Scott Gilmore
Scott pursues justice for victims of genocide, terrorism, and war crimes through high-stakes litigation against the world’s most powerful actors—from banks to tech giants to autocrats.
Scott pursues justice for victims of genocide, terrorism, and war crimes through high-stakes litigation against the world’s most powerful actors—from banks to tech giants to autocrats.
Scott Gilmore is a leading international human rights litigator who holds powerful institutions accountable for mass atrocities, terrorism financing, and other grave violations of international law. He represents victims of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and terrorism in complex, high-stakes litigation against multinational corporations, financial institutions, and sovereign actors. His work has helped secure historic jury verdicts and advance novel legal theories in some of the most challenging cases in the world, winning close to $400 million in judgments and settlements.
Throughout his career, Scott has focused on litigating some of the most complex disputes involving foreign sovereign immunity, extraterritorial jurisdictions, multinational defendants, and grievous human rights abuses. He has taken on heads of state, foreign governments, and some of the world’s largest banks, overcoming jurisdictional and immunity defenses to bring claims on behalf of victims who otherwise would have no access to justice. His practice frequently involves navigating foreign legal systems, coordinating cross-border investigations, and building evidentiary records in environments shaped by conflict and political instability.
Among his recent victories, Scott played a central role on the team that secured a landmark $20.75 million jury verdict against BNP Paribas for financing genocide in Sudan—the first trial in history to hold an international bank responsible for supporting genocide. He worked on the case from motion practice through trial, helping develop the legal theories under foreign law, build the evidentiary record, and shape the strategy that carried the case to verdict. The litigation required distilling a complex record of atrocities and international financial transactions into a clear, compelling narrative for jurors. The verdict marked a watershed moment in human rights litigation and paved the way for tens of thousands of survivors to pursue further recovery.
In addition to his human rights practice, Scott works on cutting-edge matters involving climate and environmental harms, emerging technology, cybersecurity, and antitrust claims, bringing the same strategic discipline to high-stakes disputes across industries.
Before joining DiCello Levitt, Scott was a partner at a leading international disputes firm, where he led complex class and individual litigation and appeals involving human rights, sanctions and anti-terrorism claims, environmental and climate harms, data privacy, intellectual property, and antitrust matters. During his tenure there, he built and litigated headline-grabbing cases and led significant international legal efforts, including negotiating a cross-border dispute that resulted in the extradition of ISIS terrorists to the United States to stand trial for the murder of American hostages. He also contributed to drafting provisions of the Ukraine Invasion War Crimes Deterrence and Accountability Act (2022), extending extraterritorial jurisdiction under the federal War Crimes Statute.
Earlier in his career, Scott investigated and led groundbreaking human rights litigation at the Center for Justice and Accountability, pursuing claims under the Alien Tort Statute, Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, and Electronic Communications Privacy Act at the trial, appellate, and Supreme Court levels. There, he secured the first-ever war crimes judgment against Syria for the assassination of U.S. journalist Marie Colvin and successfully reinstated torture claims on appeal against former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier.
In addition to his litigation practice, Scott serves as an adjunct professor at Georgetown Law, where he teaches human rights law and international investigations. He is fluent in French and is an accomplished rock and jazz musician.
