Lyal S. Sunga is a well-known specialist on international human rights law, international humanitarian law and international criminal law.

Career

Lyal S. Sunga is adjunct professor at John Cabot University in Rome, Italy, where he teaches courses on International Criminal Law, Human Rights, Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism, Public International Law, and Genocide at Masters and undergraduate levels. He is also Affiliated Professor at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law in Lund University, Sweden. Previously, he served as visiting professor in Peace Studies and International Relations and Global Politics at The American University of Rome, visiting professor at the Strathmore University School of Law in Nairobi, Kenya, and RWI visiting professor and doctoral supervisor at Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia, and in 2006 he taught a human rights masters course at the Peking University Law School in Beijing, China at a time when there were few if any other such masters programs being offered in mainland China. In addition, Sunga has been a lecturer, senior lecturer or visiting professor in faculties of law at McGill University, Carleton University, Helsinki University, Padjadjaran University, University of Geneva, and from 2001 to 2005, he served as Associate Professor at the University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law and Director of the Master of Laws in Human Rights. In 2014, Sunga developed a human rights masters curriculum for nine universities in Russia and trained professors from these institutions at the Patrice Lumumba Peoples' Friendship University of Russia in Moscow. From 2015 to 2021, Sunga gave masters-level human rights classes in UN-sponsored summer programs at Kazan Federal University, Patrice Lumumba Peoples' Friendship University of Russia, Perm State University, Voronezh State University and Ural State Law University in Yekaterinburg. Sunga has also given lectures on international law and human rights in 2008, 2009 and 2012 in Minsk, Belarus, at Belarus State University, the Belarusian National Technical University and Belarus State Economic University. He has also provided extensive training and lectures to academics, civil servants and NGO personnel on human rights in armed conflict and international humanitarian law in Kyiv, Ukraine in May and August 2006 at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv and with civil society organizations in September 2015 and May 2016. Sunga has conducted training for judges, prosecutors and criminal justice personnel in Armenia, Azerbaijan, China, Ethiopia, France, Indonesia, Kenya, Laos, Morocco, The Netherlands, Sweden and Uzbekistan, and lectures, training and capacity building on monitoring, investigation and reporting in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Ethiopia, France, Kenya, Indonesia, Italy, Laos, Morocco, The Netherlands, Russia, Rwanda, Sweden, Switzerland, Tanzania, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, and Uzbekistan. In late August 1994, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights José Ayala Lasso called upon Sunga to bolster the UN Security Council's investigations into the massive violations of human rights and International humanitarian law perpetrated during the 1994 Rwandan genocide. He served as Human Rights Officer in the United Nations as a staff member from 1994 to 2001, working mainly on problems relating to serious human rights and humanitarian law violations, genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, terrorism and counter-terrorism, and on practical issues involving war and recovery from post-conflict situations through fact-finding, monitoring, investigation and reporting. Since leaving the UN as a staff member, Sunga has served as expert consultant for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations University, United Nations Development Program, International Labour Organization, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, European Union, Council of Europe, International Development Law Organization, and National Human Rights Commissions in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Nepal, Nigeria, Russia, Turkey and Uganda. In May 2012, he launched a major study on the role of national human rights institutions in federal States which he prepared for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Moscow at a conference with representatives of more than 60 national human rights institutions of the Russian Federation. He is also a former Head of the Rule of Law program at The Hague Institute for Global Justice in the Netherlands, and former Special Advisor on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at the International Development Law Organization in Rome, Italy. Sunga holds a Bachelor of Arts from Carleton University, a Bachelor of Laws from Osgoode Hall Law School, a Master of Laws in International Human Rights Law from the University of Essex and a Ph.D. in International Law from the Graduate Institute of International Studies. Before joining the Raoul Wallenberg Institute he was a member of the faculty at the University of Hong Kong where he taught classes in law and served as Director of the Master of Laws Program in Human Rights (2001–2005). He has given university courses, lectures, training or conference presentations in approximately 55 countries. Sunga's work has been published in numerous scholarly academic journals and he has authored two influential books on international criminal law. He has given lectures and moderated panels at the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the International Criminal Court, the T.M.C. Asser Instituut, the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies and The Hague Institute for Global Justice, among other places. From 1994 to 2001 Sunga worked for the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva, first to investigate facts and responsibilities relating to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda for the UN Security Council's Commission of Experts on Rwanda, to draft the Commission's report recommending the establishment of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and then on the establishment and operation of the UN Human Rights Field Operation in Rwanda. He also has practical experience and expertise relating to the International Criminal Court including having served as OHCHR representative to the United Nations Diplomatic Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court that adopted the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, on terrorism, redress for violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, impunity, the death penalty, human rights defenders, the administration of justice, the role of UN special procedures and human rights NGOs in fact-finding, and on the relation between national truth and reconciliation commissions and criminal prosecutions. In February 2001, he served as Secretary for the Asian Regional Preparatory Conference convened in Tehran, Iran that preceded the World Conference against Racism 2001 in Durban, South Africa. From September to December 2007 Sunga took leave from the Raoul Wallenberg Institute to act as Geneva-based coordinator of the UN Human Rights Council's Group of Experts on Darfur, mandated to assess the Government of the Sudan's implementation of UN recommendations concerning serious violations of human rights and humanitarian law committed during the war in Darfur. Sunga has commented on breaking news stories for Voice of America, CNN affiliate N1 in Sarajevo, PBS, China Global Television Network, The Guardian, Indus News, Metro International, Legal Talk Network, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, New Delhi TV, South China Morning Post, RT, Agence France-Presse, TV5 Monde, O Estado de S. Paulo, Estado de Minas, Business Standard, El Periódico de Catalunya, Hindustan Times and others. He also contributed to the discussion of ICTY rulings related to the Srebrenica Massacre, in his review of Yugoslavia: Peace, War, and Dissolution, edited book by Noam Chomsky and Davor Džalto.

Published works

Books

Book sections

Law journal articles

Selected reports for the United Nations, European Union, International Development Law Organization and National Human Rights Institutions