- Member of the Verkhovna Rada (Parliament) of Ukraine since 1990 (re-elected in 1994, 1998, 2002, 2006 and 2007) till 2012). Chairman of the Constitutional Law Sub-Committee of the Legal Affairs Committee and of the Sub-Committee on the implementation of international standards and on parliamentary control for the execution of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights of the Committee on the Judiciary (2008-2012)
- Minister of Justice of Ukraine (from Sept. 1995 to Aug. 1997, and from Oct. 2005 to Aug. 2006)
EDUCATION
- Ph.D. in Public International Law, Taras Shevchenko National University, Kyiv (1980)
- Ph.D. in Constitutional Law, Taras Shevchenko National University, Kyiv (2009)
ACADEMIC POSITIONS
- International Law Lecturer at the Taras Shevchenko National University, Kyiv (1980-1988)
- Constitutional Law Lecturer at the Taras Shevchenko National University; Kyiv (2011-2013)
- Fulbright Senior Scholar at the Law School of Yale University, USA (1 Sept 2002 - 31June 2003)
- Resident Scholar at the Max Planck Institute of Comparative Public and International Law ( 1 July - 31Dec 2001), Heidelberg, Germany
- Resident Scholar at the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law (1 November 2013 – 1 April 2014), Freiburg, Germany
ADDITIONAL PUBLIC POSITIONS
- Member of PACE (1998-2012) and Vice-President of PACE (Oct 2006 – Jan 2008)
- Chairman of PACE committees: Monitoring Committee (Jan 2008 – Jan 2010); Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights (Jan 2005-Jan 2006); Committee on Rules of Procedure and Immunities (Jan 2002-Jan 2005); vice-Chairman of PACE Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights (Jan 2010-Jan 2012)
- Member of the Venice Commission (1995 – 2000 and February 2005 - 2009)
- Vice–President of the Venice Commission (1997-2000)
- Representative of PACE in the Venice Commission (Jan 2010-Jan 2013)
- Substitute-member of the Venice Commission (2 February 2016 – 17 March 2017)
- Member of the Constitutional Commission (2015 – 2016)
- Adviser to the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on constitutional issues (2015 – 2017)
- Head of the Ukraine’s Delegation for legal consultations in the ‘Normandy format’ on implementation of the Minsk agreements (Berlin, August 20, 2015)
- Member of the International Association of Constitutional Law (since 2008)
- Chairman of the National Commission on Strengthening Democracy and the Rule of Law (Advisory body to the President of Ukraine) (2005 – 2007 and 2010 -2015)
- Founder of the Ukrainian Legal Foundation (since 2012)
- President of the Ukrainian Legal Foundation (1992-2012)
- Member of the World Bank External Advisory Board on Governance and Anticorruption in the Europe and Central Asia Region (2000 – 2004)
- Board Member of the Ukrainian Association of International Law (since 1999)
- Member of the Council on National Security and Defence of Ukraine (1996 – 1997; Jan. – Sept. 2006)
- President of the World Congress of Ukrainian Lawyers (1992 – 1994)
- President of the Association of Ukrainian Lawyers (1990 – 1995)
Awarded with pro merito medal of the Venice Commission (2010) and with pro merito medal of PACE (2013).
PRINCIPAL PUBLICATIONS
- Author of the tree-volume book: Rule of Law (Kyiv, 2006. – lxiv; 1747 p.)
- Author of the book: On Human Rights (Kyiv, 2016. – xxiv; 760 p.)
- Author of a number of articles, including:
- The Triad of the European Values - the rule of Law, democracy and human rights – as the foundation of the Ukrainian constitutional order (2011)
- The Rule of Law as it is interpreted by the Venice Commission (2011)
- The Rule of Law: the lost right ways in the Ukrainian doctrine (2010)
- Judgments of the European Court of Human Rights: peculiarities of national execution (with the Melnychenko v. Ukraine judgment taken as an example) (2005)
- Ukraine in transition: from newly emerged democracy towards autocracy? (2000)
- Abolition of the death penalty in Ukraine – difficulties real or imagined? (1999)
- New Possibilities for the Protection of Human Rights in Ukraine (1999)
- Freedom of Conscience in Ukraine and Violation of Human Rights (1992)
- Editor in Chief of :
- The Constitution of Independent Ukraine (three-volume series, 1995-2008)
- Opening of the Legal Year in Ukraine (1995)
- International Symposium on the Constitution of Independent Ukraine (1992)
Translator into Ukrainian of:
- The Venice Commission ‘Report on the Rule of Law’, CDL-AD (2011)003rev (published in Kyiv, 2019)
- The Venice Commission ‘Rule of Law Checklist’, CDL-AD (2016)007 (published in Kyiv, 2016)
Updated: November 2024
