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Call (admitted to the Rome Bar): 2001 Silk (admitted to appear before higher jurisdictions): 2013

Professor Andrea Saccucci is an internationally acknowledged practitioner and academic with special expertise in human rights, public international law, EU law, extradition, immigration law, and international arbitrations. He qualified as an attorney in Italy in 2001 where he was called to the Rome Bar in 2002. As from 2013, he is qualified to appear before higher jurisdictions (as the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court and the Council of State).

Andrea Saccucci’s records in human rights litigation are particularly remarkable. He has been instructed in hundreds of cases before national and international judicial and quasi-judicial bodies in many different areas (such as extradition, fair trial in civil and criminal proceedings, detainees’ rights, refugee rights, property rights, immigration law and statelessness, discrimination, freedom of expression and association, etc.).

In his capacity as a human rights lawyer with an established experience in the field of criminal matters, Andrea Saccucci has been involved in some among the most high-profile and politically sensitive judicial cases brought before European Courts or other international human rights bodies over the last decade. Notably, he represented or still represents before the European Court of Human Rights a number of former Italian Ministers, Members of Parliament and politicians, including former Prime Ministers and Heads of State. He has also acted as counsel or co-counsel in many landmark cases before the Grand Chamber of the European Court, such as Hirsi Jamaa and others v. Italy [GC], 23 February 2012, concerning the Italian push-backs to Libya of sea migrants of African origin, G.I.E.M. and others v. Italy [GC], 28 June 2018, concerning the confiscation of properties in the absence of a formal conviction, and Berlusconi v. Italy [GC], 27 November 2018, concerning the stripping of parliamentary mandate.

Andrea Saccucci developed an unrivalled experience in dealing with mass human rights claims process before domestic and international courts, notably before the European Court of Human Rights. He brought several collective actions for “systemic human rights violations” (concerning for examples blood infected products, detention conditions, employment disputes, environmental disasters or vast scale water pollution), which, in some cases, lead to the adoption of a pilot judgment (such as, for instance, Kuric and others v. Slovenia [GC], 26 June 2012, concerning the erasure of over 25.000 former Yugoslav nationals form the register of permanent residents of Slovenia in 1992).

Andrea Saccucci has also acted as counsel in several international law and transnational disputes, national and international arbitrations (including ICSID and UNCITRAL), recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments and arbitral awards, internet defamation disputes, immigration and extradition. He has been instructed also by Governments to act in extradition proceedings before national courts and he appeared several times as an expert before UK courts in extradition matters.

Andrea Saccucci is a member of the International Bar Association and of the Human Rights Institute of the IBA, of the Board of the Unione forense per la tutela dei diritti umani, of the International Institute of Humanitarian Law of San Remo, of the Italian Society of International Law, of the Human Rights Group of the National Bar, of the Global Justice Forum and of the European Network on Statelessness

Since 2000, he carried out over 30 missions as an expert of the Council of Europe, of the European Union and of the OSCE in many European States (especially, the Balkans and Eastern Europe).

In 2012, he received from PILnet (The Global Network for Public Interest Law) the European Pro Bono Award for Exemplary Partnership in the Public Interest, together with the Peace Institute of Ljubljana, for the team’s exceptional efforts on behalf of the erased people of Slovenia.

In 2018, he received the Top Legal Award for international litigation.

Academic profile

In addition to practice as a lawyer, Andrea Saccucci also has a solid academic background. He received a PhD in Human Rights from the University of Palermo in 2002 and since then he has been lecturing international law and human rights law in different universities both in Italy and abroad. Currently, he is Associate Professor of International Law at the University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli” an in 2018 he qualified as full professor of law. He is also Adjunct Professor of Human Rights at the Catholic University of Milan and Adjunct Professor of International Law at the LUMSA University of Rome. In addition, he teaches International Human Rights Law in several Master courses and training courses organized by the Bar and the School of Magistrates.

He was a Visiting Scholar at the Law School of the Columbia University of New York in 2006 and, ever since, he cooperated with the Human Rights Clinic and the Human Rights Institute. He was Visiting Professor at the Law Faculty of the State University of Tirana in 2014.

Andrea Saccucci is the author of many publications in the field of international law and human rights; he is editor-in-chief of the review I diritti dell’uomo, cronache e battaglie, as well as member of the editorial board of the review Diritti umani e diritto internazionale.

Publications

Articles and books include the following:

La responsabilità internazionale dello Stato per violazioni strutturali dei diritti umani, Napoli, 2018.

• Il divieto di espulsioni collettive di stranieri in situazioni di emergenza migratoria, in Diritti umani e diritto internazionale, 2018, p. 29 ss.

• La giurisdizione esclusiva dello Stato della bandiera sulle imbarcazioni impregnate in operazioni di soccorso umanitario in alto mare: il caso della Iuventa, in Rivista di diritto internazionale, 2018, p. 223 ss.

• The Protection from Removal to Unsafe Countries Under the ECHR: Not All That Glitters Is Gold, in Questions of International Law, 2014, p. 3 ss.

• Art. 34, in Commentario breve alla Convenzione europea dei diritti umani, a cura di S. Bartole, P. De Sena, V. Zagrebelsky, Padova, 2012, p. 626 ss.

• L’entrata in vigore del Protocollo n. 14 e le nuove regole procedurali per la sua applicazione, in Diritti umani e diritto internazionale, 2010, p. 319 ss.

• La protezione dell’ambiente nella giurisprudenza della Corte europea dei diritti umani, in La tutela dei diritti umani in Europa, a cura di G. Cataldi, A. Caligiuri, N. Napolitano, Padova, 2010, p. 392 ss.

• Divieto di tortura ed esigenze di sicurezza: verso una flessione al ribasso degli obblighi internazionali?, in Diritti umani e diritto internazionale, 2009, p. 5 ss.

• Fond du litige et indication de mesures conservatoires: réflexions en marge des ordonnances de la C.I.J. dans l’affaire des usines de pâte à papier, in Revue générale de droit international public, 2008, p. 795 ss.

• Le misure provvisorie nella protezione internazionale dei diritti umani, Giappichelli, Torino, 2006

• Profili di tutela dei diritti umani tra Nazioni Unite e Consiglio d’Europa, CEDAM, Padova, 2005

• The Italian 2005 anti-terrorism legislation in light of international human rights obligations, in Italian Yearbook of International Law, 2005, p. 167 ss.

• L’abolizione della pena di morte in tempo di guerra nel Protocollo n. 13 alla Convenzione europea, in I diritti dell’uomo, cronache e battaglie, 2004, n. 3, p. 37 ss.

• Codice dei diritti dell’uomo, a cura di G. Conso e A. Saccucci, CEDAM, Padova, 2001

• Nato’s bombing in Yugoslavia under international scrutiny: issues of jurisdiction and procedure before the ICJ, in Italian Yearbook of International Law, 2000, p. 181 ss.