Mark Ellis

Guest Author

As Executive Director of the International Bar Association (IBA), Mark Ellis (LinkedIn) leads the foremost international organisation of bar associations, law firms, and individual lawyers.

Prior to joining the IBA, he spent ten years as the first Executive Director of the Central European and Eurasian Law Initiative (CEELI), a project of the American Bar Association (ABA). Providing technical legal assistance to twenty-eight countries in Central Europe and the former Soviet Union and to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, CEELI remains one of the most extensive international pro bono legal assistance projects ever undertaken by the US legal community.

Mark served as Legal Advisor to the Independent International Commission on Kosovo, chaired by Justice Richard J Goldstone and was appointed by OSCE to advise on the creation of Serbia’s War Crimes Tribunal. He was actively involved with the ICTY Tadic case and the Iraqi High Tribunal; he also acted as legal consultant to the defense team of Nuon Chea at the Cambodian War Crimes Tribunal (ECCC). He is leading the IBA’s assistance to Ukraine.

In 2000, Dr Ellis was appointed Chair of the ICTY Advisory Panel. In 2013, he was admitted to the List of Assistants to Counsel of the International Criminal Court. In 2015, he also served as Chair of the UN-created Advisory Panel on Matters Relating to Defence Counsel of the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (previously to the ICTY and ICTR). Dr Ellis was a long-time consultant to the World Bank on investment policies in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. He was an Adjunct Professor at the Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law, and is presently an Adjunct Professor at Florida State University College of Law. Twice a Fulbright Scholar at the Economic Institute in Zagreb, Croatia, he earned his J.D. and B.S. (Economics) degrees from Florida State University and his PhD in Law from King’s College, London.

Dr Ellis is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations and serves on a number of boards, including the DLA Piper ‘New Perimeter’ pro bono project, the Leiden University ICC Moot Court Competition, South African Litigation Center (SALC), the Robert F Kennedy Human Rights UK, the Advisory Committee of the Lloyd N Cutler Center for the Rule of Law, the Magnitsky Award Selection Committee, the Ukrainian Bar Association Human Rights Institute, and Chairman of The CEELI Institute. He serves on the editorial board for The Hague Journal on the Rule of Law. Dr Ellis is licensed as a foreign lawyer in Ukraine and is member of the Advisory Council of the National School of Judges of Ukraine. Mark is the co-recipient of the American Bar Association’s World Order Under Law Award, the La Roche College Pacem in Terris Award, the recipient of Florida State University’s Distinguished Graduate Award and Torch Award, and the University’s College of Social Sciences & Public Policy Distinguished Alumni Award as well as the College of Law’s Distinguished Alumni Award. He was awarded the Degree of Doctors of Laws (LL.D), honoris causa, from The College of Law of England and Wales and King’s International Impact Award from King’s College London. The Lawyer Magazine has recognized Mark as one of the UK’s top human rights lawyers. In 2022, he received the Order – Defender of the Ukrainian Bar.