Robert Badinter, HEC Honoris Causa Professor

01 October 2006

On Monday 18th September, the day of the 25th anniversary of the vote to abolish the death penalty in France by the National Assembly, HEC Paris had the honour of welcoming Robert Badinter, who was invited to give an introductory conference at the inaugural seminar for new students at HEC on the theme "Towards a universal abolition of the death penalty".

After having described his fight for the abolition of the death penalty, from 1972 until 1981, Robert Badinter exposed the current situation of capital punishment in the world and the explanations for this. (70 countries are not yet abolitionists, including China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the majority of the United States.) Having moved on from an "intellectual conviction" to develop a "militant passion" for this cause, Robert Badinter reaffirmed its current relevance and the importance of following, ceaselessly, the fight for "a universal abolition of the death penalty".

This conference allowed students to discover a passionate man who was a University professor, Minister of Justice, President of the Constitutional Council and currently Senator; and who, throughout his life and his work, will have put his rigor as a magistrate and his commitment as a politician to the service of the weakest individual causes and the most flouted collective causes.

Following this presentation, Bernard Ramanantsoa, Dean of HEC, and Antoine Hyafil, Dean of the Faculty and Research, had the pleasure of returning the title of HEC Honoris Causa Professor to Robert Badinter.

By attributing the title of Honoris Causa Professor to Robert Badinter, HEC has shown its willingness to reaffirm its vocation of forming free-thinking, autonomous, responsible and civilized managers.

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