Christof Heyns is a Professor of Human Rights Law at the University of Pretoria and a member of the United Nations Human Rights Committee. He is a member of the Working Group of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Death Penalty, Extra-judicial, Summary or Arbitrary Killings and Enforced Disappearances. He served as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions 2010 – 2016. He chaired the UN Independent Investigations on Burundi in 2016. He also teaches at the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights. He has published widely in the field of international human rights law, including the book The Impact of the United Nations Human Rights Treaties on the Domestic Level (with Frans Viljoen) and especially on human rights law in Africa. He has received Fulbright Fellowships to Yale and to Harvard Law Schools and a Humboldt Fellowship to Heidelberg, as well as the University of Pretoria’s Chancellor’s Award for Teaching and Learning.
