Andreas Zimmermann elected President of the OSCE Court of Conciliation and Arbitration

Andreas Zimmermann of Germany was elected as the new President of the OSCE Court of Conciliation and Arbitration on 13 November 2025 for a six-year term. The election was conducted  by the members of the Court, who were appointed by the States parties to the Convention on Conciliation and Arbitration within the OSCE. Zimmermann succeeds Emmanuel Decaux who held the position from 2019 until October 2025.

Zimmermann is Professor of International and European Law at the University of Potsdam (Germany) and Director of the Potsdam Centre of Human Rights. He is currently Dean of the Faculty of Law, University of Potsdam. Prior to joining Potsdam University, he was Director of the Walther-Schücking-Institute of International Law at the University of Kiel and a research fellow at the Max-Planck-Institute of International Law, University of Heidelberg.

He has also held visiting professorships at the University of Michigan (United States), Copenhagen (Denmark), Tartu (Estonia), the University of Johannesburg (RSA), Hebrew University (Israel) Bir Zeit University (Palestine), the Hague Academy of International Law, the Sorbonne Abu Dhabi (UAE), as well as part of the United Nations International Law Fellowship Programme.

In addition to his academic career, Zimmermann has acted as counsel in several cases and advisory proceedings before the International Court of Justice and other interstate proceedings. He has been a member and legal adviser of the German delegation to the Preparatory Committee and the United Nations Diplomatic Conference on the Establishment of the International Criminal Court (1996-1998). He was also judge ad hoc in cases before the European Court of Human Rights. From 2018 until 2020, he was a member of the United Nations Human Rights Committee.

Zimmermann is a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration and a conciliator under the Annex to the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. He also serves on the Advisory Board on International Law at the German Federal Foreign Office and on the German Red Cross Committee on International Humanitarian Law.

He studied law at the Eberhard-Karls-University of Tübingen as well as at Université Aix-en-Provence. He has earned a Dr. jur. from the University of Heidelberg, as well as an LL.M. from Harvard Law School and his Habilitation from the University of Heidelberg.

In parallel to electing a new president, members of the Court also elected the following members to the Court’s Bureau: Frédérique Coulée (France), Marja Lehto (Finland), Outi Korhonen (Finland), Manuel Jorge Mayer de Almeida Ribeiro (Portugal), Martins Paparinskis (Latvia), Marc Perrin de Brichambaut (France), Zinovia-Chaido Stavridi (Greece), Verica Trstenjak (Slovenia).

The Bureau is the Court’s executive body and consists of the President, four members (including the Vice-President) and four alternate members.

The elections of the President of the Court and the Bureau members were carried out in a written procedure, with electronic voting, in line with provisions set forth by Article 9(3)(4) of the Rules of Procedure of the Court. The election process generated great interest among the appointed members who are entitled to cast a vote, resulting in a participation rate of 67.27%.

The OSCE Court of Conciliation and Arbitration is based in Geneva. It was established in 1995 by the Convention on Conciliation and Arbitration as a mechanism for the peaceful settlement of disputes in accordance with international law and the OSCE commitments of the parties. Thirty-four states have now ratified the Convention. Sweden is the Depositary State of the Convention.