Professor Dr. Charles C. Jalloh is Professor of International Law and the Richard A. Hausler Chair in Law at the University of Miami Law School, a member of the United Nations International Law Commission (“ILC”) since 2017, where he is currently the Special Rapporteur for the topic “Subsidiary means for the determination of rules of international law” and the Chair of the Working Group on Methods of Work and Procedures. Professor Jalloh has been elected by his peers to several leadership positions in the Bureau of the ILC as Chairperson of the Drafting Committee for the 70th (2018) session, General Rapporteur for the 71st (2019) session and Second-Vice Chair of the 74th (2022) session. Now in his second five-year mandate in the ILC following re-election by the United Nations General Assembly in November 2021, Professor Jalloh is only the second Sierra Leonean to have been honored with election to the ILC. He is an active contributor to all aspects of the ILC’s work assisting States with the codification and progressive development of international law. In addition to engaging with the full range of international law topics on the ILC’s work program, including in the working groups and drafting committees and promoting greater dialogue between the ILC and the Sixth (Legal) Committee of the UN General Assembly, he successfully proposed two topics for the long-term work program of the ILC in 2018 and 2021 respectively and regularly lectures in the International Law Seminar.
Dr. Jalloh, who was formerly a Distinguished University Professor of International Law at Florida International University and the invited Kleh Distinguished Visiting Professor of International Law at Boston University Law School for the 2023-2024 academic year, has published widely on issues of international law, including over 80 articles, book chapters and essays in top peer-reviewed journals such as American Journal of International Law, Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law, International Criminal Law Review, Journal of International Criminal Justice, Michigan Journal of International Law and Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law. He has also been an author or lead editor of 15 books with top scholarly presses. These include The Legal Legacy of the Special Court for Sierra Leone (Cambridge University Press, 2020); The African Court of Justice and Human and Peoples’ Rights in Context: Development and Challenges (Cambridge University Press, 2019); Africa and the International Criminal Court (Oxford University Press, 2017); The International Criminal Court in an Effective Global System (Edward Elgar, 2016); and Shielding Humanity: Essays in International Law in Honour of Judge Abdul Koroma (Martinus Nijhoff, 2015). He was also the Founding Editor of the African Journal of Legal Studies and has been invited to serve on the editorial board of several prestigious peer-reviewed journals, including the American Journal of International Law, the Canadian Yearbook of International Law and the Max Planck Yearbook of United Nations Law.
A renowned academic and practitioner of international law, who is also Founding Executive Director of the Center for International Law and Policy in Africa based in Sierra Leone, Professor Jalloh’s scholarly works have been cited by legal scholars, practitioners and judges. He is also a recipient of numerous academic awards such as the RJ Reynolds Distinguished Visiting Professorship from North Carolina Central University School of Law (2010), the Buchannan Ingersoll & Rooney Faculty Scholar Award from the University of Pittsburgh Law School (2013-2014), the FIU Top.
Bio Summary – Prof. Dr. Charles C. Jalloh, Sierra Leone’s ICJ Candidate
Scholar Award (2015), the FIU Senate Faculty Award for Excellence in Research and Creative Activities (2018) and the Fulbright Lund Distinguished Chair in Public International Law (2018-2019) from Lund University in Sweden. In October 2021, Professor Jalloh received the Real Triumphs Faculty Award from the FIU President’s Council and the Provost and President of FIU for sustained excellence in legal research. He was subsequently named Distinguished University Professor in October 2022 – the first law faculty member at Florida International University to receive this high honor conferred by the university leadership.
Professor Jalloh would contribute scientific rigor and sound practical experience to the work of the International Court of Justice. Indeed, prior to joining academia in 2009, he distinguished himself as a legal practitioner after qualifying as a Barrister-at-Law in the Law Society of Upper Canada and a Solicitor of the Court of Appeal for Ontario in 2004. He has since advised and continues to advise governments and international organizations on diverse issues of domestic and international law and participated as counsel in proceedings before several international courts including the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice. His experience includes as Counsel, Canadian Department of Justice and the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade; Associate Legal Officer in Trial Chamber I of the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda working on high profile cases involving the 1994 Rwandan genocide; as the Legal Adviser/Duty Counsel in the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone in Freetown and in The Hague, and as a Visiting Professional, the International Criminal Court (“ICC”). Between 2012 - 2014, he served as co-chair of the International Criminal Law Interest Group of the American Society of International Law, and between 2014-2016, was a Rapporteur for the International Law Association’s Committee on Complementarity in International Criminal Law. He has been a member of the Advisory Panel to the President of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the Advisory Board of the War Crimes Committee of the International Bar Association.
For many years, Professor Jalloh contributed as an independent expert for the African Union Commission on international law advising on the drafting and revision of various regional treaties and appearing as an external counsel representing African States before the ICC’s Appeals Chamber. In 2019 - 2020, upon the nomination of the African Group, he chaired the Panel of Experts assisting the Committee on the Election of the Prosecutor established by the International Criminal Court’s Assembly of States Parties. He has served on numerous additional expert groups created by States and other entities including currently as Chair of the Independent International Panel on Arbitrary Detention in State-to-State Relations and as an independent expert for the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council mandated process for the elaboration of an international instrument to regulate Private and Military Security Companies. He has recently served on the Council of Advisers on the Application of the Rome Statute to Cyberwarfare, as a Rapporteur for the African Union Expert Group on the Elaboration of Legal Instruments for the Establishment of the Hybrid Court for South Sudan, member of the Independent Expert Panel for the Legal Definition of Ecocide and the Advisory Board of the American Society of International Law’s Taskforce on Policy Options for US Engagement with the ICC.
Born and raised in Sierra Leone, his education includes a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Guelph, Dean’s Honor List and Bachelor of Laws and Bachelor of Civil Law degrees from McGill University, Canada. He also earned a Master’s in International Human Rights Law, with distinction, from Oxford University, where he was a Chevening Scholar and graduated with distinction. He holds a Doctor of Philosophy specializing in International Law from the Faculty of Law, University of Amsterdam.
