Professor John Dugard (South Africa) has been Director of the LL.M. Program in Public International Law and Chair of Public International Law at the University of Leiden (The Netherlands) since 1998.
From 1995-1997, he was Director of the Lauterpacht Research Centre for International Law, Cambridge (United Kingdom). Previously, he was Professor of Law and Dean (1975-1977) at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (South Africa) as well as Director of the Centre for Applied Legal Studies (1978-1990), a research centre committed to the promotion of human rights in South Africa.
He was admitted as an advocate of the Supreme Court of South Africa in 1959. Since 1997, Professor Dugard has been a member of the United Nations (UN) International Law Commission, and since 2001, Special Rapporteur on Diplomatic Protection to the Commission.
In 2001 he started serving as Special Rapporteur to the UN Commission on Human Rights on violation of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. He is a Judge ad hoc in the International Court of Justice in the Case Concerning Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo and Case Concerning Sovereignty over Pedra Branca/Pulau.
He is also a member of the Institut de Droit International. His educational background includes B.A. and LL.B. degrees from the University of Stellenbosch (South Africa) and a LL.B. degree from the University of Cambridge. In 1980, Cambridge University conferred the LL.D. degree on him. He has been awarded honorary degrees in law by the Universities of Natal, Cape Town and Port Elizabeth.
Professor Dugard has held visiting positions at the Universities of Princeton, Duke, Berkeley and Pennsylvania (USA), New South Wales (Australia) and Cambridge (UK). His publications include numerous books and articles in the field of international public law, international criminal law and human rights.