Lyal S. Sunga is a well-known specialist on international human rights law, international humanitarian law and international criminal law.
Lyal S. Sunga is a well-known specialist on international human rights law, international humanitarian law and international criminal law.
Sunga is a visiting professor in Peace Studies and International Relations and Global Politics at The American University of Rome, visiting professor at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law in Lund University, Sweden, visiting professor at the Strathmore University School of Law in Nairobi, Kenya, and RWI visiting professor at Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia. He also teaches International Criminal Law, Human Rights, Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism, Public International Law, and Genocide at John Cabot University in Rome, Italy. He is also a former Head of the Rule of Law program at The Hague Institute for Global Justice in the Netherlands, and former Special Advisor on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at the International Development Law Organization in Rome, Italy. He was responsible in 1994 for supporting the UN Security Council's genocide investigations in Rwanda and he served as Human Rights Officer in the United Nations as a staff member from 1994–2001, mainly on problems relating to serious human rights and humanitarian law violations, including terrorism and counter-terrorism, issues involving war and recovery from post-conflict situations, as well as on fact-finding, monitoring, investigation and reporting. He has also been an expert consultant for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations University, United Nations Development Program, International Labour Organization, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, European Union, Council of Europe, International Development Law Organization, and National Human Rights Commissions in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Nepal, Nigeria, Russia, Turkey and Uganda. In May 2012, he launched a major study on the role of national human rights institutions in federal States which he prepared for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Moscow at a conference with representatives of more than 60 national human rights institutions of the Russian Federation.
Sunga has been a Lecturer, Senior Lecturer or Visiting Professor in faculties of law at McGill University, Carleton University, Helsinki University, Padjadjaran University, University of Geneva, University of Hong Kong, Peking University, Lund University, The American University of Rome, Strathmore University, Addis Ababa University and John Cabot University on human rights, humanitarian law, international criminal law and terrorism and counter-terrorism.
Sunga holds a Bachelor of Arts from Carleton University, a Bachelor of Laws from Osgoode Hall Law School, a Master of Laws in International Human Rights Law from the University of Essex and a Ph.D. in International Law from the Graduate Institute of International Studies. Before joining the Raoul Wallenberg Institute he was a member of the faculty at the University of Hong Kong where he taught classes in law and served as Director of the Master of Laws Program in Human Rights (2001–2005). He has given university courses, lectures, training or conference presentations in approximately 55 countries. Sunga's work has been published in numerous scholarly academic journals and he has authored two influential books on international criminal law. He has given lectures and moderated panels at the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the International Criminal Court, the T.M.C. Asser Instituut, the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies and The Hague Institute for Global Justice, among other places.
From 1994 to 2001 Sunga worked for the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva, first to assist in the investigation of facts and responsibilities relating to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda for the UN Security Council's Commission of Experts on Rwanda, to draft the Commission's report recommending the establishment of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and then on the establishment and operation of the UN Human Rights Field Operation in Rwanda. He also has practical experience and expertise relating to the International Criminal Court including having served as OHCHR representative to the United Nations Diplomatic Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court that adopted the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, terrorism, redress for violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, impunity, the death penalty, human rights defenders, the administration of justice, the role of human rights NGOs in fact-finding, and the relation between national truth and reconciliation commissions and criminal prosecutions.
From September to December 2007 Sunga took leave from the Raoul Wallenberg Institute to act as Geneva-based coordinator of the UN Human Rights Council's Group of Experts on Darfur, mandated to assess the Government of the Sudan's implementation of UN recommendations concerning serious violations of human rights and humanitarian law committed during the war in Darfur.
Sunga has commented on breaking news stories for Voice of America, CNN affiliate N1 in Sarajevo, PBS, China Global Television Network, The Guardian, Indus News, Metro International, Legal Talk Network, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, New Delhi TV, South China Morning Post, RT, Agence France-Presse, TV5 Monde, O Estado de S. Paulo, Estado de Minas, Business Standard, El Periódico de Catalunya and others. He also contributed to the discussion of ICTY rulings related to the Srebrenica Massacre, in his review of Yugoslavia: Peace, War, and Dissolution, edited book by Noam Chomsky and Davor Džalto.
