Jean-Paul Costa

Jean -Paul Costa ( born November 3, 1941 in Tunis ) is a French lawyer and was dated 19 January 2007 to November 3, 2011 President of the European Court of Human Rights.

Life

Costa attended as a student the Lycee Carnot in Tunis and the Lycée Henri IV in Paris. He then studied at the Institute of Political Studies in Paris and graduated there in 1961 with a diploma. Then he moved to the Faculty of Law and earned a Master of Laws in 1962 and 1964, a DESS in public law. In the two years that followed, Costa graduated from the ENA, a state elite school for government officials.

In June 1966 he was appointed as Legal Assistant to the Conseil d' État. From 1968 to 1973 he lectured at the Institut d' études politiques de Paris. By 1977, Costa worked as Deputy Director-General of the Intergovernmental Bureau for computer science (IBI ) of UNESCO. After a brief stint as a lecturer at the ENA (1978-1979) and President of the Appeal Committee of the Agency for Cultural and Technical Cooperation (1979-1980), he joined in 1981 as a director in the office of the French Minister of Education Alain Savary. There, Costa lived until his resignation in 1984.

During the contract negotiations between France and Britain over the construction of the Euro tunnel he led 1985-1986 to the French delegation. From 1985 to 1989 he taught at the IIAP. After that, he was associate professor at the University of Orléans (1989-1998) and the University of Paris I ( 1992-1998).

The Conseil d' État, he remained connected for many years. Between 1966 and 1971, 1977 and 1980 as well as 1987 and 1989, Costa served there as a reporter. From 1989 to 1993 he worked as an owner of a chamber, then he took over the presidency of the chamber 10. On November 1, 1998, he joined the European Court of Human Rights. Here he was promoted to Vice President on 1 May 2000 on the section and on 1 November 2001. January 19, 2007 Costa followed the Swiss Lucius Wildhaber, Office of the ECHR president. Having reached the age limit, he retired from the Court on 3 November 2011.

Awards

• 2011: Grand Gold Medal with Ribbon for Services to the Republic of Austria