VOJIN DIMITRIJEVIC

 VOJIN DIMITRIJEVIC

Vojin Dimitrijević was born on July 9, 1932 in Rijeka (then in Italy, today in Croatia).

Vojin Dimitrijević (July 9, 1932 - October 5, 2012) was a professor of law, public intellectual and prominent Serbian human rights activist and expert in international law. He was one of the most sincere and persistent human rights fighters in Serbia 

Dimitrijevic was the director of the Belgrade Center for Human Rights, a Serbian NGO opposed to Slobodan Milosevic's regime. He has held that position since the beginning of 1995. 

In 1956 he graduated from the Faculty of Law, University of Belgrade, where he received his doctorate in 1965 and continued to work as a professor from 1960 to 1998. He was ordered to retire early in 1998, while a full professor, for opposing the newly enacted and repressive Law on Universities. Since 1995 he has been the director of the Belgrade Center for Human Rights, and since 2005 a professor at the Faculty of Law of the Union University in Belgrade. Dimitrijević was also a visiting professor at the universities of Split, Sarajevo, Virginia, Oslo and Lund.

Since 2000 he has been a member of the Venice Commission for Democracy through the Law of the Council of Europe, while since 2001 he has been a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague. He has been a trustee of the International Commission of Jurists since 2003, and a member of the Executive Board since 2006. He was also a member and Vice-Chair of the UN Human Rights Committee (1983-1994), and was an ad hoc judge at the International Court of Justice (2001-2003).

He was a member of the Institut de droit international, and received an honorary doctorate of law from McGill University and the University of Kent. In 2001, French President Jacques Chirac awarded him the Order of the Legion of Honor.