Prof. Dr Liesbeth Lijnzaad

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Dr Liesbeth Lijnzaad is a judge at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (since 2017). She is a member of the Seabed Disputes Chamber, the Chamber for Summary Procedures as well as the Chamber for Maritime Delimitation Disputes of the Tribunal. She is a Member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, and a conciliator and arbitrator under Annexes V and VII of the Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Previously, she was the principal Legal Advisor on Public International Law at the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and head of its international law department (2006-2017). In her capacity as government lawyer, Lijnzaad has been active in many fora, and has accumulated a wide range of experience in the practice of international law. As Legal Advisor she participated in the 6th Committee of the UN General Assembly, as well as the EU’s working group on Public International Law (COJUR) and the Comité Ad Hoc de Droit International (CAHDI) of the Council of Europe, both of which she has also chaired.

She has acted as Agent for the Netherlands in cases before the International Court of Justice, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, the Permanent Court of Arbitration, the International Criminal Court, as well as the US Supreme Court.

Dr Liesbeth Lijnzaad is also endowed Professor Practice of International Law at Maastricht University (since 2011). She is an occasional lecturer at the Dutch Academy for Government Lawyers (Academie voor Overheidsjuristen), at IBRU (the International Boundary Research Unit, University of Durham) and the Graduate Institute in Geneva (IHEID, Institut de Hautes Études Internationales et du Développement). Her research interests are amongst others the Law of the Sea, the Laws of Armed Conflict, the Law of Treaties and the Sources of International Law.