Bertrand Ramcharan is Professor of International Human Rights Law at the Geneva Graduate Institute of International Studies, Chancellor of the University of Guyana, and Senior Fellow at the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center. He has a doctorate in International Law from the London School of Economics and holds the Diploma in International Law of the Hague Academy of International Law, where he has also been Director of Studies.
Prof. Ramcharan has taught as an Adjunct Professor of International Human Rights Law at Columbia University and as Visiting Professor of International Law at Lund University. He was a Commissioner of the International Commission of Jurists from 1991 to 1998 and has been a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration since 1996. Prof. Ramcharan is also a barrister of Lincoln’s Inn.
Prof. Ramcharan has a distinguished career with the UN. He was Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights and Assistant Secretary-General when Mr. Sergio Vieira de Mello, then High Commissioner, was killed on 19 August 2003 during the attack on the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad. Prof. Ramcharan then assumed the post of acting High Commissioner for Human Rights, which he held until July 2004, when a new High Commissioner was appointed by the UN Secretary-General. During his three decades with the United Nations, Prof. Ramcharan served in the Centre for Human Rights as Special Assistant to the Director, as the Secretary-General's Chief Speechwriter, as Director of the Office of the Special Representative for the Secretary-General in UNPROFOR, as Director of the International Conference on the Former Yugoslavia, as political adviser to the peace negotiators in the Yugoslav conflict, and as a Director in the United Nations Political Department, focusing on conflicts in Africa.
Prof. Ramcharan is the author and editor of numerous books and articles on international law, human rights law, and the United Nations.