European Court of Human Rights Elects Robert Spano as its New President

The European Court of Human Rights has elected Robert Spano (Iceland) as its new President for a three-year term.

He will take office on May 18.

Robert Spano succeeds Linos-Alexandre Sicilianos (Greece).

Spano was born in Reykjavík on 27 August 1972. He graduated with a Candidatus Juris degree from the University of Iceland in 1997 and a Magister Juris degree with distinction in European and Comparative Law from the University of Oxford (University College) in 2000.

He worked as a deputy district court judge 1997-1998, legal advisor and then special assistant to the Parliamentary Ombudsman of Iceland from 1998 to 2004. He was appointed Parliamentary Ombudsman in 2009 on a provisional basis and served full-time and ad hoc until 2013.

Spano chaired a committee that was tasked with drafting a legislative bill for a new traffic act in Iceland.

In November 2006, he was appointed a full professor of law. In September 2007 he was elected Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Iceland and was subsequently elected Dean of the Faculty, serving in that role from 2010 to 2013.

His nine-year term as a Judge of the [European Court of Human Rights] began on 1 November 2013.

He has written extensively in the fields of human rights law, constitutional law, the interpretation of statutes and criminal procedure. Upon taking office in Strasbourg, Róbert has written extrajudicially on the evolution of the Convention system, the principle of subsidiarity and the rule of law. Furthermore, he is an acknowledged expert on the interplay between the Internet and human right.