DePaul University College of Law Professor Brian Havel has been named vice president of the university’s International Human Rights Law Institute, and attorney Andrew J. Michels has been appointed its new executive director.

The institute was established by the DePaul College of Law in 1990 and has earned a global reputation for its work in investigating violations of international humanitarian law in the former Yugoslavia; in helping to establish the International Criminal Court; for documenting human rights violations throughout the Americas; and most recently for spearheading the world’s leading international study on the trafficking of women and children for sexual exploitation.

“The appointments of Professor Havel and Mr. Michels are intended to launch the institute into its second decade as one of the world’s leading centers for the study and promotion of international human rights and international criminal justice,” said M. Cherif Bassiouni, president of the institute. Bassiouni’s work to establish the International Criminal Court earned him a Nobel Peace Prize nomination in 1999.

Havel earned master’s degrees in international law and linguistics from the National University of Ireland and the University of Dublin; a J.S.D. from Columbia University; and a diploma in international human rights from the René Cassin Institute of Human Rights of the University of Strasbourg in France.

A leading authority in global governance and national aviation law, Havel joined DePaul’s law faculty in 1994. He has written extensively on the constitutionality of supranational tribunals, such as the World Trade Organization dispute settlement panels, and on the role of armed neutrality in the modern era.

As vice president, Havel will be responsible for the institute’s academic programs, including its Sullivan Fellowship Program, named in honor of human rights advocates Jeanne and Joseph Sullivan. The program annually trains ten DePaul law students for future leadership roles in the international human rights advocacy community. Havel also will work on a new institute project on “transitional justice,” which will examine ways in which states deal with their pasts through such mechanisms as the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission and international criminal accountability.

Joining Havel as a new officer of the institute, Michels brings a wealth of experience as a peacekeeping administrator with numerous United Nations missions. Since 1993, he has served as a U.N. administrator on missions in Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Bosnia and Kosovo.

His work has included refugee protection and repatriation, election supervision and property restitution. Most recently, he served as president of the Registration Appeals Commission of the U.N. Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo, overseeing appeals from persons who have been denied residency status in Kosovo. As part of his U.N. duties, Michels has developed a special expertise in the post-conflict restoration of legal norms and civil order. His advice is widely sought within the U.N. peacekeeping framework.

Michels earned an undergraduate degree in political science from Loyola Marymount College in Los Angeles and a law degree from the University of Southern California School of Law. He also is a graduate of the prestigious United Nations University International Leadership Academy and the Hague Academy of International Law in the Netherlands.

As executive director, Michels will be responsible for the institute’s administration, grant and fundraising activities and its community outreach efforts. He also will oversee all of the institute’s programs and activities and lend his expertise to several research projects.

In addition, he will serve as an adjunct professor in the College of Law, and will teach in the areas of public international law, international protection of human rights and international organizations.