Rüdiger Wolfrum (born 13 December 1941 in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

) is a German jurist and the current professor of

international law International law, also known as public international law and the law of nations, is the set of Rule of law, rules, norms, Customary law, legal customs and standards that State (polity), states and other actors feel an obligation to, and generall ...

at the

Heidelberg University Heidelberg University, officially the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg (; ), is a public research university in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Founded in 1386 on instruction of Pope Urban VI, Heidelberg is Germany's oldest unive ...

Faculty of Law A faculty is a division within a university or college comprising one subject area or a group of related subject areas, possibly also delimited by level (e.g. undergraduate). In North America, academic divisions are sometimes titled colleges, sc ...

and director emeritus of the Heidelberg Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law. Wolfrum was a judge at the

International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) is an intergovernmental organization created by the mandate of the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea. It was established by the United Nations Convention on the Law ...

from 1996 to 2017, serving as president of the court from 2005 to 2008.

Life

After his military duty, Wolfrum studied law at the universities of

Tübingen Tübingen (; ) is a traditional college town, university city in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, and developed on both sides of the Neckar and Ammer (Neckar), Ammer rivers. about one in ...

and

Bonn Bonn () is a federal city in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, located on the banks of the Rhine. With a population exceeding 300,000, it lies about south-southeast of Cologne, in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr region. This ...

from 1964 to 1969. Passing his first state exam on 18 January 1969, he earned a

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in International Law in 1973. Wolfrum served as Vice President of the

German Research Foundation The German Research Foundation ( ; DFG ) is a German research funding organization, which functions as a self-governing institution for the promotion of science and research in the Federal Republic of Germany. In 2019, the DFG had a funding bud ...

from 1996 to 2002, and as Vice President of the

Max Planck Society The Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science (; abbreviated MPG) is a formally independent non-governmental and non-profit association of German research institutes. Founded in 1911 as the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, it was renamed to the M ...

from 2002 to 2006. In 1996, he was appointed Justice at the

; from 2005 to 2008 he has served as its president. Mr. Wolfrum is President of the German Society for International Law, and he has also been a member of numerous national and international councils and academies, such as the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and the Institut de Droit International. Besides his numerous offices, he has instructed the High Justices of

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...

and

Sudan Sudan, officially the Republic of the Sudan, is a country in Northeast Africa. It borders the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west, Libya to the northwest, Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the east, Eritrea and Ethiopi ...

, and he has acted as a

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

mediator in the

Darfur conflict The War in Darfur, also nicknamed the Land Cruiser War, was a major armed conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan that began in February 2003 when the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) rebel groups ...

. He holds

honorary degrees An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or ''ad hono ...

of the

Russian Academy of Sciences The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across the Russian Federation; and additional scientific and social units such ...

, of the Mongolian Shihutug Law College, the

University of Hamburg The University of Hamburg (, also referred to as UHH) is a public university, public research university in Hamburg, Germany. It was founded on 28 March 1919 by combining the previous General Lecture System ('':de:Allgemeines Vorlesungswesen, ...

, and of the

University of Pretoria The University of Pretoria (, ) is a multi-campus public university, public research university in Pretoria, the administrative and ''de facto'' capital of South Africa. The university was established in 1908 as the Pretoria campus of the Johan ...

. In 2008, he was awarded the Great Cross of Merit of the

Federal Republic of Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen constituent states have a total population of over 84 ...

.Curriculum vitae of Rüdiger Wolfrum - Max Planck Institute for International Law
Since January 2013 he is one of the managing directors of the Max Planck Foundation for International Peace and the Rule of Law.

Recent publications

*''Fighting terrorism at sea: options and limitations under international law''. Japan Society for Defense Studies, Tokio 2008. *''The protection of the environment through international courts and tribunals''. In: Andreas Fischer-Lescano (Hrsg.): ''Frieden in Freiheit - Festschrift für Michael Bothe zum 70. Geburtstag''. Nomos, Baden-Baden 2008, , S. 807. *''Kosovo - some thoughts on its future status''. In: Sienho Yee (Hrsg.): ''Multiculturalism and international law - essays in honour of Edward McWhinney''. Nijhoff, Leiden 2009, , S. 561.

Lectures

''Legitimacy in International Law''
in th

* ttp://legal.un.org/avl/faculty/Wolfrum.html ''Environmental Law: Preservation of the Marine Environment''in th
Lecture Series of the United Nations Audiovisual Library of International Law

in th

* (German)

External links

MPIL - Homepage of Rüdiger Wolfrum

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wolfrum, Rudiger Commanders Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany 1941 births Living people 20th-century German judges Jurists from Berlin Members of the Institut de Droit International Academic staff of Heidelberg University Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law people International law scholars Members of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea judges German officials of the United Nations German judges of United Nations courts and tribunals 21st-century German judges

Life

Recent publications

Lectures

See also

External links

References