Christof Heyns

Christof Heyns is Professor of Human Rights Law at the University of Pretoria and Director of its Institute for International and Comparative Law in Africa. He also teaches human rights at Oxford University and is a member of the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Committee, the independent expert body that monitors implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Professor Heyns is recognized internationally as a leading expert in the field of international human rights law, including on right to life issues and regional human rights mechanisms, and has published widely on these matters.

From 2010 to 2016, he was UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions. He led the drafting the following international law instruments: the Minnesota Protocol on the investigation of potentially unlawful death (2016); UN human rights guidance on the use of less-lethal weapons in law enforcement (2020); the UN Human Rights Committee’s General Comment 37 on the right of peaceful assembly (2020); and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights General Comment 3 on the right to life (2015).

Professor Heyns was formerly Director of the Centre for Human Rights in the Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria, as well as Dean of that Faculty.