Born in Egypt on 9 June 1933, Georges Michel Abi-Saab is Honorary Professor of International Law at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva (having taught there from 1963 to 2000); Honorary Professor at Cairo University’s Faculty of Law; and a Member of the Institute of International Law.
Category Archives: Biographies of Authors – International Law
Thomas Bernauer
Thomas Bernauer is a professor of political science at ETH Zurich. He and his research group are based at the Center for Comparative and International Studies, a joint institution of ETH Zurich and the University of Zurich, and at ETH Zurich’s Institute for Environmental Decisions.
Samantha Besson
Samantha Besson holds a law degree from the University of Fribourg (1996), an LLM in European and Comparative Law from the University of Oxford (1998) and a Doctorate in Law from the University Fribourg (1999) and earned her post-doctoral habilitation from the University of Bern (2004). She is one of Switzerland’s most internationally recognised contemporary legal scholars.
Rudolf Bindschedler
Born in 1915, Rudolf Bindschedler obtained his Law degree from the University of Zürich. After briefly working for a Zürich District Court, he was hired by the Political Department (known today as the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs) of Switzerland in 1943.
Johann Caspar Bluntschli
Johann Caspar Bluntschli was born in Zurich in 1808 into a traditional and reasonably well-off family, who owned a candle and soap factory. After being schooled in Zurich, he moved to Berlin and Bonn in order to complete his law studies and earn his doctorate degree. Here, he was taught by Friedrich Carl von Savigny, who exposed him to the German historicist school of thought, an approach that would have an important impact on Bluntschli’s own works and teachings.
Laurence Boisson de Chazournes
Laurence Boisson de Chazournes has gained a wide-ranging reputation in academic circles for her contribution to international law, in such fields as the law of international organisations, international economic law and international environmental law, while at the same time being recognized for her practical work as Senior Counsel to the World Bank and as advisor to many international organizations.
Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui
Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui was born in Geneva in 1694 into a family of Italian origin. Once politically influential in Lucca, Italy, Burlamaqui’s ancestors had fled religious persecution in 1591 and found refuge in the reformed Republic of Geneva.
Lucius Caflisch
Lucius Caflisch is a Swiss international law specialist. Between 1984 and 1990 he was the Director of the Graduate Institute in Geneva. In 1991, he became legal advisor for the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs and represented Switzerland at several international conventions, for example on the banning of personnel mines and on maritime law, as well as at negotiations creating the constitution of the International Criminal Court. He also acted as judge for the principality of Liechtenstein at the European Court of Human Rights from 1998 until 2006 when he was appointed to the Geneva-based United Nations International Law Commission.
Thomas Cottier, Editor and Author
Thomas Cottier, former Managing Director of the World Trade Institute and the Institute of European and International Economic Law, is a Professor emeritus of European and International Economic Law at the University of Bern. He was educated at the University of Bern and was a research fellow with Professor Jörg Paul Müller in constitutional and public international law.
Emer De Vattel
Born in 1714 in the Prussian Neuchâtel, Emer de Vattel grew up in an old and traditional family. He was schooled by his father, a reverend, who later in life was ennobled by the Prussian king. As a young adult, Vattel moved to Basel in order to attend university and pursue his interests in classical and humanistic studies.
Henry Dunant
The only constants in Henry Dunant’s life were his passion for humanitarianism and the Red Cross. His life was marked with contrasts. He was born on the 8th May 1828, in Geneva, into a religious, Calvinist family that devoted itself to humanitarian and civic values. Henry Dunant developed deep religious beliefs and high morals at an early age. He then dedicated a great part of his life to religious activities. He became a member of the League of Alms whose goal was to offer material comfort to the poor, sick and those in need. He was further carrying out visits to prisons as a social worker and was for a while a full-time representative of the Young Men’s Christian Association for which he travelled to France, Belgium and Holland.
Paul Guggenheim
Paul Guggenheim was born in Zurich in 1899. He studied law in Geneva, Rome and then Berlin where he received his doctorate in 1924. After a stay as a section leader at the Institute for International law at the University of Kiel, Germany he settled in Geneva, where his academic career took off.
Joseph Hornung
The Swiss lawyer Joseph Hornung attacked Western brutality in the colonies as well as its hypocrisy in supporting intervention of oppressed Christians in Turkey was while paying no such consideration to those Africans and Asians being persecuted by colonial rule.
Max Huber
This biography is taken from Benedict von Tscharner, ‘Max Huber’ in Benedict von Tscharner, Inter Gentes: Statesmen, Diplomats, Political Thinkers, translation Nathasha Proietto, (Infolio editions & Éditions de Penthes, 2012): extract: pp. 217-226.
Antoine-Henri Jomini
Antoine-Henri Jomini was born in 1779 in Payerne, where his father, a notary, held various prestigious offices. From an early age, Jomini had a particularly keen interest in strategic military affaires and military history. This caused him to pass up an opportunity to become a jurist in the hopes of enrolling in a military school in the Duchy of Württemberg. This dream, however, had to yield to the political realities and revolutionary upheavals at the time. Jomini opted for becoming a merchant instead.
Walter Kälin
Walter Kälin was awarded his doctorate from the University of Bern in 1982 and received his LL.M from Harvard Law School in 1984. Since 1985 he has been professor and since 1987 full professor of constitutional and international law at the Faculty of Law, University of Bern.
Robert Kolb
Born on 11 March 1967, Robert Kolb holds a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Bern, a post-graduate degree in public international law (Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva), an LL.M. in law of the sea (University College, University of London), a Ph.D. in international law from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, and was distinguished with a venia docendi on completion of his habilitation thesis from the University of Bern.
Petros Mavroidis
Petros C. Mavroidis is professor of European Union and World Trade Organization (WTO) Law at the University of Neuchâtel and at Columbia Law School, New York. He is also Chair for Global and Regional Economic Law at European University Institute, Florence. He was previously a member of the Legal Affairs Division at the WTO. He is chief co-rapporteur at the American Law Institute (ALI) for the project “Principles of International Trade Law: The WTO.”
Nicolas Michel
Nicolas Michel has been a member of faculty at the Graduate Institute Geneva since 2008 and is also a Full Professor on the Faculty of Law at the University of Geneva. He has previously been the Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs and United Nations Legal Counsel from 2004 to 2008.
Hans Joachim Morgenthau
Hans J. Morgenthau is credited as one of the ‘founding fathers’ of the realist school which came to dominate theoretical and practical understanding of International Politics in the 20th Century. Morgenthau was most associated with his ‘American’ works published after his move to the United States from Europe, even though he was forty at the time and had already written several books on the subjects of international law and the political relations between countries.
Gustave Moynier
Gustave Moynier was born in 1826 into an influential Genevan Family of merchants and watchmakers. At the age of twenty he relocated to Paris, due to political upheavals in Geneva at the time, and stayed there in order to complete his law studies and earn his doctorate degree. His marriage to Jeanne-Françoise Paccard gave him financial independence giving him the freedom to follow his Calvinist ideals and turn to charitable work and philanthropy.
Jörg Paul Müller
Jörg Paul Müller is an eminent constitutional and international law scholar and Emeritus Professor at the University of Bern. Müller studied law and sociology at the universities of Geneva and Bern and completed a post-graduate degree at Harvard Law School. In his distinguished career Müller has worked as a lecturer on Constitutional Law, Constitutional Theory and Political Ethics at the Universities of Freiburg, Basel, St. Gallen and ETH Zurich.
Krista Nadakavukaren Schefer
Krista Nadakavukaren Schefer is a Professor of International Law at the University of Basel. Teaching currently in the areas of WTO law and international investment law, Professor Nadakavukaren Schefer is also leading a research project on positive duties of states and non-state actors in the international legal system.
Otfried Nippold
Otfried Nippold was born in Wiesbaden, Germany in 1864. He studied law at the University of Bern, University of Halle, University of Tübingen before earning his doctorate at the University of Jena in 1886. Nippold was a prominent internationalist whose work played a significant role in the development of international law. In his study of treaties in 1894 Nippold proposed that power dominated relations between states with treaties agreed to the detriment of the weaker party. The behaviour of European countries in colonies Nippold cited as a prime example of force being used to impose international law on peaceful communities.
Anne Peters
Anne Peters was born in Berlin in 1964. She began her graduate studies in 1984 and studied a combination of Law, Modern Greek and Spanish at the Universities of Würzburg, Lausanne, and Freiburg im Breisgau respectively.
Ernst-Ulrich Petersmann
Ernst-Ulrich Petersmann was born on 26 August 1945 in Hamburg, Germany. He studied law and economics from 1964-1970 at the Universities of Berlin, Heidelberg, Freiburg (Germany), Geneva and the London School of Economics.
Mark Pieth
Mark Pieth has been, since 1993, Professor of Criminal Law and Criminology at the University of Basel, Switzerland. Having completed his undergraduate degree and his PhD in criminal law and criminal procedure at this university, he spent an extensive period of time abroad, most notably at the Max Planck Institute for Criminal Law and Criminology in Germany and the Cambridge Institute of Criminology in the United Kingdom. After practicing for a time as a private barrister (‘Advokat’), he returned to his alma mater to complete his post-doctoral (‘habilitation’) thesis on sanctioning and other aspects of criminology.
Maya Hertig Randall
Maya Hertig Randall holds a Ph.D. from the University of Fribourg, a first class LL.M. degree from the University of Cambridge and was admitted to the Geneva bar in 2002. She joined the Law Faculty of the University of Geneva as Professor of constitutional law in 2007.
William Rappard
William Emmanuel Rappard was born in New York City on 22nd April 1883 to Swiss parents. His father was working in the United States as a representative of various Swiss industries. Rappard did his graduate studies in economics at Harvard University from 1906 to 1908. During the academic year 1908-1909 he carried out additional studies at the University of Vienna in Austria-Hungary, attending the seminars of Eugen von Bohm-Bawerk and Eugen Philippovich von Philippsberg, two of the leading figures of the Austrian school of economics before the First World War. From 1911 to 1913, he was an adjunct Professor of Political Economy at Harvard.
Georges Sauser-Hall
Georges Sauser-Hall was born in 1884 in La Chaux-de -Fonds. Sauser-Hall was Professor of Comparative Law at the University of Neuchâtel (1912), chief legal officer of the Political Department in Berne (1915-1924), Professor of Civil Law, Comparative and International Private Law at the University of Geneva (1924-1954) forensic consultant and professor of the Turkish government in Istanbul (1925-1931), lecturer at the Universities of Neuchâtel and Lausanne (1954).
Daniel Thürer
Daniel Thürer received his legal education at the Universities of Zurich, St. Gallen, Geneva, Cambridge, the Max Planck Institute of Public International Law and Comparative Public Law (Heidelberg) and the Harvard Law School. He has been Professor of Public International, European, Swiss and Comparative Constitutional Law at the University of Zurich from 1983 until July 2010.
Detlev Vagts
Detlev F. Vagts was born in Washington D.C. on the 13 February 1929 to an American mother and a father who had fled Germany during the rise of the Nazi party. He received his legal education at Harvard Law School, graduating with an LL.B. in 1951.
Luzius Wildhaber
Luzius Wildhaber was born in Basel, Switzerland, in 1937 and studied at the Universities of Basel, Paris, Heidelberg, London and Yale. He was the first President of the new European Court of Human Rights. Before appointment to this post in 1998, Wildhaber had a distinguished academic career, including being Rector of Basel University, but mostly as Professor in the fields of Public International, Constitutional, Comparative and Administrative Law at the Universities of Basel and Fribourg.
Jean Ziegler
Jean Ziegler has served for extended periods as independent expert for the United Nations, is honorary professor at the University of Geneva and author of numerous books.