Surya Subedi

Professor Dr Surya P. Subedi, OBE, is an academic and a barrister specialising in the fields of Public International Law, International Law of Trade and Investment and International Human Rights Law. He is Professor of International Law at the University of Leeds, England, and was from 2009 to 2015 the UN Special Rapporteur for human rights in Cambodia.[1] He also served as a member of a high-level Advisory Group on Human Rights to the British Foreign Secretary between 2010 and 2015.[2] He was a government nominee for appointment to the position of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in 2014. He is a founder of the Asian Society of International Law and Chairman of the Board of Editors of its flagship journal - the Asian Journal of International Law - published by Cambridge University Press. He also is the editor of a new series in 'International Law and Human Rights' published by a major British publishing company, Routledge, in Oxfordshire. He was elected to the Institut de Droit International at its Session in Rhodes in 2011 and made a Membre Titulaire in 2015.[3]

Background

Professor Surya Subedi started his education at Tribhuvan University, LLB 1980 and MA 1984. He then moved to the University of Hull (LLM with Distinction 1988) and finally to the University of Oxford (DPhil in Law 1993). Prof Subedi began his academic career as a Lecturer in Law in 1993 at the University of Hull. After rapid successive promotions he became a Professor of Law in 1999. He moved to the University of Leeds in 2004 to become Professor of International Law, a post he still holds to date.[4]

Career

Overview

Prof Subedi practised law as an advocate prior to joining the government of Nepal during which he was Under-Secretary in the International Law & Treaties Division in the Ministry of Law & Justice and later as a legal advisor to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He is a practising Barrister in England at Tanfield Chambers.[5] Prior to qualifying for the English Bar, he was a consultant on international legal matters to Mishcon de Reya Solicitors in London. He has advised a number of countries on international legal matters and was appointed in 2004 by the World Trade Organization to the Roster of Panellists of its Dispute Settlement System. His name has also been designated to serve on the panel of arbitrators of an intergovernmental organization - the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes with its headquarters at the World Bank in Washington DC.[6]

United Nations Special Rapporteur

The United Nations Human Rights Council voted unanimously for Prof Subedi to be the UN Special Rapporteur for human rights in Cambodia at the 10th Session of the Council in 2009.[7] As one of only 12 country-specific UN special rapporteurs in the world, Prof Subedi identified human rights problems in the country and has given constructive recommendations to help tackle them. Responding to the news of his appointment, Professor Subedi said: “The main task would be to cast an impartial expert eye on the overall human rights situation in Cambodia and offer constructive advice to the Government to address the problems that exist with regard to the overall situation in the country.[8]” During his six years of service for the UN, he produced four substantive and substantial reports on judicial, parliamentary, electoral and land reform in Cambodia and contributed to a peaceful political transition in the country. Many of his recommendations, especially those relating to judicial and electoral reform have been implemented by the Government of Cambodia and many others are being implemented.

Honours

Professor Subedi was made an O.B.E. (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in 2004 for his services to international law and to Britain-Nepal relations. Speaking at the OBE investiture on 19 October 2004 in London, Mr. Jack Straw, the then British Foreign Secretary, stated that Professor Subedi had “made a highly distinguished contribution to our understanding of international law, and to its evolution” and his work in international law had "spanned almost every aspect of it - with a special focus on issues ... which make a real difference to people's lives.[9]" He also was decorated by His late Majesty King Birendra of Nepal with a high-level state honour, the Order of Suprabal Gorkha Daxinbahu, for his services to international law and to the nation in 1998. Professor Subedi has a string of other honours to his credit and has been awarded prestigious academic prizes for his work, including the Dasturzada Pavry Memorial Prize by the University of Oxford for an outstanding DPhil thesis in 1993, an SPTL Prize for Outstanding Legal Scholarship by the British Society of Legal Scholars for one of his books in 1997 and the Josephine Onoh Memorial Prize as best LLM student of the year by the University of Hull in 1988. He also has won two scholarships- first was a British Council Scholarship to Hull for his LLM studies in 1986 and second was an FCO Scholarship for his doctoral studies at Oxford in 1989.

Other Activities

He was appointed by HM the Queen of the UK as a Crown representative on the Governing Body of SOAS, University of London, in 2007 and he completed his five-year term of office in 2012. He is Co-chair of a major medical charity - Britain-Nepal Medical Trust - which is the oldest British charity working in Nepal for the past 47 years. He also is the Chairman of a London-based think-tank, the Global Policy Forum for Nepal and Founding Chairman of the Britain-Nepal Academic Council (established at SOAS, University of London, in May 2000).

Publications

He has published six books in various areas in international law and a good number of scholarly articles in all major international law journals. He was the Editor-in-Chief of the Asian Yearbook of International Law (Martinus Nijhoff Publishers) for six years between 1999 and 2006[10] and is currently Chairman of the Board of Editors of the Asian Journal of International Law (Cambridge University Press).

i. Books

ii. Articles

iii. Reports

All of these reports were submitted to the UN Human Rights Council in my capacity as the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights for Cambodia and were published by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Geneva, as UN documents.

References

  1. ↑ Office of the Human Rights Commissioner, Cambodia Country Office, "Accessed at" http://cambodia.ohchr.org/EN/PagesFiles/SpecialRapporteurIndex.htm
  2. ↑ Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Accessed at < http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/news/latest-news/?view=News&id=60966682>
  3. ↑ University of Leeds website, Accessed at <http://www.law.leeds.ac.uk/about/staff/subedi/>
  4. ↑ BBC News Website, A Long Walk from Lamjung: The Story of a Mountain Boy, Accessed at < http://www.bbc.co.uk/my-story/stories/achievement/168483/>
  5. ↑ Tanfield Chambers, Accessed at <http://www.tanfieldchambers.co.uk/Associates/Surya_P.Subedi>
  6. ↑ See also, Subedi, Professor Surya P., "WTO Dispute Settlement Mechanism as a New Technique for Settling Disputes in International Law (2010). International Law and dispute Settlement: New Problems and Techniques", pp.173-190, Duncan French, Matthew Saul, Nigel D. White, eds., Hart Publishing, Oxford, 2010
  7. ↑ Office of the Human Rights Commissioner, Cambodia Country Office, "Accessed at" http://cambodia.ohchr.org/EN/PagesFiles/SpecialRapporteurIndex.htm
  8. ↑ International Law Association 2009 Newsletter, Accessed at <http://www.ila-hq.org/download.cfm/docid/661F1B1B-09DF-417B-94B3417D0FEC8E38>
  9. ↑ International Law Association Newsletter, Accessed at http://www.ila-hq.org/download.cfm/docid/CC7E232B-14F9-4E2E-9674C951EC79F28A
  10. ↑ For example, < http://www.brill.nl/asian-yearbook-international-law-volume-12-2005-2006>

External links

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