Chaloka Beyani

Chaloka Beyani is a professor of international law at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).

He has worked and published extensively in the fields of international human rights law, international criminal law and international humanitarian law, as well as on issues relating to humanitarian assistance and population displacements, in particular internal displacement.

In 2023 Beyani was nominated by Zambia for election to the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

The Netherlands co-nominated Beyani.

Beyani was born in Chalimbana and grew up in Sinakoba, Zambia in 1959.

He received an LL.B. degree in 1982 and an LL.M. degree in 1984, both from the University of Zambia.

He was a Lecturer in Law at the University of Zambia (1984-1988), where he taught international law and human rights.

In 1988, Beyani matriculated at St Cross College of the University of Oxford, to study for a Doctor of Philosophy (D.Phil.) in international law.

He later transferred to Wolfson College.

His doctoral supervisor was Professor Sir Ian Brownlie, Chichele Professor of Public International Law at All Souls College.

He received his D.Phil.

Beyani has received research grants from the Association of Commonwealth Universities (Academic Fellowship) 1988-1991, the Ford Foundation (1991-1992), the Nuffield Foundation (1990 and 1992) and the Shaler Adams Foundation 1995.

degree in 1992.

His D.Phil.

thesis was entitled “Restrictions on internal freedom of movement and residence in international law”.

A revised version was later published by Oxford University Press.

It is considered a “ground-breaking monograph”.

At the University of Oxford (1992-1995) he was a Research Fellow at Wolfson College, with Lectureships in Law at Exeter College and St. Catherine’s College, and a Crown Prince of Jordan Fellow, Queen Elizabeth House (QEH), as part of the Refugee Studies Centre (RSC).

He was a Visiting Professor of International Law at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law and at Santa Clara University School of Law.

Beyani has taught at the London School of Economics since 1996, where he is Associate Professor of Law.

There, he teaches International Human Rights Law, International Law and the Movement of Persons within States, and International Law and the Movement of Persons Between States.

His findings were reflected in the eventual wording of the Responsibility to Protect, which was endorsed by the UN's World Summit of 2005.

As Legal Adviser to the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region, Beyani drafted and negotiated the 2006 Great Lakes Pact on Peace, Stability and Development, with 11 peace treaties under it, including the first legally binding treaty on protection for and assistance to IDPs.

Beyani has been a member of the San Remo International Institute of Humanitarian Law since 2009.

He is a member of PeaceRep, an international research consortium led by Edinburgh Law School.

He was a nonresident senior fellow in the Brookings-LSE Project on Internal Displacement at the Brookings Institution.

Beyani has acted as a legal advisor, consultant and expert to a number of UN entities, including the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees, the World Health Organization, the United Nations Population Fund and the United Nations Development Fund for Women, and to the European Union (EU), the Commonwealth Secretariat and the African Union (AU).

He was a member of the High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons of the African Union on the Formation of an African Union Government and was a member of the 2009 joint AU-EU Ad hoc Expert Group on the Principle of Universal Jurisdiction.

Beyani was among a team of experts appointed by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) to formulate the 'responsibility to protect'.

His role was to examine 'state sovereignty' and 'intervention' in international law.

Beyani was a member of the official Committee of Experts that drafted the 2010 Constitution of Kenya.

Zambia had previously put Beyani forth for the 2017 International Court of Justice judges election, but withdrew his name prior to the candidate selection process.

If elected, he would have been the first Zambian judge at the ICJ.

After five rounds of voting in the Security Council and one round of voting in the General Assembly, Beyani was not elected.

Beyani is a recognized international and United Nations expert on internally displaced persons (IDPs), population transfers, the rights-based approach to development, climate change, sexual and reproductive health, mercenaries and private military companies, making treaties and making constitutions.

His analysis and arguments on the protection of the human rights of IDPs have become highly influential in shaping state policies on the protection of IDPs, especially in Africa.

He was an official mediator between the Government of Mozambique and the armed opposition rebel group RENAMO during the peace process that led to the peace agreement in Mozambique in 2019.

He drafted amendments to the Constitution of Mozambique to incorporate the agreement on devolution.

Beyani served as a member of the Commonwealth Elections Observer Group which observed the Kenyan general elections held on August 9, 2022.

He is an Editor of the Journal of African Law, published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of SOAS University of London and of the International Journal of Refugee Law and, until 2020, of the Journal of International Humanitarian Legal Studies.