Tak (The Netherlands) (b.16 January 1944)

Professor Peter Tak (The Netherlands) is a Professor at Radboud University, Nijmegen, in The Netherlands. He was Secretary-General of the IPPF/FIPP from 2006 to 2010.

6. 2011-2022: Professor Dr Piet Hein van Kempen (The Netherlands) (b.17 August 1969)
   Professor Dr Piet Hein van Kempen of Radboud University, Nijmegen, in The Netherland, was Secretary-General of the IPPF/FIPP for 12 years from 2011 to 2022.
7. 2023-present: Dr Mary Rogan (Ireland)

Dr Mary Rogan became Secretary-General of the IPPF/FIPP on 1 January 2023.
 
C: IPPF/FIPP Treasurers

1. 1951-1988: Professor Dr François Clerc (Switzerland) (9 February 1911-17 June 2000)

Professor François Clerc (9 February 1911-17 June 2000) was educated in Geneva and Paris. He was Professor at the University of Neuchȃtel from 1938 to 1981 and Rector of that University from 1959 to 1961. He was also Professor de Droit Pénal at the University of Fribourg from 1954 to 1981. He was a member of the IPPC from 1949 to 1951. He was the IPPF/FIPP’s First Treasurer and served in that capacity for an extraordinary 37 years. He made an unequalled contribution in terms of length of service to the IPPF/FIPP’s Council. He resigned as Treasurer on 30 June 1988.

2. 1988-2011: Professor Pierre-Henri Bolle (Switzerland) (b.20 July 1941)

Professor Pierre-Henri Bolle has been a Professor at the Université de Neuchȃtel since 1971 and has been a Professor at Galatasaray University since 2001. He was also a Vice-President of the International Society for Criminology (ISC) from 2000. Like Professor François Clerc, he served as Treasurer of the IPPF/FIPP for a very considerable period of time. He held that office for 23 years, but he had previously served as Secretary-General of the IPPF/FIPP for four years from 1977 to 1980 (see above). So, in total, he served on the Council of the IPPF/FIPP for 27 years. Another quite extraordinary contribution.

3. 2012-2022: Professor Dr Manon-Valerie Jendly (Switzerland)

Professor Manon Jendly is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law, Criminal Justice and Public Administration at the Université de Lausanne, Switzerland. He was the Treasurer of the IPPF/FIPP for a decade from 2012 to 2022 and completed transformative work on the Foundation’s finances during that period.

4. 2022-present: Professor Véronique C. Jaquier Erard (Switzerland)

Professor Véronique Erard is Chargée de Cours at the University of Lausanne and a Lecturer at the Université de Neuchȃtel, Switzerland. She became the IPPF/FIPP’s Treasurer on 1 July 2022.
 
D: IPPF/FIPP Vice-Presidents

1. 1951-1956: Sanford Bates (USA) (17 July 1884-8 September 1972) (see above). He was one of the two First Vice-Presidents of the IPPF/FIPP. He was elected to this position on 3 July 1951. He had been the Last President of the IPPC at is dissolution in 1951.
2. 1951-1956: Roberto Pettinato (Argentina) (3 September 1908-11 August 1993). He was Director Nacional de Institutos Penales de la Nación, Buenos Aires; and Professor at the National Penitentiary College, Buenos Aires. He was the other First Vice-President of the IPPF/FIPP and, like Bates, was elected to this position on 3 July 1951.
3. 1956-1966: Professor Thorsten Sellin (USA) (26 October 1896-17 September 1994) (see above). He was elected to this position on 27 August 1955 at a meeting in Geneva which coincided with the meeting of the First United Nations Congress but the mandate was not to commence until 31 July 1956.
4. 1956-1961: Professor José Beleza dos Santos (Portugal) (5 September 1885-28 April 1962). Like Sellin, he was elected to this position on 27 August 1955 at a meeting in Geneva which coincided with the meeting of the First United Nations Congress but the mandate was not to commence until 31 July 1956. He was a Professor of Penal Law and Dean at the University of Coimbra. He was also President of the Instituto Penal y Penitennciario Hispano-Luso American-Filipino He was one of the members who signed the Founding Articles of the IPPF/FIPP on 3 July 1951. He had been a Vice-President of the IPPC at its dissolution in July 1951. He had a significant impact on reform relating to penal and penitentiary issues in Portugal.
5. 1961-1966: Björn Torsten Martin Kjellin (Sweden) (5 July 1910-26 August 1986). A lawyer and a civil servant, he was President of the Court of Appeal for Skȯne and Blekinge (Malmo, Sweden) for nearly 20 years, from 1958 to 1977. He graduated from the University of Uppsala in 1934. From 1934 to 1937, he was a District Court Clerk, and then became a Clerk of the Court of Appeal for Övre Norrland. In 1947, he became a Judge of the Court of Appeal. He also worked as an “expert” in the Ministry of Justice from 1944 and became Head of the Law Bureau in 1949. He was made Secretary of State in 1953 and served in that capacity until 1957 when he became “Consultative Minister”, demitting that office when he became President of the Court of Appeal for Skȯne and Blekinge. He was also Chairman of the Swedish Association for Mental Health. He served as the IPPF/FIPP’s “Deuxième Vice-President”.
6. 1966-1971: Yoshitsugu Baba (Japan) (3 November 1902-24 February 1977). He was Vice Minister in the Ministry of Justice in Japan. He had previously worked in the Tokyo Superior Prosecutor’s Office and had been Prosecutor General. He was elected to the position of Vice-President of the IPPF/FIPP on 16 August 1965 at an Assembly in Stockholm but did not take up his office until July 1966.
7. 1966-1971: Ernest A.M. Lamers (The Netherlands) (d.19 May 1980). He was Director-General of Prison Administration, Ministry of Justice, The Hague, The Netherlands. He was also President of the Military Court in The Netherlands. In its 11th Bulletin, the IPPF/FIPP noted that: “For a long time past, he had directed his country’s Penitentiary Administration with authority and efficiency”. It was also noted that IPPF/FIPP meetings “were remarkably stimulated and enlivened by his interventions”. Like Baba, he was elected to the position of Vice-President of the IPPF/FIPP on 16 August 1965 at an Assembly in Stockholm but did not take up his office until July 1966. When he was appointed President of the Supreme Military Court in The Netherlands he gave up his membership of the IPPF/FIPP but “retained his interest and sympathy” for its work.
8. 1971-1980: Alfons T. Wahl (Germany). He worked in the Federal Ministry of Justice. He was Referee for Probation, Criminal Statistics, and Immunity Cases in the Federal Ministry of Justice. He served as President of “Bewahrungshilfe and Vice-President of Bundeszusammenschluss fur Strfalligenhilfe. He was largely responsible for introducing adult probation into Germany in 1954. He was elected to the position of Vice-President of the IPPF/FIPP on 20 August 1970 at an Assembly in Kyoto but did not take up his office until July 1971.
9. 1971-1980: Professor Sylvi Inkeri Anttila (Finland) (29 November 1916-6 July 2013). A Finnish jurist and criminologist, she was Minister of Justice for Finland in 1975 and the first woman to hold that position. She also became the first female Professor of Criminal Law in Finland when she was appointed to that post at the University of Helsinki in 1961. She was Chair of the Fifth United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders in 1975; between 1963 and 1974 she was Director of Finland’s Institute of Criminology; she was also on the Board of the International Association of Penal Law (IAPL)/Association Internationale de Droit Pénal (AIDP) and the International Society of Criminology (ISC). She first became a member of the IPPF/FIPP in 1962. As with Wahl, she was elected to the position of Vice-President of the IPPF/FIPP at an Assembly in Kyoto on 20 August 1970 but did not take up her office until July 1971.
10. 1981-1991: Professor Peter Pierre Lejins (USA) (20 January 1909-31 December 2002). He was born in Moscow and grew up in Latvia. He first studied Philosophy and later Law at the University of Latvia in Riga, graduating with a Masters Degree in Law in 1933. He then studied at the University of Paris, enrolling in criminal law courses at the Faculty of Law and Economics. He also took some courses at the Institute of Criminology, and at the Sorbonne. He moved to the USA later in the 1930s after winning a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship to study with Professor Edwin H. Sutherland (13 August 1883-11 October 1950) at the Department of Sociology in the University of Chicago. In 1937, he was awarded a Doctorate in Sociology, with a specialism in Criminology, from the University of Chicago (Illinois). In accordance with the requirements of the Rockefeller Fellowship, he returned to Latvia afterwards and was appointed Professor of Criminal Law at the University of Latvia. He held that position from 1938 to 1940 when he returned to the United States and naturalised in 1940. He was appointed Professor of Sociology at the University of Maryland in 1941. He retained that position for more than 35 years, until he retired in 1978 when he was given Emeritus status. He continued to teach into the 1980s. He worked in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice and was Director of the Institute of Criminal Justice and Criminology which he founded in the 1969. He attended the first five United Nations Congresses on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders. He was the USA’s Correspondent to the United Nations on Crime Prevention and the Treatment of Offenders. He served as President of the Scientific Commission of the International Society for Criminology (ISC). He also served as President of the American Correctional Association (ACA) from 1962 to 1963 and was a key person in moving its Headquarters to Washington, D.C. Letters between him and Professor Thorsten Sellin written between 1953 and 1970 are held in the University of Pennsylvania Library. He died on 31 December 2002, aged 93. He was elected Vice-President of the IPPF/FIPP at the Assembly held in Caracas on 4 September 1980. His term of office was to commence on 1 January 1981.
11. 1981-1985: Professor Giuliano Vassalli (Italy) (25 April 1915-21 October 2009). He was Professor of Penal Law at the University of Rome and a politician. He served as an MP and as a Senator in the Italian Parliament. Later, he was appointed as the Italian Minister of Justice from 1987 to 1991. Subsequently, he was appointed President of the Italian Constitutional Court from 11 November 1999 to 13 February 2000. Like Lejins, he was elected Vice-President of the IPPF/FIPP at the Assembly held in Caracas on 4 September 1980 and his term of office was to commence on 1 January 1981.
12. 1986-1996: Professor Jean Pradel (France) (29 October 1933-12 July 2021). He studied Law at the University of Poitiers from 1951 to 1957. He then served as a Judge, having attended the French National School for the Judiciary. In 1970, he was appointed an Associate Lecturer at the Faculty of Law at the University of Tunis. Two years’ later, he returned to his alma mater when he was appointed a Professor at the Faculty of Law at the University of Poitiers. He retired in 2003. He died on 12 July 2021, aged 87.
13. 1991-2000: Minoru Shikita (Japan) (13 February 1932-12 December 2017). He was educated at Kyushu University. He was a Prosecutor in the Japanese Civil Service. He was Chief of the Juvenile Section of the Criminal Affairs Bureau in the Ministry of Justice in Tokyo. He then had a distinguished career at the United Nations. His first role was in the Social Defence Section of the UN’s Secretariat in New York. He served in that capacity from 1967 to 1973. From 1982 to 1986, he was Chief of the Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Branch of the UN’s Secretariat in Vienna. In 1988, he was elected Chair of the UN’s Committee on Crime Prevention and Control. He was one of the founders and a Vice-President of the International Association of Prosecutors. He was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star in 2002. In a tribute to him delivered in the Vienna International Centre, it was noted that he was “so often the right person in the right place at the right time”. He died on 12 December 2017, aged 85. He was elected Vice-President of the IPPF/FIPP at the Assembly held in Havana on 4 September 1990. His term of office was to commence on 1 January 1991.
14. 2001-2005: Professor George Joseph Kellens (Belgium). He became President in 2006 (see above).
15. 2006-2010: Chief Justice Phillip Gerard Rapoza (USA) (b.June 1950). He became President in 2011 (see above).
16. 2006-2010: Professor Sampo Tapio Lappi-Seppällä (Finland). He is now an Emeritus Professor of Criminal Law and Criminal Policy at the Faculty of Law and the Institute of Criminology and Legal Policy at the University of Helsinki. He has had a very distinguished academic career. He was Director of the National Research Institute of Legal Policy in Helsinki. He was a member of the Executive Board of the European Society of Criminology from 2008 to 2010. In 2019, he received the Award for a Lifetime Contribution to European Criminology from the European Society of Criminology.
17. 2011-2015: Judge Nils Erik Lie (Norway) (b.1942). Born in 1942, he took his Legal Civil Service examination in Norway in 1968. He worked as a Deputy Judge in Hamar; as a lawyer in Oslo and Moss; and as a City Court Judge in Fredrikstad. In 1987, he was appointed Judge of the then Eidsivating – now Borgarting – Court of Appeal and served as Head of the Court from 1996 to 2010. He was a Vice-President of the IPPF/FIPP from 2011 to 2015. He published a book entitled Questioning of Parties and Witnesses. He served as Chair of the Continuing Education Council for Judges; Chair of the Norwegian Association of Criminalists; Chair of the Central Complaints Board at the University of Oslo; Chair of the Lawyers’ Association; and Chair of the Control Committee in Storebrand ASA. He was a former editor of Stud. Jur. and was one of the co-founders of Corpus Juris.
18. 2016-2021: Professor Warren Arthur Young (New Zealand) (b.1950). He was Deputy President of the New Zealand Law Commission from 2004 to 2011; and Deputy Secretary of Justice, Ministry of Justice, Wellington, New Zealand.
19. 2015-present: Professor Dr José Luis Díez Ripollés (Spain). He was Professor of Criminal Law (and is now Emeritus Professor) at the University of Malaga. He was the Founding Director of the Institute of Criminology at the University of Malaga from 1990 to 2017. He served as Acting President of the IPPF/FIPP from January 2023 to June 2023.
20. 2022-present: Professor Alejo García Basalo (Argentina). He was an architect at the Federal Prison Service and the Ministry of Justice in Argentina for more than 40 years. He is also a Lecturer and Professor of Prison Architecture at the John F. Kennedy University of Buenos Aires. He was appointed a Vice-President of the IPPF/FIPP on 1 March 2022.