UN at 75: Effective Multilateralism and International Law

Dr. Christophe Eick was appointed Director-General for Legal Affairs of the German Federal Foreign Office in July 2018. He has been with the German Federal Foreign Office since 1991. His previous postings include the position of Director for Human Rights, International Development and Social Affairs in Berlin, Minister Plenipotentiary for Political Affairs and Security Council Political Coordinator at the Permanent Mission of Germany to the United Nations in New York and several years in different positions at the Division of Public International Law. Christophe Eick has the First and Second State Examination in Law, holds a PhD in Law and L.L.M. from McGill University in Montreal.

Miguel de Serpa Soares was appointed the Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs and United Nations Legal Counsel in September 2013. He oversees the Office of Legal Affairs, the overall objectives of which are to provide a unified central legal service for the United Nations. Mr. Serpa Soares has extensive experience of legal and international affairs, having represented his country in various bilateral and multilateral international forums, including the Sixth Committee of the United Nations General Assembly, the Committee of Public International Law Advisers of the Council of Europe, the International Criminal Court’s Assembly of State Parties and the International Law Working Group of the EU Council. Before taking up his current position, Mr. Serpa Soares was Director General of the Department of Legal Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Portugal from 2008. Between 1999 and 2008 he was the Legal Adviser of the Permanent Representation of Portugal to the EU in Brussels. Mr. Serpa Soares has a degree in Law from the University of Lisbon and a degree in European Law from the College of Europe, Bruges, Belgium. He is a member of a number of entities in the field of International Law and has given lectures on topics of International Law in different Universities worldwide.

Mariana Durney is an expert and advisor in International Law, with practical experience in international affairs. She is Professor of Public International Law in the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. She teaches specialized courses at the Heidelberg Center for Latin-America, the Diplomatic Academy of Chile, and other Chilean Universities.

Through her career Professor Durney has served as legal counsel to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Chile, occupying different high-level positions and representing her country in various bilateral and multilateral international forums. Her last appointment was as Director-General for Legal Affairs of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. Previously, she held the position of Director for Boundaries at the National Department of State Borders and Boundaries, becoming the first woman to serve in that post. She has been legal advisor for the last three Chile cases before the International Court of Justice and was the legal team’s General Coordinator in one of them.

Currently, she is Legal Counsel at the Embassy of Chile in Argentina.

Mrs. Durney holds a degree in Law from the University of Chile and has Master of Laws degrees from Heidelberg University, University of Chile, and Complutense University of Madrid. She also has several specialization studies abroad in International Law and Law of the Sea.

Professor Durney is a member of the Board of the Chilean Society of International Law and is a member of the Latin-American Society of International Law, of the European Society of International Law, and the American Society of International Law, among other professional bodies.

Georg Nolte is Professor of International Law at Humboldt University Berlin (since 2008). He is a Member of the UN International Law Commission (since 2007, Chairperson 2017), where he was Special Rapporteur for the topic “Subsequent agreements and subsequent practice in relation to the interpretation of treaties” (2013-2018). He is a Member of the Institut de Droit International, was President of the German Society of International Law (2013-2017), and is a member of the Advisory Council on Public International Law of the (German) Federal Foreign Office (since 2006).

His recent publications include “Treaties and their Practice – Symptoms of their Rise or Decline” (Pocketbooks of the Hague Academy of International Law), 2018; Community Interests across International Law, Oxford 2018 (co.-ed with Eyal Benvenisti); “The Charter of the United Nations: A Commentary”, Oxford 2012, (co.-ed. with Bruno Simma, Andreas Paulus & Daniel-Erasmus Khan).

Professor Georg Nolte is candidate for the position of  judge of the International Court of Justice for the 2021-2030 term.

Nilüfer Oral is Director of the Centre of International Law (CIL) at the National University of Singapore and is a member of the law faculty at Istanbul Bilgi University, Turkey. She is member of the UN International Law Commission and Co-chair of the Study Group on Sea-level rise in relation to international law. She has advised the Turkish Foreign Ministry on matters related to the law of the sea. She served as climate change negotiator for the Turkish Ministry (2009 – 2016).  She has also appeared before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea.  Nilufer Oral is a Distinguished Fellow of the Law of the Sea Institute at Berkeley Law (University of California Law Berkeley); Senior Fellow of the National University of Singapore Law School; and Honorary Research Fellow at University of Dundee. Dr. Oral was elected to the Council of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) (2012-2016) and was elected as Chair of the IUCN Academy of Environmental Law (2014-2017). She is currently a member of the Steering Committee of the World Commission on Environmental Law.

Dr. Oral is the series editor for the International Straits of the World publications (Brill); member of the Board of Editors of the European Society of International Law Series;  Board of Editors of the International Journal of Marine and Coastal Law; Associate Editor of the Research Perspectives in the Law of the Sea (Brill); and International Advisory Board, Chinese Journal of Environmental Law (Brill) She has published numerous articles edited several books, and has spoken at many international conferences.

Prof. Alain Pellet taught Public International Law at the University Paris Nanterre. Director of the Centre de Droit International (CEDIN) of the University between 1991 and 2001, he was the head of the Master 2 “Laws of International Relations and of the European Union”. He is the author of numerous books and articles and in particular the co-author of a treatise (in French) of Public international law (9th edition to be published in 2020) and the co-editor of a commentary article by article of the Charter of the United Nations. Between 1990 and 2011, he was a Member of the United Nations International Law Commission and acted as Chair in 1997. He has advised numerous governments (including the French Government) and for international organisations. He has been and is counsel and advocate in more than 65 inter-State cases before the International Court of Justice, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, as well as in several arbitration cases, in particular investment cases. Alain Pellet also acted as expert to the Arbitration Commission of the Peace Conference on the former Yugoslavia (“Badinter Arbitration Committee”), and as Rapporteur of the French Committee of Jurists on the Creation of an International Criminal for Former Yugoslavia. Furthermore, he was for 25 years the Legal Adviser of the World Tourism Organisation and he has been Independent Objector of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers for generic top level domain names.

Educated at Beijing Foreign Language Studies University (B.A) and Columbia University School of Law (LL.M. S.J.D.), she worked in the Law and Treaty Department of the Foreign Ministry of China from 1980 to 2003, as Director-General (1999-2003). She was elected to the International Law Commission in 2002 and worked as a member till 2010. She was one of the first female members and first Chairwoman of the Commission (2010). She was posted in 2003 to the Kingdom of the Netherlands as the Chinese Ambassador and the Permanent Representative to the Organization on the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. After four and half years of diplomatic service there, she was appointed the first Chinese Ambassador to ASEAN and Legal Counsel of the Foreign Ministry. She held a number of positions at law societies and legal institutions such as the Vice-President of the Chinese Society of International Law (1997-2013), President of the Asian Society of International Law (2009-2011), member of the Hague Academy Curatorium (2010-2016), member and President （since 2019）of the Institute of International Law. She taught and lectured on public international law at a number of universities and law schools in China and abroad. She holds an Honorary Doctor of Law from Macao University. Her publications on public international law are extensive, both in Chinese and English. Apart from numerous articles on various subjects of public international law, her books include Transboundary Damage in International law, (2003); Chinese Contemporary Perspectives on International Law—history, culture and international Law, (2011); Jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice, (2017). She was elected to the International Court of Justice in 2010 and Vice-President of the Court in 2018.

Roman Kolodkin is a Judge of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea since 2017. He served as Ambassador of the Russian Federation to the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Permanent Representative of Russia to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (2009-2015) and Director of the Legal Department at the MFA, Russia  (2001-2009, 2015-2017). He was a Member of the UN International Law Commission in 2003-2011, 2015-2018 and its first Special Rapporteur on “Immunities of State officials from foreign criminal jurisdiction”. Mr Kolodkin is an Associate Member of the Institute of International Law and Consultant on public international law at the International and Comparative Law Research Center, Moscow.

Anne Peters is director at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, Heidelberg (Germany), a professor at the universities of Heidelberg, Freie Universität Berlin, and Basel (Switzerland), as well as a L. Bates Lea Global Law professor at the University of Michigan Law School. She was a member (substitute) of the European Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice Commission) in respect of Germany (2011-2015) and a legal expert for the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Conflict in Georgia (2009).
She was the President of the European Society of International Law (2010-2012) and is currently the Vice-President of the board of the Basel Institute of Governance (BIG). Since 2019 she is Chairwoman of the German Society of International Law (DGIR). In 2020 she received a doctor honoris causa from the University of Lausanne.
Anne Peters was a fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin (2012/13), and held visiting professorships at the universities of Beijing (Beida), Paris I, Paris II, and Sciences Po. Born in Berlin in 1964, she studied at the universities of Würzburg, Lausanne, Freiburg, and Harvard, and held the chair of public international law at the university of Basel from 2001 to 2013. She obtained the Habilitation-qualification at the Walther-Schücking-Institute of Public International Law at the Christian Albrechts University Kiel on the basis of her Habilitation-Thesis “Elemente einer Theorie der Verfassung Europas” (Elements of a Theory of the Constitution of Europe) in 2000.

John B. Bellinger III is a partner and co-chair of the Global Law & Public Policy Practice at Arnold & Porter. He is also Adjunct Senior Fellow in International and National Security Law at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Mr. Bellinger served as The Legal Adviser for the U.S. Department of State under Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice from 2005 to 2009. He previously managed Secretary Rice’s Senate confirmation and co-directed her State Department transition team. He received the Secretary of State’s Distinguished Service Award in January 2009.

Mr. Bellinger served from 2001 to 2005 as Senior Associate Counsel to the President and Legal Adviser to the National Security Council at the White House. He previously served as Counsel for National Security Matters in the Criminal Division of the Justice Department during the Clinton Administration (1997-2001), Special Counsel to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (1996), and Special Assistant to Director of Central Intelligence William Webster (1988-1991).

Mr. Bellinger received his A.B. from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, his J.D. from Harvard Law School, and an M.A. in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia. Mr. Bellinger is a member of the Secretary of State’s Advisory Committee on International Law; one of four U.S. Members of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague; and a member of the U.S. “National Group,” which nominates judges to the International Court of Justice. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Executive Council of the American Law Institute, and a member of the board of directors of the Salzburg Global Seminar, the American Ditchley Foundation, the Stimson Center, and the Association for Diplomatic Studies & Training. Mr. Bellinger speaks regularly on US and foreign radio and television, has lectured at numerous U.S. and foreign universities and law schools, and is the author of many articles and op-eds on international law issues. He is a senior contributor to the Lawfare blog.

Päivi Kaukoranta is Ambassador of Finland to the Kingdom of the Netherlands and Permanent Representative of Finland to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons since October 2018. She represents Finland also in the Assembly of States Parties of the International Criminal Court and other international institutions in The Hague.

Before that, she served for 9 years as Director General for Legal Affairs at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Finland. She joined the Foreign Service of Finland in 1989 and has since then worked extensively in the field of international and European law, including in the Permanent Mission of Finland to the European Union in Brussels and the Government Secretariat for EU Affairs (Prime Minister’s Office). She served as the chair of the Committee of Legal Advisers on Public International Law (CAHDI) of the Council of Europe in 2017-2018 and as member of the Finnish National Group of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in 2009-2018. She has a decree in law from the University of Helsinki, trained on the bench.

Elizabeth Wilmshurst is a Distinguished Fellow at Chatham House (the Royal Institute of International Affairs) in London. She was a legal adviser in the United Kingdom diplomatic service until 2003. Between 1994 and 1997 she was the legal adviser at the UK mission to the United Nations in New York. On leaving government service, she began the International Law Programme at Chatham House and was a visiting professor at University College, London University in international criminal law. Among her other publications she is co-author of Introduction to International Criminal Law and Procedure (first three editions, Cambridge), editor of International Law and the Classification of Conflicts (Oxford, 2012), co-editor of Perspectives on the ICRC Study on Customary International Humanitarian Law (Cambridge, 2007) and a consultant editor of D Murray Practitioners’ Guide to Human Rights Law in Armed Conflict (Oxford, 2016).

D. Stephen Mathias has served as Assistant Secretary-General for Legal Affairs since 1 September 2010. In this position, Mr. Mathias is the head of the Office of the Legal Counsel and assists in the overall supervision of each of the units of the Office of Legal Affairs.
Prior to his appointment as Assistant Secretary-General for Legal Affairs, he was the Director of the General Legal Division in the Office of Legal Affairs. Before joining the United Nations, he served at the United States State Department for 20 years. From 1992-1996, Mr. Mathias was the Counsellor for Legal Affairs at the United States Embassy in The Hague, where a focus of his work was the start-up phase of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. From 2004-2007, he served as General Counsel to the Multinational Force and Observers, which supervises the implementation of the Security Annex to the Peace Treaty between Egypt and Israel. Before joining the public sector, Mr. Mathias worked from 1981-1987 in private legal practice at Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy. He is a graduate of the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and Columbia Law School.
Mr. Mathias has taught as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center and is a member of the American Society of International Law, the American Law Institute and the Council on Foreign Relations.

Justice Ben Kioko is currently the Vice-President of the African Court on Human and People’s Rights. He was elected judge of the African Court in 2012 by the Executive Council and appointed by the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union (AU). Prior to joining the African Court, Justice Kioko served as the Chief Legal Adviser to the African Union and as Director for the unified Central Legal service for the African Union, including the AU Commission, regional and representative offices, its organs and institutions for more than a decade. He was responsible for oversight of all legal matters including provision of legal advice, drafting of treaties and agreements, conducting all elections, as well as advising AU organs and institutions including the Executive Council and the AU Assembly of Heads of State and Government. He has provided technical backstopping to the African Groups in various world capitals during negotiation of several universal treaties and has also established partnerships with the Legal Advisers of partner organizations to the AU, particularly the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs, the UN Agencies, the European Union (EU), other international and multilateral organizations and institutions as well as the Regional Economic Communities. He also served as a Senior Legal Officer to AU’s predecessor, the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and other organs of the OAU and was deeply involved in the institutional transformation of the OAU to AU and subsequent processes within the AU. Justice Kioko has widely published and serves in various international advisory boards. He is also an Advocate of the High Court of Kenya, a member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (MCIArb) and a recipient of two prestigious national awards.