Daniel Thürer is an emeritus professor of public international, European and Swiss public and administrative law at the University of Zurich. 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 Harvard Law School.
Daniel Thürer was the director of the Institute of International and Comparative Constitutional Law and is still a member of the board of the European Law Institute of Zurich University. He has also been visiting professor at Harvard Law School, Stanford School of Law, University of Hong Kong, Panthéon-Assas (Paris II), the Universities of Geneva and Cambridge, the Academy of International Humanitarian Law in Geneva, Hague Academy of International Law, Institut des Droits de l’homme in Strasbourg and other institutions.
Daniel Thürer was a government expert from 1993 to 1999 for the total revision of the Swiss Constitution. In 2000 he was appointed member of the Independent Expert Commission Switzerland – the Second World War being an international commission of enquiry into the legal and historical aspects of Switzerland’s role before, during and after the Second World War. Daniel Thürer was a member of the Board of Commissioners of the UN Claims Commission Kuwait v. Iraq in 1992 and an OSCE expert on human dimension in 1992. In addition, he was a member of the Supreme Court of the Principality of Liechtenstein in 1989 and acted as president of the Zurich Lawyers’ Association from 1989 to 1991. Daniel Thürer is a member of the International Committee of the Red Cross and has also been president of its legal commission since 1996.
Daniel Thürer has published on public international law and European and Swiss public law. In 2015 he was honoured with a commemorative volume; this volume was edited by Giovanni Biaggini, Oliver Diggelmann and Christine Kaufmann.