Associate Professor, WVU College of Law
Photo by WVU College of Law.
By Cathy Bonnstetter
A case of bad directions to a library launched West Virginia University (WVU) College of Law associate law professor Cody Corliss’s career. In 2005, when Corliss was studying in the Netherlands as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar, he needed a book from the Peace Palace Library in The Hague, a 15-minute train ride from his university town. Due to faulty directions, he ended up at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), took a seat in the public gallery and watched the war crimes trial of the late Slobodan Milosevic unfold.
“I started my education in international law in the public gallery that day,” Corliss says. “This affirmed my intent to go to law school. I went off to Cornell with some moonshot idea that maybe one day I too could work in international law for the U.N.”
After Corliss’s inspirational courtroom accident, the New Martinsville, WV, native headed to Cornell University to start law school. By that time, he was a well-traveled scholar with a master’s degree in history from the Universiteit Leiden in the Netherlands and a degree in comparative religion from Harvard. Even though he was armed with an impressive academic past, the classes proved arduous at first.
“I was totally rocked by the rigor of the 1L law school experience,” Corliss says. “I went into law school thinking, I did very well in college and had just completed a competitive fellowship program; how hard could law school be? After that initial shock, I came to embrace the challenge of researching, thinking and writing in an entirely different way.”
After graduating in 2009, Corliss returned to the Mountain State to become a clerk for Supreme Court Justice Margaret Workman, who he says has been an amazing mentor and source of inspiration throughout his legal career.
“Justice Workman was a trailblazer; a young Circuit Court judge, the first woman elected to statewide office and author of groundbreaking and thoughtful legal opinions,” he says. “She taught me how to think about the law and its impact on the citizens of West Virginia. Justice Workman is more than just a brilliant jurist; she is an amazing human who has inspired me with her compassion for others, and I am blessed to call her my friend.”
Corliss then moved to the Pittsburgh law firm, K&L Gates, before bringing his career full circle as a lawyer for the U.N.
Ten years later, Corliss was back in the Netherlands in that same courtroom prosecuting war-time criminals at two U.N. international criminal tribunals, the ICTY and the United National International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals.
His work focused on the shelling and sniping of civilians in Sarajevo during the Balkan conflict where military snipers targeted innocent people going about their daily lives. Corliss says that, while this work was often emotionally challenging, he embraced the chance to play a part in holding people accountable for such heinous crimes.
“I’m proud that my work as a war crimes prosecutor has helped prove that the default for violations of international law isn’t impunity,” he says. “It wasn’t that long ago that gross violations of international humanitarian law weren’t punished. Today, citizens around the world expect and demand prosecutions for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. The prosecutors at these ad hoc international criminal tribunals proved that such perpetrators could be prosecuted, and I had a few small roles to play in that.”
Corliss received the Martin Luther King, Jr. State Holiday Commission’s Living the Dream Award for his work promoting human rights. The award stemmed from his time as a war crimes prosecutor.
“I’m most proud of the work I did prosecuting some of the most significant war crimes cases of the last 50 years,” Corliss says. “I was part of the trial team that secured the conviction of Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. I was also part of the appellate team that secured the life sentence of Radovan Karadzic, the former president of the Republika Srpska, on similar charges.”
Today, Corliss teaches criminal law, evidence, international law courses and a seminar on domestic and international terrorism at WVU. He is researching legal issues related to the war crime of terror and his newest research on the use of social media as an instrument of terror is forthcoming in the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law. However, his favorite part of teaching law is working with the students and seeing them grow. He has a first-hand empathy for young law students.
“I remember from my own law school experience that law school, 1L year in particular, can be really hard,” he says. “I love seeing students become more confident with the material itself and more confident in their own abilities as thinkers and future lawyers. I try to encourage my students to not just learn the black letter law, but to critically examine law’s role in shaping society more broadly.”
Growing up in Wetzel County, Corliss attended Magnolia High School where he was class president, an all-state athlete and a National Merit Scholar. In those days, he dreamed of becoming a journalist because he loved the idea of investigating the facts and telling a story, tasks that lawyers spend hours with, as well. His father worked in the maintenance department of a local power plant and his mother was a Wetzel County teacher.
“Even in retirement, my mother is a true force of nature,” Corliss says. “I am blessed because my mom is someone who fostered a home of love that also encouraged learning and exploration.”
In fact, he says his best trait is his natural sense of curiosity that was nurtured in his family while he was growing up. He loves learning new things and embracing new challenges.
“It was curiosity that encouraged me to stay in the public gallery to watch a trial rather than find the library,” Corliss says. “I owe my career to that choice. Today, in my academic life, that same curiosity encourages me to look for opportunities to improve my research or innovate as a teacher.”
Although his education and eventually his career took him away from the Mountain State, Corliss kept feeling the tug of the West Virginia hills. He says he was thrilled when he was offered an opportunity to teach at WVU College of Law and cites one of the great privileges of teaching as knowing his work today will help shape the future of West Virginia.
“I grew up in Wetzel County but rarely visited Morgantown,” he says. “Now that I live in Morgantown, I have been happily surprised to find a welcoming community. I couldn’t imagine a better place to teach than WVU College of Law. My colleagues are committed to fostering greatness in our students. But more than that, the WVU law community is an incredibly caring place. The students at the law school aren’t just whip smart, they are some of the kindest, most thoughtful people I’ve ever met. If the law students I’ve taught are the future of West Virginia, we’re in great hands.”
