Prof. Yoram Dinstein is Professor Emeritus at Tel Aviv University, and (since 2010) President of the United Nations Association of Israel.
Professor Dinstein is a former President of Tel Aviv University (1991-1999), as well as former Rector (1980-1985) and former Dean of the Faculty of Law (1978-1980). He served twice (1999/2000 and 2002/2003) as the Charles H. Stockton Professor of International Law at the US Naval War College in Newport, RI. He was also a Humboldt Fellow at the Max Planck Institute of International Law in Heidelberg, Germany (2000/2001); a Meltzer Visiting Professor of Law at New York University (1985/1987); and a Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Toronto (1976/1977). Professor Dinstein has given guest lectures in dozens of leading universities all over the world, and delivered a series of lectures at the Hague Academy of International Law (2006). The University of Buenos Aires, the University of Chile, and the Hebrew Union College conferred on him honorary doctorates. The National University of Mexico (UNAM) awarded him the title of Distinguished Professor. He was also awarded a Prize by the San Remo International Institute of Humanitarian Law.
Professor Dinstein was born in Tel Aviv in 1936 and obtained his legal education at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem (where he graduated summa cum laude) and New York University. He started his career in Israel’s Foreign Service and served as Consul of Israel in New York and a member of Israel’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations (1966-1970). Even subsequent to becoming a full-time academic, Professor Dinstein has represented his country in various international fora, ranging from International Red Cross Conferences to the Sixth (Legal) Committee of the General Assembly.
Professor Dinstein is a Member of the Institut de Droit International. He was also a member of the Executive Council of the American Society of International Law and of the Council of the San Remo International Institute of Humanitarian Law. Formerly, he served as Chairman of the Israel national branch of Amnesty International. He chaired the international Group of Experts that produced the Manual on Air and Missile Warfare (launched in NATO in March 2010) and the Oslo Manual on Select Topics of the Law of Armed Conflict (2018).
Professor Dinstein has written extensively on subjects relating to international law, human rights and laws of armed conflict. He is the founder and Editor of the Israel Yearbook on Human Rights (52 volumes of which have been issued – in English – since 1971). His other publications include a six-volume treatise (in Hebrew) on international law. His latest books in English are Non-International Armed Conflicts in International Law (2nd edn, 2021); The International Law of Belligerent Occupation (2nd edn, 2019); War, Aggression and Self-Defence (6th edn, 2017); The Conduct of Hostilities under the Law of International Armed Conflict (3rd edn, 2016); and; all four published by Cambridge University Press. In 2012 Oxford University Press reprinted his first book on The Defence of 'Obedience to Superior Orders' in International Law. Professor Dinstein’s numerous writings are widely cited, and several have been translated into Portuguese, Spanish, French and Arabic. His works are frequently referred to by the Supreme Court of Israel, and have been cited by Judges of the International Court of Justice, the European Court of Human Rights, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, the House of Lords and the Supreme Court of Canada.
In 2022. He was awarded the Lazareff Prize by NATO/SHAPE.
