Judge Theodor Meron (USA) President of the ICTY since 17 November 2011 and from 2003 to 2005 Born: 28 April 1930, Kalisz, Poland > Statements and Speeches

Judge Theodor Meron is the Tribunal’s current President, elected to this position by his fellow judges on 19 October 2011. He also served as President between March 2003 and November 2005.

Since his election to the Tribunal by the U.N. General Assembly in March 2001, Judge Meron, a citizen of the United States, has served on the Appeals Chamber, which hears appeals from both the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). A leading scholar of international humanitarian law, human rights, and international criminal law, Judge Meron wrote some of the books and articles that helped build the legal foundations for international criminal tribunals. A Shakespeare enthusiast, he has also written articles and books on the laws of war and chivalry in Shakespeare’s historical plays.

Judge Meron received his legal education at the Universities of Jerusalem, Harvard (where he received his doctorate), and Cambridge. He immigrated to the United States in 1978. Since 1977, he has been a Professor of International Law and, since 1994, the holder of the Charles L. Denison Chair at New York University School of Law. Between 1991 and 1995 he was also Professor of International Law at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, and he has been a Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard University and at the University of California (Berkeley). He was counsel for the United States before the International Court of Justice in the LaGrand case. In 2000-2001, he served as Counselor on International Law in the U.S. Department of State. In 2006, he was named Charles L. Denison Professor Emeritus and Judicial Fellow at New York University School of Law.

Judge Meron was Co-Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of International Law (1993-98) and is now an honorary editor. He is a member of the Institute of International Law, the Board of Editors of the Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law, the Council on Foreign Relations, the French Society of International Law, the American Branch of the International Law Association, and the Bar of the State of New York, and he is a patron of the American Society of International Law. He is Honorary President of the American Society of International Law. He has served on the advisory committees or boards of several human rights organizations, including Americas Watch and the International League for Human Rights.

In 1990, Judge Meron served as a Public Member of the United States Delegation to the CSCE Conference on Human Dimensions in Copenhagen. In 1998, he served as a member of the United States Delegation to the Rome Conference on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court (ICC) and was involved in the drafting of the provisions on crimes, including war crimes and crimes against humanity. He has also served on the preparatory commission for the establishment of the ICC, with particular responsibilities for the definition of the crime of aggression.

Judge Meron has served on several committees of experts of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), including those on Internal Strife, on the Environment and Armed Conflicts, and on Direct Participation in Hostilities Under International Humanitarian Law. He was also a member of the steering committee of ICRC experts on Customary Rules of International Humanitarian Law. He was a member of the “Panel of Eminent Persons within the Swiss Initiative to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” which concerned a future agenda for human rights, and is now a member of the successor panel on human dignity.

He has been a Carnegie Lecturer at The Hague Academy of International Law, Fellow of the Rockefeller Foundation, Max Planck Institute Fellow (Heidelberg), Sir Hersch Lauterpacht Memorial Lecturer at the University of Cambridge, and Visiting Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford. He was also the Marek Nowicki Lecturer for 2008 lectures in Budapest and Warsaw under the auspices of the Open Society Institute. He has lectured at many universities and at the International Institute of Human Rights (Strasbourg). Judge Meron helped establish the ICRC/Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies seminars for University Professors on International Humanitarian Law. He leads the annual ICRC seminars for U.N. diplomats on International Humanitarian Law at New York University, and in the past led such seminars in Geneva.

Judge Meron was awarded the 2005 Rule of Law Award by the International Bar Association and the 2006 Manley O. Hudson Medal of the American Society of International Law. He was made Officer of the Legion of Honor by the government of France in 2007. He received the Charles Homer Haskins Prize of the American Council of Learned Societies for 2008. In 2009 he was elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2011 he received a doctorate honoris causa from the University of Warsaw.

A frequent contributor to the American Journal of International Law and other legal journals, Judge Meron delivered the 2003 General Course of Public International Law at The Hague Academy of International Law. He is the author of more than 100 articles in legal publications. His books are: Investment Insurance in International Law (Oceana-Sijthoff 1976); The United Nations Secretariat (Lexington Books 1977); Human Rights in International Law (Oxford University Press 1984); Human Rights Law-Making in the United Nations (Oxford University Press 1986) (awarded the certificate of merit of the American Society of International Law); Human Rights in Internal Strife: Their International Protection (Sir Hersch Lauterpacht Memorial Lectures, Grotius Publications 1987); Human Rights and Humanitarian Norms as Customary Law (Oxford University Press 1989); Henry’s Wars and Shakespeare’s Laws (Oxford University Press 1993); Bloody Constraint: War and Chivalry in Shakespeare (Oxford University Press 1998); War Crimes Law Comes of Age: Essays (Oxford University Press 1998); International Law In the Age of Human Rights (Martinus Nijhoff 2004); and The Humanization of International Law (Martinus Nijhoff 2006). His latest book was published by Oxford University Press in 2011 under the title: “The Making of International Criminal Justice: The View from the Bench: Selected Speeches.”