John Dugard

Christopher John Robert Dugard ( born August 23, 1936 in Fort Beaufort, Cape Province ) is a South African lawyer. He was from 1969 to 1998 professor at Witwatersrand University, and from 1998 to 2006 at the University Leiden. In addition, he worked from 1997 to 2011 as a member of the International Law Commission, as well as the Special Rapporteur of the UN Commission on Human Rights or the UN Human Rights Council and in two cases as an ad hoc judge at the International Court of Justice. Focus of his work are human rights, international criminal law and the history of apartheid in his home country.

Life

John Dugard was born in 1936 in Fort Beaufort. 1980, it was his doctorate at the University of Cambridge, after he had completed his academic training at the University of Stellenbosch. From 1965 to 1969 he taught as a lecturer and then until 1998 as a professor at Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg, where he was from 1975 to 1977 Dean of the Law School and from 1978 to 1990 headed the Centre for Applied Legal Studies, the aim of " the dissemination of human rights in South Africa " is. He looked beyond as a visiting professor at Princeton University, Duke University, and the University of California, Berkeley, at the University of Pennsylvania and at the University of New South Wales. After the end of apartheid in South Africa, he was involved from 1993 to 1995 in the drafting of the interim constitution and the new constitution of 1996. In addition, he was from 1993 to 1995 and in 1998 president of the National Association of South Africa of the International Law Association.

From 1995 to 1997 he served as Director of the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law at the University of Cambridge and then from 1998 to 2006 as a professor of international law at Leiden University. In addition, he was a member from 1997 to 2011 of the International Law Commission of the United Nations. At the International Court of Justice ( ICJ), he worked from 2002 to 2006 as an ad hoc judge in two cases to military activities of Uganda or Rwanda in the territory of the Democratic Republic of Congo. He also stood as a candidate, after nomination by the national groups in Australia, the Netherlands, South Africa and Sweden at the Permanent Court of Arbitration, in taking place in October 2002 regular judge elections on ICJ, but did not achieve in the General Assembly of the United Nations, the required number of votes.

With the beginning of the designated as Second Intifada conflict between the Arab Palestinians and Israeli security forces in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank John Dugard was appointed in 2000 as Chairman of a committee of the UN Human Rights Commission to investigate the human rights situation in the affected areas. From 2001 to 2008 he was Special Rapporteur of the Commission or later of its successor institution, the UN Human Rights Council. In a special Council meeting in July 2006, he described the situation in the Palestinian territories as "unbearable". A year later he evaluated in a report, which has been criticized from various sides, Israel's policy in these areas as " like apartheid " and the corresponding Israeli laws and practices as a violation of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

Awards

John Dugard was developed by the Universities of Natal ( 1990), Cape Town (1996 ), Port Elizabeth (2003), Pretoria (2004) and from the Witwatersrand University ( 2004) awarded an honorary doctorate. Since 1995 he is the first and only lawyer from South Africa, who has been appointed a member of the Institut de Droit international, beyond Since 2008 he is honorary member of the American Society of International Law. At the University of Leiden he will honor since his retirement in 2006, an annual " John Dugard Lecture Series " instead, are invited to attend the internationally renowned legal scholar. In 2010 he was awarded the Gruber Justice Prize. In 2012 he was awarded the Order of the Baobab in Gold.

Works (selection)

• Human Rights and the South African Legal Order. Princeton 1978
• Recognition and the United Nations. Cambridge 1987
• The Last Years of Apartheid: Civil Liberties in South Africa. New York, 1992 ( co-author )
• International Criminal Law and Procedure. Aldershot 1996 ( co-author )
• International Law: A South African Perspective. Third Edition. Cape Town 2006