John Dugard

Christopher John Robert Dugard (born 23 August 1936) is a South African professor of international law.

His main academic specializations are in Roman-Dutch law, public international law, jurisprudence, human rights, criminal procedure and international criminal law.

He has served on the International Law Commission, the primary UN institution for the development of international law, and has been active in reporting on human-rights violations by Israel in the Palestinian territories.

He has written several books on human rights and international law, especially the crime of apartheid, in addition to coauthoring textbooks on criminal law and procedure and international law.

He has written extensively on South African apartheid.

John Dugard attended Queen's College Boys' High School in Queenstown, passing Matriculation in 1953.

He earned his BA (1956) and LLB (1958) degrees at Stellenbosch University, and a second LLB (1965) and LL.D. degree, a Diploma in International Law (1965), and an LL.D. Degree (1980), all from Cambridge University in England.

He has a number of honorary doctorates.

Indeed I have witnessed such conduct on the part of the IDF myself in Hebron", that "it is difficult to resist the conclusion that many of Israel's laws and practices violate the 1966 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

Israelis are entitled to enter the closed zone between the Wall and the Green Line without permits while Palestinians require permits to enter the closed zone; house demolitions in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are carried out in a manner that discriminates against Palestinians; throughout the West Bank, and particularly in Hebron, settlers are given preferential treatment over Palestinians in respect of movement (major roads are reserved exclusively for settlers), building rights and army protection; and the laws governing family reunification (para. 48 above) unashamedly discriminate against Palestinians.

It is less certain that the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid is violated" and that "the international community, speaking through the United Nations, has identified three regimes as inimical to human rights - colonialism, apartheid and foreign occupation.

Numerous resolutions of the General Assembly of the United Nations testify to this.

Israel's occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem contains elements of all three of these regimes".

Referring to Israel's actions in the West Bank, he wrote, "Can it seriously be denied that the purpose [...] is to establish and maintain domination by one racial group (Jews) over another racial group (Palestinians) and systematically oppressing them? Israel denies that this is its intention or purpose. But such an intention or purpose may be inferred from the actions described in this report."

From 1969 to 1998, Dugard was a Professor of Law at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Dugard also stated, "discrimination against Palestinians occurs in many fields. Moreover, the 1973 International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid appears to be violated by many practices, particularly those denying freedom of movement to Palestinians. (...) At the same time elements of the occupation constitute forms of colonialism and of apartheid, which are contrary to international law".

In the same report, Dugard said that "Jewish settlements in the West Bank are illegal. They violate article 49, paragraph 6, of the Fourth Geneva Convention and their illegality has been confirmed by the International Court of Justice in its advisory opinion on the Wall. Despite the illegality of settlements and the unanimous condemnation of settlements by the international community, the Government of Israel persists in allowing settlements to grow. Sometimes settlement expansion occurs openly and with the full approval of the Government (...) Sometimes settlements expand unlawfully in terms of Israeli law, but no attempt is made to enforce the law (...) Undoubtedly the most aggravated settler behaviour occurs in Hebron, where Palestinian schoolchildren are assaulted and humiliated on their way to schools, shopkeepers are beaten and residents live in fear of settler terror. Despite rulings of the High Court of Justice that it is the duty of the IDF to protect Palestinian farmers from settlers, there is still evidence that the IDF turns a blind eye to settler violence and, on occasion, collaborates with the settlers in harassing and humiliating Palestinians.

From 1975 to 1977 he was the dean at the School of Law there.

From 1978 to 1990, he was the director of the university's Centre for Applied Legal Studies, "a research centre committed to the promotion of Human Rights in South Africa".

Dugard was Director of the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law at the University of Cambridge from 1995 to 1997.

Dugard has, since 1997, served as a member of the International Law Commission of the United Nations.

In 1998, Dugard was appointed Chair in Public International Law at Leiden University in the Netherlands and as Director of the Advanced LL.M. programme in Public International Law.

In 2000, he became its Special Rapporteur on Diplomatic Protection.

In 2000, he served as Judge ad hoc in the cases concerning Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo (Democratic Republic of the Congo v. Burundi) (Democratic Republic of the Congo v. Uganda) and (Democratic Republic of the Congo v. Rwanda) at the International Court of Justice.

After the outbreak of the Palestinian Second Intifada in late 2000, John Dugard was appointed by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) chairman of a commission of inquiry on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories.

In 2001, Dugard was appointed United Nations Special Rapporteur to UNCHR.

He was required to submit annual reports and recommendations to the UNCHR concerning the situation of international human rights and humanitarian law in the Palestinian territories.

Critics noted that Dugard was appointed in 2001 as an unpaid expert by UNCHR to investigate only violations by the Israeli side.

Israel and the U.S. therefore dismissed his reports as one-sided.

Israel's UN ambassador in Geneva, Itzhak Levanon, said that "Professor Dugard will better serve the cause of peace by ceasing to enflame the hatred between Israelis and Palestinians, who have embarked on serious talks to solve this contentious situation."

Since 2006 he has been a Professor of Law at the Centre for Human Rights of the University of Pretoria.

He has held visiting professorships at Princeton University, Duke University, UC Berkeley and University of Pennsylvania, and University of New South Wales (Australia).

In its first special session in July 2006, the United Nations Human Rights Council dispatched an urgent fact-finding mission headed by Dugard to report on the situation in the Palestinian territories.

On 26 September 2006, Dugard reported that the "standards of human rights in the Palestinian territories have fallen to intolerable new levels".

Dugard released a report to the General Assembly in February 2007 that stated "Israel's laws and practices certainly resemble aspects of apartheid" in the Palestinian territory.

Beginning in 2008, Dugard served as Judge ad hoc on the International Court of Justice.

Dugard visited the Palestine Center in Washington DC in March 2009 and gave a lecture entitled "Apartheid and Occupation under International Law."

The video and the transcript of the lecture were made available online.

In 2023-24, he was appointed as a member of the South African legal team arguing South Africa v. Israel regarding the Genocide Convention.

Dugard visited the Palestine Center in Washington DC in March 2009 and gave a lecture entitled "Apartheid and Occupation under International Law."