Former Principals

Former Presidents

Judge Carmel Agius (Malta)

Judge Carmel Agius was born in Sliema, Malta, on 18 August 1945.

Judge Carmel Agius has been President of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (Mechanism) from 19 January 2019 until 30 June 2022, having been a Judge of the Mechanism since it commenced operating in 2012. In June 2020, he was appointed by the United Nations Secretary-General to a second term of office as Mechanism President, effective 1 July 2020 to 30 June 2022.

Judge Agius previously served as the final President of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), leading the ICTY from November 2015 until its historic and timely closure in December 2017. He had been Vice-President of the ICTY for four years before taking office as President.

Judge Agius was first elected to the ICTY by the United Nations General Assembly in March 2001. As of 2009, he served as a Judge on the Appeals Chamber of both the ICTY and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) until the respective closure of the two Tribunals in 2015 and 2017. During his tenure on the Appeals Chamber of the ad hoc Tribunals, Judge Agius presided over both ICTR and ICTY appeals in the Đorđević, Ntawukulilyayo, Renzaho, Prlić et al., and Stanišić & Župljanin cases. He was also a Judge in the appeals proceedings in the Augustin Bizimungu, Gatete, Hategekimana, Kalimanzira, Ndahimana, Ndindiliyimana et al., Rukundo, Setako, Uwinkindi, and Zigiranyirazo cases, as well as in the Gotovina & Markač, Lukić & Lukić, Perišić, and Stanišić & Simatović cases. At the trial level, Judge Agius presided over the Brđanin, Orić, and Popović et al. cases.

Judge Agius coordinated the drafting of the Rules of Procedure and Evidence for the Mechanism in 2010 and 2011, which were accepted by the United Nations Security Council and adopted by the Judges of the Mechanism. He had previously chaired the Rules Committee of the ICTY since 2003, and served as a member of the ICTY’s Bureau for many years.

In 2012, Judge Agius was one of the first Judges to be appointed to serve as a Judge at the Mechanism. In that capacity he was called to exercise functions for the Mechanism in a variety of judicial matters. Since 19 January 2019, Judge Agius has served full-time as President of the Mechanism, based at the Mechanism's branch in The Hague.

Prior to becoming a Judge of the ICTR, ICTY, and Mechanism, Judge Agius was a Senior Judge in the Court of Appeal of Malta and the Constitutional Court of Malta, and was Acting Chief Justice on several occasions. In 1992, he served on the Rule Making Board in the Malta Courts of Justice.

Judge Agius has been considerably involved in multilateral affairs. Between 1999 and 2008, he was a Member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration. From 1990 and 2001, he was Head of the Maltese Delegation at annual meetings of the United Nations Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice in Vienna. He represented the Maltese Government at the 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th United Nations Congresses on Crime Prevention and the Treatment of Offenders. Judge Agius also served as the Chairman of the Commission on the Taking of Children’s Evidence, and worked as a consultant to the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights and Criminal Procedure in Nepal.

Between 1996 and 1998, Judge Agius represented the Government of Malta at the United Nations Preparatory Committee on the proposed establishment of the International Criminal Court. In 1998, he was the Acting Head of Delegation and Advisor of the Government of Malta at the United Nations Plenipotentiary Conference on the International Criminal Court (“ICC”), where he was actively involved in the negotiations and signed the Final Document on behalf of Malta. He later represented Malta at the Preparatory Commission for the International Criminal Court which drew up the Rules of Evidence and Procedure and the Definitions of Crimes for the ICC.

From 1996 to 1999, Judge Agius was Pro-Chancellor of the University of Malta. He has written a number of publications and was a member of the editorial board of the Mediterranean Journal of Human Rights at the University of Malta from 1998 to 2004. Between 1989 and 2001, Judge Agius represented the Maltese Judiciary on the Central Council of the International Association of Judges. He was conferred the National Order of Merit of Malta in December 2015.

Judge Carmel Agius was born in Sliema, Malta, on 18 August 1945. He studied at the University of Malta and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in English, Italian and Economics in 1964. He received the diploma of notary in 1968 and a doctorate in law (LL.D) from the same university in 1969.

Judge Theodor Meron (USA)

President of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals from 1 March 2012 to 18 January 2019.

Born on 28 April 1930 in Kalisz, Poland.

Judge Theodor Meron was first appointed as President of the Mechanism by the United Nations Secretary-General effective 1 March 2012. He was appointed by the Secretary-General to a second term as President effective 1 March 2016 and, most recently, was appointed to a third term as President effective 1 July 2018 and through 18 January 2019. Between 17 November 2013 and 16 November 2015, Judge Meron served his fourth term as President of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) while performing his functions as President of the Mechanism. He had previously served as President of the ICTY between 2003 and 2005 as well as between 2011 and 2013.

Following his election as a Judge of the ICTY by the U.N. General Assembly in March 2001, Judge Meron, a citizen of the United States, served on the Appeals Chambers of both the ICTY and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) until the closure of both Tribunals. A leading scholar of international humanitarian law, human rights, and international criminal law, Judge Meron wrote some of the books and articles that helped build the legal foundations for international criminal tribunals, and he has contributed to the development of international law, and especially international humanitarian and criminal law, in a variety of fora. A Shakespeare enthusiast, he has also written articles and books on the laws of war and chivalry in Shakespeare’s historical plays.

Judge Meron received his legal education at the Universities of Jerusalem, Harvard (where he received his doctorate), and Cambridge. He immigrated to the United States in 1978. Prior to his immigration to the United States, he was legal adviser of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in which role he authored a secret memorandum in 1967 (since made public) in which he concluded that creating new settlements in the Occupied Territories would be a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. He also served as the Israeli Ambassador to Canada and Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva.

In 1978, he became a Professor of International Law and, in 1994, he was appointed the Charles L. Denison Chair at New York University School of Law. Between 1991 and 1995 he was also Professor of International Law at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, and he has been a Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard University and at the University of California (Berkeley). In 2006, he was named Charles L. Denison Professor Emeritus and Judicial Fellow at New York University School of Law.

In 1990, Judge Meron served as a Public Member of the U.S. Delegation to the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) Conference on Human Dimensions in Copenhagen. In 1998, he served as a member of the U.S. Delegation to the Rome Conference on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court (ICC), where he was involved in the drafting of the provisions on crimes, including war crimes and crimes against humanity. He has also served on the Preparatory Commission for the Establishment of the ICC, with particular responsibilities for the definition of the crime of aggression. He has acted as counsel for the United States before the International Court of Justice, and in 2000-2001 served as Counselor on International Law in the U.S. Department of State.

Judge Meron has also served on several committees of experts of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), including those on Internal Strife, on the Environment and Armed Conflicts, and on Direct Participation in Hostilities under International Humanitarian Law. In addition, he was a member of the steering committee of ICRC experts on Customary Rules of International Humanitarian Law. He has also served on the advisory committees or boards of several human rights organizations, including Americas Watch and the International League for Human Rights, and was a member of the “Panel of Eminent Persons within the Swiss Initiative to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” which concerned a future agenda for human rights.

Judge Meron was Co-Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of International Law (1993-1998) and is now an honorary editor. He is a member of the Institute of International Law, the Board of Editors of the Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law, the Council on Foreign Relations, the French Society of International Law, the American Branch of the International Law Association, and the Bar of the State of New York. He is also a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Judge Meron is a patron and a past Honorary President of the American Society of International Law.

Judge Meron has been a Carnegie Lecturer at The Hague Academy of International Law, Fellow of the Rockefeller Foundation, Max Planck Institute Fellow (Heidelberg), Sir Hersch Lauterpacht Memorial Lecturer at the University of Cambridge, and Visiting Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford. Judge Meron delivered the 2003 General Course of Public International Law at The Hague Academy of International Law. He was also the Marek Nowicki Lecturer for 2008 lectures in Budapest and Warsaw under the auspices of the Open Society Institute, and delivered the 2014 Oxford Annual Lecture on Global Justice. He has lectured at many universities and at the International Institute of Human Rights (Strasbourg). In addition, Judge Meron helped establish the ICRC/Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies seminars for University Professors on International Humanitarian Law. He is a frequent lecturer at ICRC seminars, and he founded and continues to lead the annual ICRC seminars for U.N. diplomats on international humanitarian law at New York University, a tradition spanning three decades.

Since 2014, Judge Meron has been a visiting professor of international criminal law at the University of Oxford. He donates his Oxford salary to the University, which has enabled the establishment of an internship fund for Oxford students at the Mechanism. He is an academic associate at the Bonavero Human Rights Institute in Oxford and a visiting fellow of Mansfield College, Oxford.

Judge Meron was awarded the 2005 Rule of Law Award by the International Bar Association and the 2006 Manley O. Hudson Medal of the American Society of International Law. He was made Officer of the Legion of Honor by the President of France in 2007, and in 2013, Grand Officer of the National Order of Merit. He received the Charles Homer Haskins Prize of the American Council of Learned Societies for 2008. In 2009 he was elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2011 he received a doctorate honoris causa from the University of Warsaw. In 2017 he was made Officer of the Order of Merit of Poland.

A frequent contributor to the American Journal of International Law and other legal journals, Judge Meron is the author of more than 100 articles in legal publications. His books are: Investment Insurance in International Law (Oceana-Sijthoff 1976); The United Nations Secretariat (Lexington Books 1977); Human Rights in International Law (Oxford University Press 1984); Human Rights Law-Making in the United Nations (Oxford University Press 1986) (awarded the certificate of merit of the American Society of International Law); Human Rights in Internal Strife: Their International Protection (Sir Hersch Lauterpacht Memorial Lectures, Grotius Publications 1987); Human Rights and Humanitarian Norms as Customary Law (Oxford University Press 1989); Henry’s Wars and Shakespeare’s Laws (Oxford University Press 1993); Bloody Constraint: War and Chivalry in Shakespeare (Oxford University Press 1998); War Crimes Law Comes of Age: Essays (Oxford University Press 1998); International Law In the Age of Human Rights (Martinus Nijhoff 2004); The Humanization of International Law (Martinus Nijhoff 2006); and The Making of International Criminal Justice: The View from the Bench: Selected Speeches (Oxford University Press 2011). He is also among the editors of Humanizing the Laws of War: Selected Writings of Richard Baxter (Oxford University Press 2013).

The subject of wide-ranging interviews on CNN’s Amanpour and the BBC’s HardTalk, Judge Meron has made appearances on a variety of major international media outlets over the years and, in 2013, delivered a live-streamed lecture entitled “International Justice on Trial” at the TEDxHagueAcademy. 

Former Prosecutor

Hassan B. Jallow (The Gambia)

Prosecutor of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals from 1 March 2012 to 29 February 2016. Born in 1951 in The Gambia.

Justice Hassan Bubacar Jallow, a Gambian lawyer and jurist, was appointed the Prosecutor of the Mechanism by the UN Security Council on 1 March 2012 for a term of four years. Prosecutor Jallow also continued as the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (UN-ICTR) until 31 December 2015, a position he had held since 2003.

Born in 1951, Prosecutor Jallow began his legal career in 1976 as a State Attorney in The Gambia until his appointment as the Solicitor-General of The Gambia in 1982. He also served as a legal expert for the Organization of African Unity, and participated in drafting and concluding the African Charter on Human and People's Rights, which was adopted in 1981. From 1984 to 1994, he served as The Gambia's Attorney-General and Minister of Justice. He subsequently worked as a Judge of the Supreme Court of The Gambia from 1998 - 2002.

In 1998 Prosecutor Jallow was appointed by the United Nations Secretary-General to carry out a judicial evaluation of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia. He has also served the Commonwealth in various respects including chairing the Governmental Working Group of Experts in Human Rights and as member of the Commonwealth Arbitral Tribunal. Prior to becoming the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, he was a Judge of the Appeals Chamber of the Special Court for Sierra Leone on the appointment of the UN Secretary-General in 2002.

Prosecutor Jallow studied law at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (1973), the Nigerian Law School (1976) and the University College, London (1978).  He is bilingual in English and French and author of a series of publications, notably on issues relating international criminal law, public international law, human rights law as well as on international peace and justice.

Prosecutor Jallow is the recipient of the honor of Commander of the National Order of the Republic of The Gambia.

Former Registrars

Mr. Olufemi Elias (Nigeria)

Registrar of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals from 1 January 2017 to 30 June 2020.

Mr. Olufemi Elias was appointed by the United Nations Secretary-General as the Registrar (Assistant Secretary-General) of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals.

Mr. Elias has extensive experience as a lawyer in intergovernmental organisations. He was the Legal Adviser and a Director at the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in The Hague, where he had worked earlier as Senior Legal Officer. He has also served as the Executive Secretary of the World Bank Administrative Tribunal in Washington D. C. Prior to that, he worked at the United Nations Compensation Commission in Geneva, serving as a legal adviser in the secretariat of its Governing Council, and subsequently as Special Assistant to the Commission’s Executive Secretary.

Prior to joining the UNCC, he was a lecturer in international law at King’s College London, and has taught international law at other universities. He is a Visiting Professor in international law at Queen Mary University of London. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Jurisprudence from the University of Oxford, a Master of Law in international law from the University of Cambridge and a doctorate in international law from University College London. He has written and edited several books and articles on various aspects of international law.

Mr. Elias is a solicitor and advocate of the Supreme Court of Nigeria. He is an Associate Member of the Institut de Droit International. He has served as the Secretary-General of the African Association of International Law and on the Executive Council of the American Society of International Law, from which he received the 2018 Honorary Membership Award for distinguished service to international law.

John Hocking (Australia)

Registrar of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia from 2009 to the end of 2017. Served concurrently as Registrar of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals from 10 January 2012 to 31 December 2016.

Mr. John Hocking was appointed Assistant Secretary-General, Registrar of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) by the United Nations Secretary-General for two terms, first on 15 May 2009 and again on 15 May 2013. The Secretary-General also appointed him as the first Registrar of the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals from 10 January 2012, entrusting him with the startup of the new institution. Until the end of 2016, Mr. Hocking concurrently served as the Registrar of the ICTY and the Mechanism.

Mr. Hocking is a long-standing staff member of the ICTY having joined the institution in 1997. He held the position of Deputy Registrar from December 2004 until January 2009 when he became Acting Registrar. Prior to these appointments, he served as the Senior Legal Officer for the Appeals Chambers of both the ICTY and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. He initially worked as the legal officer on the ICTY’s first multi-accused proceedings, the Čelebići trial.

Mr. Hocking has over 25 years experience as a lawyer working in both the domestic and international arena. His prior responsibilities include five years as legal and policy adviser to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris; legal and policy adviser to the Australian Government's national multicultural television and radio broadcaster, the Special Broadcasting Service; legal and policy adviser to human rights barristers and the British Film Institute in London; legal associate to Justice Michael Kirby, former President of the Court of Appeal and Judge of the High Court of Australia; and, legal and policy adviser to the Australian Film Commission.

Mr. Hocking has been admitted as a barrister at Lincoln’s Inn, London, and a barrister/solicitor with the Supreme Courts of Victoria and New South Wales in Australia. He holds a Master of Law with merit from the University of London (London School of Economics and Political Science), a Bachelor of Law from the University of Sydney, and a Bachelor of Science (Physiology and Biochemistry) from Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.

He has written a number of publications, particularly on issues relating to international humanitarian and criminal law. He speaks English and French.

He was born on 6 August 1957 in Melbourne, Australia.