Prosecutor
Serge Brammertz
Chief Prosecutor of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals since 29 February 2016.
Born: 1962, Eupen, Belgium.
On 29 February 2016, Serge Brammertz was appointed by the United Nations Security Council to serve as Prosecutor of the Mechanism. On 26 June 2020, he was reappointed to a new term, with effect from 1 July 2020 until 30 June 2022.
Dr. Brammertz has previously served as Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia from 1 January 2008 until its closure at the end of 2017.
Dr. Brammertz has served for more than a decade in senior positions charged with investigating and prosecuting grave international crimes. Prior to his current appointment, in January 2006 United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed him as Commissioner of the United Nations International Independent Investigation Commission into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, a post he held until the end of 2007. Previously, in September 2003 he was elected by the Assembly of State Parties as the first Deputy Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. In that capacity, he was in charge of establishing the Investigations Division of the Office of the Prosecutor, and initiated the first ICC investigations in Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Darfur.
Prior to his international appointments, Dr. Brammertz was first a national magistrate then the head of the Federal Prosecution of the Kingdom of Belgium. In these roles, he supervised numerous investigations and trials related to cases of organised crime, terrorism, international drug trafficking, human trafficking and violations of international humanitarian law. His work focused in particular on coordinating trans-national investigations and strengthening cross-border police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters. In addition, he also worked for the European Commission, the Council of Europe and the International Organisation for Migration as an expert on these and related issues.
From 1989 to 1997, he served as Deputy Prosecutor, then Chief Deputy Prosecutor at the Court of First Instance in Eupen (Belgium), before becoming Deputy to the Prosecutor-General at the Liège Court of Appeal.
Dr. Brammertz is currently a member of the Executive Committee of the International Association of Prosecutors, and previously served as Chairman of the European Judicial Network. He has published and lectured widely on the investigation and prosecution of complex crimes, European and international police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters, international humanitarian law, organized crime, terrorism and judicial capacity building. He was a professor of law at the University of Liège until 2002.
Dr. Brammertz holds a law degree from the University of Louvain-la-Neuve, a degree in Criminology from the University of Liège and a PhD in international law from the Albert Ludwig University in Freiburg, Germany, where his thesis was on the topic “Cross-border Police Cooperation”.