Prof. Dr. Horst Fischer has been Professor of International Humanitarian Law at Leiden Law School since 1997.

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Prof. dr. Horst Fischer is Professor of International Humanitarian Law applicable in armed conflicts at the University of Leiden, Adjunct Professor at Columbia University and Visiting Professor at KU Leuven. Prof. Fischer is director of the GIZ Representation in Brussels since 2007. He is President of the European Interuniversity Center for Human Rights and Democratisation in Venice since 2003. He is Academic Director at Ruhr-University Bochum in Germany (on leave).

His dissertation (Bochum, 1984) focused on the use of nuclear weapons under Article 51 of Additional Protocol I. Since 1990 he has been a member of governmental and non-governmental delegations to international conferences on international humanitarian law and humanitarian actions. He has been a consultant for the UN, the European Union and several national ministries as well as non-governmental organizations on questions of humanitarian law, humanitarian actions and security policy. He edits EIUC Studies in Human Rights and Democratisation (Cambridge), Studien zur Friedensforschung (Münster/Berlin) and is associate editor of Europe’s World (Brussels).

He had been the general editor of the Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law (The Hague) and the Quarterly Journal Humanitäres Völkerrecht (Bochum). Since 1982 he has given courses in Master Programmes at several European universities, to the armed forces and non-governmental organisations, mainly on international law, international humanitarian law, the use of force, peaceful settlement of disputes and arms control, European Union and Human Rights and the practice of EU-Human Rights policies and practice.

Publications