Prof. John Dugard

Professor John Dugard is currently Professor of Law at the Centre for Human Rights of the University of Pretoria (South Africa). In 1998, Prof. Dugard was appointed as Chair of Public International Law at Leiden University, a position from which he retired in 2006.  He served as an ad hoc Judge of the International Court of Justice (2002-2008), and is a member of the Institut de Droit International. Prof. Dugard has served as Special Rapporteur to the UN Commission on Human Rights on violations of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (2001-2008) and has been a member of the International Law Commission since 1997. Previously, Prof. Dugard was a Professor of Law at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, where he was Dean (1975-1977) and Director of the Centre for Applied Legal Studies (1978-1990), a research centre committed to the promotion of Human Rights in South Africa. Prof. Dugard has also held visiting positions in the United States (Princeton, Duke, Berkeley and Pennsylvania), Australia (New South Wales) and England (Cambridge). From 1995-1997 Prof. Dugard was Director of the Lauterpacht Research Center for International Law, Cambridge. In 2009 he chaired the Independent Fact Finding Committee into the conflict in Gaza, established by the Arab League. He is a graduate of the Universities of Stellenbosch (South Africa) and Cambridge, and has been awarded honorary degrees in Law by the Universities of Natal, Cape Town and Port Elizabeth.  Prof Dugard has authored numerous books including The South West Africa/Namibia Dispute (1973), Human Rights and the South African Legal Order (1978), Recognition and the United Nations (1987) and International Law: A South African Perspective (2000), and published over 100 law review articles.