Judge Bruno Simma
Judge Bruno Simma is the honorary chair of the External Advisory Committee to the Program for International Legal Studies. He has been a member of the International Court of Justice since 2003. Judge Simma delivered the keynote lecture inaugurating the Program for International Legal Studies at Wayne Law in October 2009.
Judge Simma is widely recognized as one of the world’s leading academicians, scholars and experts in international law. As an academic, Judge Simma has been a faculty member at the University of Munich, where he also served as dean of the law faculty. He has also taught at the University of Michigan Law School for more than 20 years. In addition to permanent appointments, Judge Simma has delivered visiting lectures at more than 60 universities and other academic institutions worldwide. He has twice served as director of Studies at the Hague Academy of International law. He serves on the advisory boards of the Heidelberg Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law and the Walther Schücking Institute of International Law at the University of Kiel, as well as on the advisory council of the British Institute of International and Comparative Law. Recently, he was made a member of the executive council of the American Society of International Law.
As a scholar, Judge Simma is the author of numerous influential books and articles. Perhaps his most outstanding works are the treatise Universelles Voelkerrecht co-authored with Alfred Verdross (first edition 1976) and the magisterial Commentary on the United Nations Charter (Oxford), a standard reference work for international lawyers, the third edition of which will be published in 2012. Judge Simma co-founded and co-edited the European Journal of International Law. He was a co-founder and the first president of the European Society of International Law. In 2009 he gave the General Course in International Law at the Hague Academy of International Law on “The Impact of Human Rights on International Law.”
As a legal expert, Judge Simma has been a member of the UN International Law Commission and the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. He has served as an arbitrator both in inter-State and foreign investment arbitrations and is also a member of the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Prior to joining the International Court, Judge Simma served as counsel in a number of cases before that body, including Land and Maritime Boundary between Cameroon and Nigeria (Cameroon v. Nigeria), LaGrand (Germany v. United States of America) and Certain Property (Liechtenstein v. Germany).
Judge Simma received his doctorate of law from the University of Innsbruck, Austria in 1966 and a doctorate honoris causa from the University of Macerata, Italy in 2006.