Bruno Simma, a national of Germany and Austria, was appointed to the Tribunal in 2012. At the time of his appointment, he was Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School in Ann Arbor, U.S.A., and Judge ad hoc for Costa Rica in the case Construction of a road in Costa Rica along the San Juan River (Nicaragua v. Costa Rica) before the International Court of Justice.
Bruno Simma studied at the University of Innsbruck, where he obtained his Doctorate of Law in 1966. Following a clerkship at different courts, he served as an Assistant Professor at the University of Innsbruck where he was made a Privatdozent in 1971. A year later he was appointed Professor of International and European Law at the University of Munich, where he served for more than 30 years, from 1995 to 1997 as Dean of the Munich Faculty of Law. From 1986 onwards, Bruno Simma also taught regularly at the University of Michigan. From 1987 to 1996 he was a member of the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and from 1997 to 2002 a member of the United Nations International Law Commission. He served as counsel for Cameroon in its Land and Maritime Boundary case against Nigeria and as co-agent and counsel for Germany in the LaGrand case against the United States. From 2003 to 2012, he was a Judge at the International Court of Justice. He has also served as an arbitrator in the Iron Rhine case between Belgium and the Netherlands, in the Kishenganga case between Pakistan and India, in the Railway Land Arbitration between Malaysia and Singapore, in the ARA Libertad case between Argentina and Ghana as well as in the Arbitration on the Maritime and Land Boundary between Croatia and Slovenia. Costa Rica appointed him as Judge ad hoc in two more cases at the International Court of Justice, as did Chile in its case against Bolivia over the Silala River, which is still pending. Besides, Bruno Simma has served as arbitrator (in most instances as presiding arbitrator) in about 20 investor-State cases administered by the PCA and ICSID and in some sports law cases before the CAS.
Bruno Simma has published or edited a number of books, most prominently among them, in co-authorship with Alfred Verdross, the treatise Universelles Völkerrecht, and more recently, the leading Commentary on the Charter of the United Nations. He is the author or co-author of around 150 academic articles. Bruno Simma has lectured at the Hague Academy of International Law both in 1995 and in 2009, when he offered the General Course on Public International Law. He is one of the founders both of the European Journal of International Law and the European Society of International Law and serves on the board of various other journals and professional associations. Bruno Simma is a Member of the Institut de Droit international.
Bruno Simma has received honorary doctorates from the Universities of Glasgow, Macerata and Innsbruck. In 2013, he was awarded the Manley O. Hudson Medal by the American Society of International Law and in 2014 he received the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.
