Hans-Peter Kaul

Hans-Peter Kaul (25 July 1943 – 21 July 2014) was a German international law scholar and former diplomat and lawyer. From 11 March 2003 until 1 July 2014, he served as Judge at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. At the ICC, Kaul was President of the Pre-Trial Division from 2004 until March 2009 and again in 2014, and he was the Court's Second Vice-President from 2009 to 2012. In 2014, he resigned from the ICC for health reasons but his condition became worse and he died on 21 July 2014.

Early life and education Kaul was born on 25 July 1943 in Glashütte, Saxony. He spent part of his childhood in Glashütte and Zwickau, Saxony, in East-Germany, then Soviet occupation zone. In 1952, he fled with his parents to West-Germany.

After his military duty from 1963 to 1967, reaching the rank of captain, he studied law at Heidelberg University, where he completed his First State Examination in 1971. He then attended the École Nationale d'Administration in Paris from 1972 to 1973. He passed his Second State Examination in Law (equivalent to admission to the bar in the US) in Heidelberg in 1975.

Kaul joined the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law at Heidelberg from 1973 to 1975, as a research assistant to Prof. Dr. Hermann Mosler (who later was, from 1976 to 1985, judge at the International Court of Justice in The Hague). In 1974, Kaul attended The Hague Academy of International Law.

Career In 1975, Kaul entered the German diplomatic service. and then re-elected in 2006 for a second term of nine years.

Activities Judge Kaul published extensively on the topic of public international law in general, international criminal law and the crime of aggression in particular. (b. 1920) and Whitney R. Harris (1912–2010). It is widely recognized that without his leadership, the crime of aggression would not have been included in the list of international crimes set out in the Rome Statute of the ICC.

After a long professional life as a diplomat, international lawyer, and since 2003 as a judge of the International Criminal Court, Judge Kaul reaffirmed many times that aggressive war-making, the “supreme international crime” according to the Nuremberg Judgement, and the use of illegal armed force inevitably lead, time and again, to mass atrocities. Judge Kaul strongly believed that there can be no successful prevention of war crimes and crimes against humanity without the effective criminalization and prosecution of aggressive war-making.

On 3 June 2013, Judge Kaul was invited by German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle to take part in the depositing of the German instrument of ratification with regard to the Kampala amendments on the crime of aggression at the Office of Legal Affairs of the United Nations.

Judge Kaul was a member of the advisory board of the Global Institute for the Prevention of Aggression (from June 2012).

He was a member of the Presidency of the United Nations Association of Germany.

Judge Kaul gave over 130 speeches, lectures and interviews (print media, radio and television) on the International Criminal Court, international humanitarian law, international criminal law and the crime of aggression in Germany, Western and Eastern Europe, Russia, the United States, Brazil, Chile, Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, China, Japan, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

In May 2006, he was awarded the Integration Prize by the Foundation Apfelbaum, Cologne, and in November 2008, he received the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws, Faculty of Law of the University of Cologne.