Albin Eser (26 January 1935 – 20 January 2023) was a German jurist and a former

ad litem ''Ad litem'' (Latin: "for the suit") is a term used in law to refer to the appointment by a court of one party to act in a lawsuit on behalf of another party such as a child or an incapacitated adult, who is deemed incapable of representing him ...

judge at the

International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was a body of the United Nations that was established to prosecute the war crimes in the Yugoslav Wars, war crimes that had been committed during the Yugoslav Wars and to tr ...

. Albin Eser was born in

Leidersbach Leidersbach is a municipality in the Miltenberg district in the ''Regierungsbezirk'' of Lower Franconia (''Unterfranken'') in Bavaria, Germany. Geography Location Leidersbach lies roughly 10 km south of Aschaffenburg in the Spessart. N ...

Lower Franconia Lower Franconia (, ) is one of seven districts of Bavaria, Germany. The districts of Lower, Middle and Upper Franconia make up the region of Franconia. It consists of nine districts and 308 municipalities (including three cities). History After ...

Bavaria Bavaria, officially the Free State of Bavaria, is a States of Germany, state in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the list of German states by area, largest German state by land area, comprising approximately 1/5 of the total l ...

. He studied law at the universities of

Würzburg Würzburg (; Main-Franconian: ) is, after Nuremberg and Fürth, the Franconia#Towns and cities, third-largest city in Franconia located in the north of Bavaria. Würzburg is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Lower Franconia. It sp ...

Tübingen Tübingen (; ) is a traditional college town, university city in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, and developed on both sides of the Neckar and Ammer (Neckar), Ammer rivers. about one in ...

and the Free University of Berlin between 1954 and 1958. He served as a judge in German courts from 1971, and was director of the

Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law The Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law (German: Max-Planck-Institut zur Erforschung von Kriminalität, Sicherheit und Recht) is a non-university research institute located in Freiburg, Germany. The institute is part of t ...

Freiburg Freiburg im Breisgau or simply Freiburg is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fourth-largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg after Stuttgart, Mannheim and Karlsruhe. Its built-up area has a population of abou ...

from 1991 to 1994, and Chairman of the Humanities and Social Sciences Section of the

Max Planck Society The Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science (; abbreviated MPG) is a formally independent non-governmental and non-profit association of German research institutes. Founded in 1911 as the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, it was renamed to the M ...

from 1994 to 1997. He was co-initiator of the Committee of Experts preparing the Draft Statute for an International Criminal Court ("Siracusa/Freiburg Draft") in 1995 and 1996, and was a member of the German delegation to the United Nations Diplomatic Conference for negotiations on the structure of the International Criminal Court. He is Master of Comparative Jurisprudence (M.C.J.) from New York University and Dr. iuris utriusque (Dr.iur.utr.) from the University of Würzburg (doctor of both civil and canon law). He holds honorary doctorates from the Jagiellonian University of Cracow (1991), the Universidad Peruana Los Andes of Huancayo (1996), and Waseda University of Tokyo (2001). He was awarded the university medal from Warsaw University (2000) and is an honorary member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest (1993) and the Japanese Society for Criminal Law (1992).

External links

Homepage of Albin Eser at the Max Planck Institute for Criminal Law

In Memory of Albin Eser
{{DEFAULTSORT:Eser, Albin 1935 births 2023 deaths 20th-century German judges Officers Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia judges German judges of United Nations courts and tribunals Max Planck Institute directors People from Miltenberg (district) Free University of Berlin alumni University of Würzburg alumni New York University School of Law alumni