Prof. Dr. Tom Ruys
Faculty of Law and Criminology
Department of European, Public and International Law
Expertise: general (public) international law, law of armed conflict
Prof. dr. Tom Ruys is a professor of international law at Ghent University. He studied law and international relations at the universities of Ghent (Master of Laws, 2003; Ba. Political science, 2004), Nottingham (LLM Public international Law, 2004) and Leuven (Master of Conflict and Sustainable peace studies, 2008).He was a visiting researcher at Yale Law School in 2008 and a visiting fellow at the Cambridge Lauterpacht Centre in 2016. He holds a doctoral degree from the university of Leuven (2009) and is a member of the Brussels bar.
Tom Ruys’ research covers a variety of fields within the domain of public international law, including, the law on the use of force, the law of armed conflict, international dispute settlement, State responsibility, immunities and sanctions law.
He teaches the general international law course at Ghent University as well as advanced courses on the peaceful settlement of disputes and the law of armed conflict.
Tom was previously awarded the Francis Lieber Prize (2015 article prize and 2011 book prize) as well as the Francis Deák Prize of the American Society of International Law. He is the author of several publications, including the monograph ‘Armed Attack’ and Article 51 of the UN Charter: evolutions in customary law and practice’ (Cambridge Series in International and Comparative Law, 2010). His writings have appeared inter alia in the American Journal of International Law, the British Yearbook of International Law, the Chinese Journal of International Law, the European Journal of International Law and the International and Comparative Law Quarterly.
Tom Ruys is a co-rapporteur of the International Law Association’s Committee on the Use of Force (Military Assistance on Request) and a member of the International Law Association’s Study Group on Sanctions. He is co-editor-in-chief of the Journal on the Use of Force and International Law (JUFIL, Routledge), vice-director of the Military Law and Law of War Review and a member of the editorial board of the Revue belge de droit international. He is vice-president of the Belgian Society of International Law.
