Erika De Wet

Biography

As of 2016 Erika de Wet will be the SARCHI Professor of International Constitutional Law in the Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria, South Africa. Since July 2015 she is also Honorary Professor in the Faculty of Law, University of Bonn, Germany. Between 2011 and 2015 she was founding Co-Director of the Institute for International and Comparative Law in Africa and Professor of International Law in the Faculty of Law of the University of Pretoria. Between 2004 and 2010 she was tenured Professor of International Constitutional Law at the Amsterdam Center for International Law, University of Amsterdam, a position which she thereafter held part-time until December 2013. During the early years of her career, she also held positions at the International Labor Organization (Geneva), the Swiss Institute of Comparative Law (Lausanne) and Leiden University (Leiden). She was further involved in part-time teaching at the University of Zurich and Brandeis University, as well as Extraordinary Professor at the North-West University (Potchefstroom campus). Erika De Wet completed her B. Iur and LL.B as well as her LL.D at the University of the Free State (South Africa). She holds an LL.M from Harvard University and completed her Habilitationsschrift at the University of Zurich (Switzerland) in December 2002. It was published with Hart Publishing in 2004 under the title 'The Chapter VII Powers of the United Nations Security Council'. This work has since been widely cited, including by the International Court of Justice, the European Court of Human Rights and the House of Lords (United Kingdom Supreme Court). Her most recent book (with Jure Vidmar) is Hierarchy in International Law: The Place of Human Rights, which was published in 2012 by Oxford University Press. She has been the recipient of various national and international scholarships and awards. For the period 2015-2021 she is rated A-2 by the South African National Research Foundation (a category reserved for researchers internationally recognized as leaders in their field). In 2013 she was awarded the Exceptional Achiever Award of the UP Faculty of Law and since 2013 she is also a Fellow at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study in South Africa (STIAS). From October 2015 through March 2016 she is a Fellow at the Käte Hamburger Center for Advanced Study ‘Law as Culture’ in Bonn. Between 2007 and 2012, while tenured at the University of Amsterdam, she was awarded the prestigious ‘Vici’ Excellence Grant from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). She has also received fellowships from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, (2007-2008, 2012 to present); Swiss National Science Foundation (1998-2000); Harvard Law School (1998-1999); and the German Academic Exchange Service (1992-1993). From 2008-2010 Erika de Wet served as member of the Advisory Committee on Issues of Public International Law of the Netherlands (CAVV) for a three year period; and also served as a member of the Senior Appointments Committee of Council (Academic) of the University of Pretoria from 2011 to 2015. She currently is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for Development Policy of the Max Planck Foundation for International Peace and the Rules of Law; and the General Council of the International Society of Public Law (ICON*S). Her editorial activities include(d) the position of Co-Editor in Chief of the Oxford Reports on International Law in Domestic Courts between 2006 and 2014; and a General Editor of the Oxford Constitutions Online between 2011 and 2014. She is currently serving as member of the Editorial Board of the Austrian Journal of Public and International Law, the Potchefstroom Electronic Law Journal; and of the Advisory Board of the Max Planck Encyclopedia of Comparative Constitutional Law.

Research Interest

International Law