Fausto Pocar

Fausto Pocar (born 1939) is an Italian jurist. He is professor emeritus of International Law at the University of Milan, where he also taught Private International Law and European Law, and where he served many years as Faculty Dean and Vice-Rector. From 1984-2000, he was an elected member of the Human Rights Committee of the United Nations, serving as the committee's chair from 1991-92.

Fausto Pocar
Fausto Pocar
Judge ad hoc of the International Court of Justice
Incumbent
Assumed office 2017

Pocar served in the Italian delegation to the UN General Assembly in New York and to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva several times. He also served as Italian delegate in the UNCOPUOS (UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space) and its Legal SubCommittee.

In 1999, he was appointed as a judge to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), and was Vice-President of the tribunal from November 2003 to November 2005, and President from November 2005 to November 2008. He was also a member of the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) from 2000 until the ICTR's closure in 2015, where he presided over many cases, including the one whereby the ICTR was closed.

In 2017, Pocar was appointed Judge ad hoc of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the case between Ukraine and the Russian Federation. As of 2012 Pocar is President of the International Institute of Humanitarian Law (Sanremo, Italy). Pocar is a doctor honoris causa of the University of Antwerp and of the Kennedy University of Buenos Aires. In 2014 he was made Cavaliere di Gran Croce (Great Cross Knight, the highest Italian honor) by the President of the Italian Republic.

His article, 'International Criminal Tribunals and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law against Civilians and Prisoner of War', was published in International Criminal Law and Human Rights, edited by Manoj Kumar Sinha (Manak Publications, New Delhi, 2010). He taught "Sistema de Derechos Humanos de las Naciones Unidas" at American University Washington College of Law’s Academy on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law as a visiting scholar in the summers of 2012-2015, and "Impunidad y justicia internacional" in the summers of 2016-2017.