Nils Melzer

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Nils Melzer (* 1970 in Zurich ) is a Swiss legal scholar , diplomat and author and was appointed special rapporteur on torture by the United Nations Human Rights Council on November 1, 2016 .

Career history and previous roles

Melzer studied law at the University of Zurich . He teaches International Humanitarian Law at the University of Glasgow and the Academy for International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights in Geneva . As an author, he has written several works on the subject of international law. Before being appointed Special Rapporteur on Torture , he worked for twelve years at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) as a delegate, vice head of mission in various crisis areas and legal advisor.

Special Rapporteur on Torture

In December 2016 Melzer asked France , the Kazakh opposition leader Mukhtar Äbljasow not Russia extradite because it at a further delivery may threaten torture to Kazakhstan. Since then he has lived in exile in France .

Referral to and comments on the Julian Assange case

In May 2019, in his role as UN special rapporteur on torture, Melzer wrote a report on the investigative journalist and political activist Julian Assange.He visited him in London in the maximum security prison HM Prison Belmarsh and was in contact with one of the two witnesses of the Swedish criminal proceedings. In his report, Melzer and a team of doctors who examined Assange found that Assange had typical symptoms of long-term psychological torture ( white torture ). Then wrote Melzer end of June 2019 an article entitled Demasking the Torture of Julian Assange ( German  expose the torture Julian Assange ), which he vainly numerous prestigious print media in the US, UK and Australia offered for publication. He subsequently appealed to the British government not to extradite Assange to the United States or any other state that did not offer reliable guarantees against his transfer to the United States. In the United States, he faces up to 175 years in prison for multiple violations of the Espionage Act of 1917 .

On November 27, 2019, Melzer reported in a public hearing on the premises of the German Bundestag that he had been invited to a meeting at the Foreign Office the evening before. There, however, he was told that "my reports on the Assange case have still not been read and there is no time".

On January 31, 2020, Melzer gave the Swiss online magazine Republik an extensive interview on the Assange case, in which he noted the legal violations, delayed proceedings and misconduct of the countries involved so far: Ecuador , Great Britain , Sweden and the USA , which he had identified for almost ten years summarized. In his estimation, Sweden and Great Britain only wanted to "get their hands on him so that they could extradite him to the USA". The Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) considers Melzer's thesis of a politically motivated and deliberately delayed investigation into the rape allegations in Sweden to be justifiable in view of the numerous arguments put forward by Melzer. The unusual course of the proceedings and its long duration, manipulated evidence, certain personal ties and the refusal of the Swedish government to comment are, in the opinion of the NZZ, only indications and not stringent evidence . In the opinion of the legal scholar Tatjana Hörnle, Melzer's public evidence is insufficient for the serious allegations. Melzer rejected various statements from Hörnle. The woman who accused Assange of having sexually harassed her and with whom Melzer had direct contact, accused Melzer, among other things, of defining how a "real rape victim should behave, a" classic patriarchal technique " To pursue perpetrator-victim reversal , to slander them personally in his report and to have spread the untruth in some cases about the investigation, for example about Assange's willingness to testify about the incidents.

Nils Melzer fears that the persecution of Assange will create a chilling example for journalism. Instead of prosecuting the war crimes he exposed, he himself would be prosecuted. We are in serious danger of losing press freedom. Journalism would become espionage.

Honourings and prices

  • 2009: Paul Guggenheim Prize in International Law for Targeted Killing in International Law

Works (selection)

  • 2008: Targeted Killing in International Law , Oxford University Press
  • 2009: Interpretive Guidance on the Notion of Direct Participation in Hostilities under International Humanitarian Law , Geneva: ICRC
  • 2011: Cyberwarfare and International Law , Geneva: UNIDIR
  • 2012: Humanitarian International Law - An Introduction , together with Hans-Peter Gasser, 2nd edition (Zurich: Schulthess, 2012).
  • 2013: Tallinn Manual on the International Law Applicable to Cyber ​​Warfare , together with Michael N. Schmitt, Cambridge: University Press
  • 2016: International Humanitarian Law - a Comprehensive Introduction , Geneva: ICRC

See also

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Nils Melzer, practitioner, author. Prabook, accessed February 4, 2020
  2. ↑ UN lawyer Nils Melzer: The man who sees a victim of torture in Assange. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . February 6, 2020
  3. ↑ Original designation: Rapporteur on Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
  4. ^ Special rapporteur: Nils Melzer. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights , accessed February 4, 2020.
  5. ↑ a b Nils Melzer is applying as UN human rights commissioner. In: Aargauer Zeitung . July 25, 2018, accessed July 2, 2019.
  6. ^ Professor Nils Melzer, Professor in International Law. Presentation at the University of Glasgow , accessed February 4, 2020.
  7. ↑ UN Rapporteur Urges France Not To Extradite Kazakh Dissident Tycoon To Russia. Radio Free Europe , December 8, 2016 (English).
  8. ^ "Case shows serious grievances in Western democracies" , radio talk SRF.ch in Swiss German , February 24, 2020 (at 8:16 am)
  9. ↑ UN expert says "collective persecution" of Julian Assange must end now. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, May 31, 2019.
  10. ↑ Nils Melzer: Demasking the Torture of Julian Assange. In: Medium. June 26, 2019, accessed February 3, 2020 .
  11. ↑ Tearing off the mask of the torture of Julian Assange. In: NachDenkSeiten. July 8, 2019, accessed February 3, 2020 .
  12. ↑ New indictment in the USA: Julian Assange faces up to 175 years in prison. In: Spiegel Online. May 23, 2019, accessed May 24, 2019 .
  13. ^ Nils Melzer: State responsibility for the torture of Julian Assange. Address in the German Bundestag. In: Medium. November 27, 2019, accessed February 3, 2020 .
  14. ↑ Daniel Ryser and Yves Bachmann: «A murderous system is being created before our eyes». Interview with Nils Melzer. In: Republic . January 31, 2020, accessed February 3, 2020 .
  15. ↑ Was the procedure in Sweden politically motivated? In: Frankfurter Rundschau . February 5, 2020, accessed February 17, 2020.
  16. ↑ Sweden's Assange survey is no glory for the Nordic country. In: NZZ, February 4, 2020.
  17. ↑ Tatjana Hörnle : Julian Assange is an unreliable victim of a large conspiracy. NZZ, February 20, 2020
  18. ↑ Nils Melzer: Reply: A less credible criticism of the Assange case . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . ( nzz.ch [accessed on February 27, 2020]).
  19. ↑ Alleged Assange victim criticizes UN torture experts , Spiegel.de, March 6, 2020
  20. ↑ Freedom of the press in danger: Let's save Julian Assange , on: taz.de. Retrieved on 2020-05-16.
personal data
SURNAME Melzer, Nils
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss legal scholar and author
DATE OF BIRTH 1970
PLACE OF BIRTH Zurich