Expertise Areas

Climate Change Law; International Environmental Law; Sustainable Development Law; Economic Law

Brief Bio

Prof Oliver C. Ruppel specialises in International Economic Law, Sustainable Development Law and Environmental Law. He is currently the Director of the Research Center for Climate Law [ClimLaw: Graz] at the Faculty of Law, University of Graz, Austria.

Oliver C. Ruppel is also a Professor of Law at Stellenbosch University (South Africa) where he also established the Development and Rule of Law Programme (DROP) in 2012. At DROP the special emphasis lies on the linkage between law and development, focusing on reconciling the tensions between environmental sustainability, economic growth and human welfare. Before joining the Faculty of Law in 2011 he held one of the worldwide 14 founding academic chairs of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Geneva (Switzerland), which he established at the University of Namibia, Windhoek, where he had previously also served as Director of the Human Rights and Documentation Centre (HRDC), a national institute established by statute under the Namibian Ministry of Justice.

Since 2012 Prof Ruppel is the Director of the Development and Rule of Law Programme (DROP), hosted by the Water Institute at Stellenbosch University. He is a Distinguished Fellow at the Fraunhofer Centre for International Management and Knowledge Economy (IMW), Leipzig (Germany); and a Professor Extraordinaire at various institutions around the world, including Strathmore Law School, Nairobi (Kenya); the Catholic University of Central Africa, Yaoundé (Cameroon); and the European Faculty of Law, Ljubljana (Slovenia).

Prof Ruppel is an International Arbitrator with the Association of Arbitrators of Southern Africa and the Swiss Chamber for Commercial Mediation. He is a member of the International Conservations Union (IUCN) World Commission (WCEL); the Society of International Economic Law (SIEL); the Association for International Law (ILA); the Wildlife Justice Commission, The Hague (Netherlands); the Sahel Consortium (USA); the German African Law Association (Gesellschaft für Afrikanisches Recht); and the United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP) Association of Environmental Law Lecturers in African Universities (ASSELLAU). He serves on various editorial boards such as the University of Namibia Law Review; the International Yearbook on Soil Law and Policy, Springer; the Journal of African Foreign Affairs; the Legal Series on Law and Constitution in Africa, Nomos; and the Nigerian Journal of Environmental Law. He is a standing member of the Scholarship Programme of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), where he was Coordinating Lead Author (CLA) for Africa in the 5^th Assessment of Working Group II. During the past years Prof Ruppel was seconded to the German Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS), where in 2016 he established the Climate Policy and Energy Security Programme for sub-Saharan Africa, funded by the German Ministry for Development Cooperation.

Prof. Ruppel had serves as the director of the newly created Climate Change Policy and Energy Security Programme for Sub-Saharan Africa of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation (KAS), for which he has set up a regional satellite office in Yaoundé (Cameroon) in 2016. This regional office closely cooperates with the 14 KAS country offices in Sub-Saharan Africa (Cote d’Ivoire, DRC, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Namibia, Angola, Nigeria, Senegal, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda).

Prof. Ruppel was a Non-resident Fellow at the Fraunhofer Center for International Management and Knowledge Economy IMW, Leipzig. He is also a regular visiting Professor at various African Universities (University of Namibia, Strathmore Law School, Nairobi (Kenya), Catholic University of Central Africa, Yaoundé (Cameroon) and held a Professorship for African Studies at the Munich School for Philosophy S.J. until 2011. In 2009, he established one of the worldwide 14 founding academic chairs of the World Trade Organization (WTO), Geneva (Switzerland) at the University of Namibia, Windhoek, where he had previously also served as Director of the Human Rights and Documentation Centre, a national institute established by statute under the Namibian Ministry of Justice.

Publications (Weblink only), if any:

• https://online.uni-graz.at/kfu_online/wbForschungsportal.cbShowPortal?pFpFospNr=&pOrgNr=&pPersonNr=129455&pMode=E&pLevel=PERS&pCallType=PUB
• https://www.imw.fraunhofer.de/en/institute/staff/oliver-ruppel.html