Date of initial election to the judicial roster: 20 December 2011
Current term: 1 July 2024 – 30 June 2026
Judge José Ricardo de Prada Solaesa has been a Judge of the Mechanism since it commenced operations in July 2012. In this capacity, he has been involved in a variety of matters as a Single Judge, and as a member of the Appeals Chamber in the Karadžić case, among others.
Before his appointment to the Mechanism, Judge de Prada served as an international Judge in the Appellate Division of the Chamber for War Crimes of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, where he sat on the appeals of the Kovačević and the Stanković & Janković cases, among others. In his home country of Spain, Judge de Prada joined the judiciary in 1986, becoming a senior Judge in 1988 and a Judge of the Criminal Division of the National High Court of Spain (Sala de lo Penal de la Audiencia Nacional) in 1990, where he currently serves.
Separately, Judge de Prada is the Spanish member of the European Union’s Genocide Network, which enables cooperation between national authorities when investigating and prosecuting genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. He has also participated as an international expert in several cooperation programmes in Latin America, North Africa and the Sahel, and Eastern Europe for the improvement, strengthening and adaptation of domestic legal frameworks, judiciaries, and practices to international legal standards. Judge de Prada has lectured at institutions and universities in Spain and abroad, and published widely on international criminal law and the global protection of human rights. In 2007, Judge de Prada was awarded the Human Rights National Award of the Spanish Human Rights Association.
Judge de Prada holds a bachelor’s degree in law from Complutense University of Madrid, Spain (1980); a diploma from the International Institute of Human Rights, Strasbourg, France (1987); and a PhD in international criminal law from the Instituto Universitario Gutiérrez Mellado, Madrid, Spain (2011). He is fluent in English, French, and Spanish.