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Biography
DPhil (Oxf), LLM (NYU) LLM LLB (Athens)
Antonios is Associate Professor of Public International Law at the Faculty of Law and Fellow in Law at St Anne's College. He has taught as a visitor at the Universities of Paris (Paris X – Nanterre), Angers, London (King's College), Athens (National and Kapodistrian), Bern (World Trade Institute), Jerusalem (Hebrew University), at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) in Herzliya, and at the China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing. He was previously lecturer in international law at University College London and at the University of Glasgow. Antonios has also delivered a special course at the Xiamen Academy of International Law in 2017 and has been invited by the Curatorium of The Hague Academy of International Law to serve as Director of Studies in 2021.
Antonios studied law in Athens, New York, and Oxford, during which time he also worked as a Researcher for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Greece in Athens and New York and for the UN Office in Geneva, and as a Graduate Teaching Assistant for the Faculty of Law at Oxford.
Antonios is a general international lawyer and has published in a number of areas reflecting his varied research interests. His books include Disobeying the Security Council (OUP 2011, re-issued in paperback with a new introduction 2013); The Settlement of International Disputes (Hart 2012, co-edited with CJ Tams); The UN Convention on Jurisdictional Immunities of States and their Property (OUP 2013, edited by R O'Keefe and CJ Tams, ass't ed) and the Research Handbook on the Law of Treaties (Elgar 2014, co-edited with CJ Tams and A Zimmermann, and re-issued in paperback 2016). He has also published in the fields of the law of the sea, international investment law, and others.
Antonios advises states, international organizations, and other actors on matters of public international law from Three Stone Chambers in Lincoln's Inn. He has acted as counsel, advisor, or assistant to counsel, and has provided expert opinions in a number of cases before international and domestic courts and tribunals, including the International Court of Justice, EU courts, the European Court of Human Rights, ad hoc and ICSID arbitral tribunals, and the courts of England and Wales. He has also provided training in international law to domestic judges, as well as diplomats, military officers, and other government officials. Between 2017 and 2020 he served as a member of the Scientific Council of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Greece.
Antonios is the Secretary-General of the International Law Association and the Joint Secretary of its British Branch; and member of the editorial board of Oxford Reports on International Law in Domestic Courts. He served as the Co-Rapporteur of the ILA Study Group on Principles of Engagement of Domestic Courts with International Law (2011-2016), and was contributing editor of EJIL: Talk! (the blog of the European Journal of International Law) 2014-2016.
Some of his public lectures can be found online; video-lectures for the United Nations Audiovisual Library of International Law, the Hellenic Society of International Law (in Greek), and the Université Grenoble II (in French) are available here (UN / EN), here (GR), and here (FR). You can follow Antonios on Twitter.
Publications
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C Musto and A Tzanakopoulos, 'The International Court of Justice and "Progressive Causes"' in A Skordas (ed), Research Handbook on the International Court of Justice (Edward Elgar 2020) (forthcoming) In this chapter we consider whether the International Court of Justice (‘ICJ’ or ‘the Court’) has developed its judicial policy so as to embrace ‘progressive causes’. We investigate how the Court responds when faced with proceedings involving divisive issues of interest to the international community as a whole and how such causes reach the Court. We assess whether the Court’s handling of proceedings involving such causes has evolved over time and whether the Court should be viewed as a ‘progressive’ or a ‘conservative’ institution (and whether such categorisation is helpful).A Tzanakopoulos, 'We Who Are Not as Others: Sanctions and (Global) Security Governance' in R Geiß and N Melzer (eds), The Oxford Handbook on the International Law of Global Security (Oxford University Press 2020) (forthcoming) This paper deals with sanctions as a (global) security governance tool. It discusses the terms of the debate—the meaning of sanctions and (global) security and then traces the historical trajectory in the use of collective and unilateral sanctions in the service of security. The argument is that global security is nothing but national security projected unto the international plane. When a hegemonic concept of security, that is to say, of the existential threats ‘we’ need to protect against is imposed and accepted, and for as long as it is accepted, collective sanctions rule supreme, and can be particularly effective (but also destructive). When there is fragmentation and antagonism as to what the threats are, when there is no hegemonic national security accepted as synonymous to international security, there is a return to unilateral sanctions and a concomitant side-lining of collective security mechanisms.A Tzanakopoulos, 'Les sanctions extraterritoriales : Les réactions des États affectés' in Société française pour le droit international (ed), Extraterritorialités et droit international – Colloque d’Angers (Pedone 2020) (forthcoming) French abstract: Cette étude très brève examinera les réactions des Etats « affectés » par les sanctions extraterritoriales. Plus précisément, elle examinera les réactions des Etats « directement ciblés » par les sanctions extraterritoriales, et non les Etats tiers affectés. Je discuterai du fait que les sanctions (viz., les contre-mesures) extraterritoriales ne sont utilisées que comme une alternative aux sanctions collectives, notamment les sanctions que le Conseil de sécurité a le pouvoir d’imposer au titre du chapitre VII de la Charte des Nations Unies, et plus précisément au titre de l’article 41. J’analyserai, d'après, la légalité des sanctions extraterritoriales. Enfin, j’examinerai brièvement les possibilités pour l’Etat ciblé de réagir aux sanctions illicites, qui ne sont, en réalité, rien d’autre que les possibilités offertes à tout Etat lésé par un fait internationalement illicite. English abstract: This brief paper, based on a presentation at the Annual Meeting of the French Society of International Law in 2019, discusses the reactions of states that have been directly targeted by extra-territorial sanctions to such sanctions. It explains that unilateral extraterritorial sanctions are essentially used as an alternative to collective sanctions, esp. those imposed by the Security Council under Article 41 of the UN Charter. The legality of such unilateral extraterritorial sanctions is assessed, and the possibilities of reaction by directly targeted states is discussed. These are but the possibilities that exist for every state that is injured by an internationally wrongful act.