Martin Scheinin

Who is Martin Scheinin?

Martin Scheinin was the first United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism. He was selected for this position after serving for eight years as member of the United Nations Human Rights Committee, the independent expert body monitoring states' compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. While on the Committee, he was known as a defendant of the rights of minorities and indigenous peoples and opponent of capital punishment, as well as the drafter of the Committee's General Comment No. 29 on states of emergency.

Today he is a Professor of Public International Law at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, and an expert of international law, human rights and constitutional law. In December 2010 Scheinin was elected President of the International Association of Constitutional Law.