Remembering Vera Gowlland-Debbas

Vera was Honorary Professor of Public International Law at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, and had been a Visiting Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford, and a Visiting Professor at Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Université Paris II, and the University of California at Berkeley.

For several years, Vera would travel from Geneva to teach LLM students at UCL Laws, and was a leading expert on United Nations law, Security Council sanctions, State and international organisation responsibility, treaty law, international dispute settlement, human rights and refugee law.

Vera also participated in many international law events at UCL, including the International Law Association seminars hosted by the Faculty.

Reader in Law at UCL Laws, Ralph Wilde, who worked closely with Vera said: “Vera was a much-valued friend and mentor, and we collaborated in many activities.

“Vera combined superlative intellectual work with important engagements in both legal practice and institutionally, and made an immense contribution to the international academy through leadership and service on national, regional and international research institutes, associations and journals.

“She was brilliant, kind, and fearless. Many of us are in the debt of this remarkable woman who made the world a better place. Her memory will live on in her work, and in those of us who are inspired to be better so as to be worthy of having had her in our lives.”

Read more tributes to Professor Gowlland-Debbas:

• ‘In Memoriam: Vera Gowlland-Debbas’, Graduate Institute Geneva
• ‘In Memoriam: Vera Gowlland-Debbas’, European Society of International Law