The National Endowment for Democracy and the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies at Indiana University have partnered to present a conversation with Dr. Camelia Bogdan, a judge on the Bucharest Court of Appeals and an expert on asset recovery, countering money laundering, and combating transnational corruption and other financial crimes. Dr. Bogdan will speak with Ambassador Lee Feinstein, dean of the Hamilton Lugar School and former US Ambassador to Poland (2009–2012), on Wednesday, April 14 at 11am (EDT). 

As a judge, Bogdan has gained an international reputation for seeking to establish the rule of law and bolster the strength of an independent judiciary in Romania, a post-Communist country that began its transition to democracy in 1989. She has twice been expelled from the Romanian judiciary on politically motivated charges, first in 2017 and again in 2018. Because she was prevented from defending herself, she successfully appealed the second decision on the charge that her expulsion was arbitrary.

The conversation will cover not just Dr. Bogdan’s background but also the forms that financial crimes take in Romania and Europe. Raiding public assets, money laundering, back-to-back loans, shadow banking, and other ways of pilfering and hiding public assets are all part of her expertise.

Dr. Bogdan joined the Hamilton Lugar School Institute of European Studies as a visiting research fellow after a Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellowship at the National Endowment for Democracy.

The event is co-sponsored by Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies as part of their International Law & Institutions Week.