Georges Abi-Saab is Honorary Professor of International Law at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva (having taught there from 1963 to 2000), Honorary Professor at Cairo University's Faculty of Law, and a Member of the Institute of International Law.
Professor Abi-Saab played a central role in the drafting of the Additional Protocol I, crafting the ultimately successful strategy to ensure the protections of international humanitarian law in wars of national liberation, a move that was strongly supported by the Third World, but which many Western nations (most obviously including colonial powers) resisted.
[3][4] He also served as consultant to the Secretary-General of the United Nations on matters including the New International Economic Order.
[5][6] Professor Abi-Saab is a former two-time ad hoc Judge of the International Court of Justice,[7] a former Judge of the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), a former Commissioner of the United Nations Compensation Commission, and former Chairman of the Appellate Body of the World Trade Organization (his term ended in 2008).
He was awarded the 2017 Manley O. Hudson Medal of the American Society of International Law.