Felix Ermacora (13 October 1923 – 24 February 1995) was a leading

human rights Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...

expert of Austria and a member of the

Austrian People's Party The Austrian People's Party (german: Österreichische Volkspartei , ÖVP ) is a Christian-democratic and liberal-conservative political party in Austria. Since December 2021, the party has been led provisionally by Karl Nehammer. It is curre ...

Biography

In his youth, Ermacora served in the army of

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

at the rank of private. He was a professor of international law at the

University of Innsbruck The University of Innsbruck (german: Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck; la, Universitas Leopoldino Franciscea) is a public research university in Innsbruck, the capital of the Austrian federal state of Tyrol, founded on October 15, 1669. ...

from 1956, at the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich hi ...

from 1964, member of Parliament for the Austrian People's Party from 1971 to 1990, member of the European Commission of Human Rights and the

United Nations Human Rights Committee The United Nations Human Rights Committee is a treaty body composed of 18 experts, established by a 1966 human rights treaty, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The Committee meets for three four-week sessions per ...

1959-1980 and 1984-1987. In 1974 he was President of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, and from 1984 he was UN Special Rapporteur for Afghanistan. In 1992, he cofounded the

Ludwig Boltzmann Institut für Menschenrechte The Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights (German: Ludwig Boltzmann Institut für Menschenrechte, BIM) is a Vienna-based research institute affiliated with the Austrian Ludwig Boltzmann Gesellschaft, that specializes in the area of human right ...

, with his students and close collaborators Manfred Nowak and

Hannes Tretter Hannes Tretter (born 5 July 1951 in Vienna) is an Austrian lawyer and human rights expert. He is Professor of Human Rights at the University of Vienna and Director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institut für Menschenrechte, which he cofounded with Felix ...

, and served as its first director. He was part of UN delegations investigating human rights abuses in Chile, South Africa, occupied Palestine, Iran and Afghanistan. On behalf of the Council of Europe, he investigated human rights abuses in Algeria, Greece, Ireland, Turkey and Cyprus. As an academic, a legislator and a UN official, he fought unconditionally against injustice and human rights abuses. In an expert opinion commissioned by the

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total l ...

n government in 1991, Ermacora concluded that the

Expulsion of Germans after World War II Expulsion or expelled may refer to: General * Deportation * Ejection (sports) * Eviction * Exile * Expeller pressing * Expulsion (education) * Expulsion from the United States Congress * Extradition * Forced migration * Ostracism * Persona ...

constituted a

genocide Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the ...

and

crime against humanity Crimes against humanity are widespread or systemic acts committed by or on behalf of a ''de facto'' authority, usually a state, that grossly violate human rights. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity do not have to take place within the ...

. As the UN Special Rapporteur for Afghanistan, he uncovered "gross violations of human rights" by Soviet forces in Afghanistan, made public in a 1985 report.Eric Pace
Felix Ermacora Is Dead at 71; Austrian Human Rights Expert
New York Times. February 27, 1995. He received the German

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, Commander of the

Ordre national du Mérite The Ordre national du Mérite (; en, National Order of Merit) is a French order of merit with membership awarded by the President of the French Republic, founded on 3 December 1963 by President Charles de Gaulle. The reason for the order's estab ...

of France, Commander 1st Class of the Order of the Polar Star of Sweden, the European Charlemagne Award of the

Sudetendeutsche Landsmannschaft The Sudetendeutsche Landsmannschaft ( en, Sudeten German Homeland Association) is an organization representing Sudeten German expellees and refugees from the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia. Most of them were forcibly expelled and deported to wes ...

, the

UNESCO Prize for Human Rights Education The UNESCO/Bilbao Prize for the Promotion of a Culture of Human Rights, created in 1978 as the UNESCO Prize for Human Rights Education to mark the 30th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, serves to honour the ef ...

in 1983 and the European Human Rights Prize of the

Council of Europe The Council of Europe (CoE; french: Conseil de l'Europe, ) is an international organisation founded in the wake of World War II to uphold human rights, democracy and the rule of law in Europe. Founded in 1949, it has 46 member states, with a p ...

in 1992 (jointly with

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF; pronounced ), also known as Doctors Without Borders, is a humanitarian medical non-governmental organisation (NGO) or charity of French origin known for its projects in conflict zones and in countries affected by endemic diseases. ...

) for "an exceptional contribution to the cause of human rights". He received honorary doctorates at the universities of Cologne and Strasbourg, and was a corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences from 1971. He was also a board member of the International Society for Human Rights. In 1999, the Felix Ermacora Institut was founded, and in 2005, the Felix Ermacora Human Rights Award was established by the Faction of the Conservative Party in the Austrian Parliament. The first prize winners of Felix Ermacora Human Rights Award were the Jesuit priest Georg Sporschill and ORF journalist Friedrich Orter.Manfred Nowak: Speech on the award of the first Felix Ermacora Human Rights Prize. online: https://bim.lbg.ac.at/de/vortraege-und-lehrunterlagen/manfred-nowak-festrede-zur-verleihung-des-ersten-felix-ermacoramenschen, retrieved 22.05.21 The Felix Ermacora Society was founded in 2005, and is headed by Wolfgang Schüssel, the former Austrian Chancellor. His students include Andreas Khol, a former President of the Austrian parliament and, mosts prominently, Manfred Nowak. He died in 1995, of a disease he caught on a UN mission in Afghanistan and Pakistan in December 1994.

Selected works

* ''Handbuch der Grundfreiheiten und der Menschenrechte'', 1963 * ''Allgemeine Staatslehre'', 2 vol., 1970 * ''Österreichische Verfassungslehre'', 2 vol., 1970/80 * ''Grundriß der Menschenrechte in Österreich'', 1988 * ''Die Entstehung der Bundesverfassung'', 5 vol., 1986–93 * ''Menschenrechte in der sich wandelnden Welt'', 3 vol., 1974–94 * ''Menschenrechte ohne Wenn und Aber. Erlebnisse und Begegnungen'', 1993

Literature

* Manfred Nowak, Dorothea Steurer and Hannes Tretter (eds.), ''Festschrift für Felix Ermacora - Fortschritt im Bewußtsein der Grund- und Menschenrechte'', Kehl am Rhein, Engel, 1988

References

, - , - , - , - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Ermacora, Felix Academics of the University of Innsbruck United Nations Human Rights Committee members Austrian officials of the United Nations United Nations special rapporteurs Politicians from Klagenfurt Commanders Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Commanders of the Ordre national du Mérite Commanders First Class of the Order of the Polar Star Austrian People's Party politicians 1923 births 1995 deaths Austrian human rights activists Members of the European Commission of Human Rights Academics of the University of Vienna