On the occasion of the 46th Sanremo Round Table on current issues of IHL, the General Assembly of the Sanremo Institute met at Villa Ormond to elect the new Council.
The election resulted in the appointement of the following as Council Members: Ambassador Marja LEHTO (Finland), Ambassador, Senior Expert of International Law, Ministry for Foreign Affairs; Professor Gabriella VENTURINI (Italy), Professor Emerita, University of Milan; Brigadier General (retd) Jan Peter SPIJK (The Netherlands), Honorary President, International Society for Military Law and the Law of War; Professor Michael BOTHE (Germany), Professor Emeritus, J.W. Goethe University, Frankfurt/Main; Professor Geoffrey S. CORN (United States), Chair of Criminal Law and Director of the Center for Military Law and Policy, Texas Tech University School of Law; Professor Marco PEDRAZZI (Italy), Full Professor of International Law, University of Milan; Professor Bakhtiyar TUZMUKHAMEDOV (Russia), Vice-President of the Russian Association of International Law; Colonel Carl MARCHAND (Switzerland), Head, IHL and Human Rights Section, Swiss Armed Forces; Brigadier General Darren STEWART OBE (United Kingdom), General Editor, United Kingdom Joint Service Manual of the Law of Armed Conflict; Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre, UK Ministry of Defence; Brigadier General Dr. Karl EDLINGER (Austria), Legal Adviser, Austrian Armed Forces; Vidar BIRKELAND (Norway), Lawyer/Medical Doctor (MD), Special advisor, Statnett SF; Professor Nils MELZER (Switzerland), Director of International Law, Policy & Humanitarian Diplomacy, ICRC, Human Rights Chair, Geneva Academy of IHL and Human Rights. The Municipality of Sanremo and the Italian Red Cross complete the list as ex officio members of the Council.
In accordance with the Statutes of the Institute, the new Council then took place right after the General Assembly, resulting in the unanimous election of the Institute’s new President, Lt. General (retd.) Giorgio Battisti.
Vice-President of the Institute since 2019, General Battisti boasts a 44-years long military career, during which he held several important command positions in Italy and abroad.
In 1993, he took part in the UN Mission in Somalia and in 1997 in Bosnia. Four times in Afghanistan, between 2001 and 2013, where he was the first Commander of the Italian Contingent of the ISAF mission in Kabul and served as Chief of Staff of the ISAF mission and as ITA-SNR (Italian Senior Representative) in Kabul. He then served as Commander of the NATO Rapid Reaction Army Corps in Italy, ending his career in the position of Commander of the Army Training and Doctrine Command (COMFORDOT).
Lt. General Battisti is the author of several essays and regularly contributes to thematic panels in conferences and seminars organised by academic, military and cultural institutions both in Italy and abroad.
