André Nollkaemper is University Professor of International Law and Sustainability, as of 1 January 1, 2024. Untill then he is Professor of International Law and Dean of the Amsterdam Law School.
As University Professor of International Law and Sustainability, André Nollkaemper leads the agenda of the University of Amsterdam to advance knowledge on climate change and, more generally, sustainability. He explores the role of international law in the system transition needed to limit climate change and the crossing of planetary boundaries. He works with scientists from other disciplines, both inside and outside the UvA, and with social partners to develop new ideas and insights for a more sustainable future.
André Nollkaemper leads the UvA Sustainability Platform, an UvA wide interdisciplinary community for forging knowledge across discplines on sustainability challenges.
Since 2017, he is assciate of the Institut du Droit International , where he is a member ofthe Committees on Harm Prevention Rules Applicable to the Global Commons and Distributive Justice and Sustainable Development.
In 2012 he was elected as life-long Member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences., where he is a member of the Committee on the Freedom of Scientific Pursuit.
Between 2010 and 2020 he was external Legal Advisor to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands. He also was Member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration (2014-2020) and President of the European Society of International Law (2014-207), His practical experience includes cases before the European Court on Human Rights, the Special Court for Sierra Leone, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, courts of the Netherlands and consultancy for a variety of international and national organisations. From 1998 to 2010 he was of-counsel at Bohler, attorneys in Amsterdam.
Andre Nollkaemper obtained his PhD from Utrecht University in 1993 on the legal regulation of pollution of international watercourses. Since then, he has conducted research on a wide diversity of questions of international law and sustainability, including protection of the oceans, liability for climate change, protection of endangered species and habitats, and international animal welfare regulation.
Cutting across such individual sustainability problems, much of his work has been directed to general problems of international law and regulation. His work on shared responsibility he has explored how international law does, and can provide a basis for sharing of responsibility between multiple actors (states, international institutions, private actors and individuals) who contribute to climate change and other forms of harm to the global environment. . Drawing from adjacent disciplines, he identified the limits of the prevailing paradigms pertaining to international responsibility and supplemented them with the new perspective of shared responsibility. This work culminated in the 2020 Guiding Principles on Shared Responsibility in International Law. A variety of projects building on the 2020 Guidelines is ongoing.
In relation to regulation and governance of global practices that pose sustainability problems, he has worked amongs others on smart mixes for transboundary environmental harm, the precuationary principle, and the rule of law law quality of international institutions.
Of continuting relevance for governance of glonal sustainability challenges is hiw work on interactions between international and national law. Nollkaemper developed International Law in Domestic Courts (ILDC), a unique database with Oxford UP compiling hitherto unavailable data. Under Nollkaemper’s leadership, ILDC comprises reporters in over 100 states and has produced over 3,000 reports that relate to many aspect of law and governance of sustainability. He led several international research groups that used these data and he synthesized the findings in his 2011 monograph on national courts and the international rule of law.
Shared Responsibility in International Law: A Conceptual Framework,34 Michigan Journal of International Law (2013), 359-438 (with D Jacobs)
Political Economy and the Responsibility of States: The Problem of Many Hands in International Law, in A. Fabbricotti (Ed.), The political economy of international law: a European perspective, Edward Elgar (2016), 278-307