John Cencich
Adjunct Professor of
Political Science

Dr. John Cencich is Professor Emeritus at Pennsylvania Western University and a retired law-enforcement official whose professional career culminated in a 4-year appointment with the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. At The Hague, he was the senior American War Crimes Investigator who led one of the largest international criminal investigations since the Second World War.

At JMU, he teaches terrorism, international security, laws of war, political assassinations, and political violence in Northern Ireland. He teaches the Law of Armed Conflict and International Criminal Law as an adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Pittsburgh. He has held past appointments to the Advisory Committee on Wrongful Convictions with the Pennsylvania Senate as well as the Organized Crime Committee for the International Association of Chiefs of police. He also represented an international NGO as a legal observer during U.S. Military Commission proceedings at Camp Justice, U.S. Naval Base--Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

He holds law degrees from the University of Kent at Canterbury, the University of Pittsburgh, the degree of Doctor of Juridical Science from the University of Notre Dame, and a master’s degree from Virginia Commonwealth University.