prof. dr. M.M.T.A. (Marcel) Brus
Marcel Brus was professor of Public International Law (2005-2026).
He designed and taught many courses covering almost the entire field of public international law, supervised numerous bachelor's and master's thesis, and developed the English language bachelorprogramme International and European Law and the masterprogrammes Public International Law and International Human Rights Law. His research focuses on fundamental questions related to the development of the international legal order from an order predominantly focused on state interests into a legal order in which community interests and values play a central role. This is particularly visible in fundamental human rights norms, environmental and climate law and in the area of peace and security.
Within the Groningen Faculty of Law he had various administrative roles, including as chair of the department of International Law and later as chair and board member of the department of Transboundary Legal Sudies; as director of the research programmes Energy and Sustyainability (with Prof. M. Roggenkamp) and Transboundary Legal Studies (with Prof Westerman); as academic director of the bachelor programme International and European Law and of the masterprogrammes Public International Law and International Human Rights Law; and as member of the Science Review and Ethics Committee (CWB).
From 2016-2021 he also was chair of the Department of Social Sciences at the University College Groningen (liberal arts and sciences) and where he taught courses in public international law.
Before his appointment in 2005 in Groningen, he was (senior) lecturer in public international law at Leiden University, where he started his academic career in 1986 as Ph.D. researcher. He graduated from the University of Groningen in 1984 with a specialisation in international law. After graduation he participated in various postgraduate courses, among others at the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague and at the Netherlands Institute for International Relations “Clingendael” in The Hague. In 1995 he defended his doctoral thesis “Third party dispute settlement in an interdependent world; developing a theoretical framework” cum laude at Leiden University. The doctoral thesis was awarded the Erasmus study prize by the Stichting Praemium Erasmianum and the Ruigrok Prijs by the Koninklijke Hollandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschappen.
Between 1997 and 2002 he taught part time at Oxford University when he combined his post at Leiden University with the joint Leiden-Oxford Post in Public International Law. During that time he also was research co-ordinator of the E.M. Meijers Institute of Legal Studies of the Leiden Law Faculty.
Currently he is a member of the editorial board of the Netherlands International Law Review. He was editor-in-chief and a member of the editorial board of the Leiden Journal of International Law (1989-2009) and of the Netherlands Yearbook of International Law (1998-2008).
From 2001-2013 he was a member (and in 2012-13 the chair) of the Advisory Committee on Questions of Public International Law (CAVV), advising the Dutch Government and Parliament.
From 2012-2019 he was Director of Studies of the International Law Association (ILA), and from 2003 to 2017 (from 2003-2012 as Honorary Secretary) board member of the Royal Netherlands Society of International Law.